“Once upon a time there was a tiny frog.”
“ Buffalo!” “California!” “Denton!”
“I spy with my little eye…”
Can you imagine it now? You’re on a ten-hour road trip with two children and your spouse and tensions are rising. This is supposed to be a family bonding experience! What can you do? Time for
Summer is close and that means the kids are home from school. It’s time to binge all the family time that you couldn’t do when having the monotonous day-to-day and you can finally relax by the beach or in the mountains—after you spend all that time in the car. Make the car trip a part of the adventure!
Our slogan wouldn’t be “for all the ways you use signs” if we didn’t show you some other ways to use them, so here are a few family-friendly road trip games to add to your list the next time you find yourself fighting over the aux cord:
The Alphabet Game - Version 1: This is one best for all ages, even the wee ones. They can work on recognizing letters but it’s not as difficult as version 2. All you have to do is find the next letter in the alphabet in a sign. It sounds easy, but it can start to get tough near the end of the alphabet!
The Alphabet Game - Version 2: For a little more of a challenge and to keep the game going a little longer, try this version! For this one, you find a word that starts with the next letter in the alphabet—if you thought the other got tough, this one’s difficulty is sure to leave you and the family stumped for a few minutes here and there.
Create a Story: Each person takes turns adding to a story in single sentences. Each sentence needs a beginning, middle, and an end (for the English nerds, that means in traditional “subject + verb + object” structure). How do we make this challenging and also incorporate signage? Your sentence has to include a word from one of the signs you see while forming your sentence. That means if you’re talking about a cute frog by the river and you pass the sign for Little Rock, then it’s likely that, “The cute little frog stopped when he found a Little Rock!” See how far you can go and when you finish your story, it’ll be made up of the things you passed along the way!
Categories: This one is similar to the alphabet game in that you have to find something specific and keep it going! Let’s keep it simple and say for the first round your category is “words starting with E” or “words with only one syllable”— keep going and racking up points until you hit whatever point amount you decide is enough to determine a win! Or maybe it’s however many points everyone can get before the next gas station stop!
Scavenger Hunt! - Highway & Road Sign Edition: That’s right, the final one is a scavenger hunt, complete with free printable and ability to rack up points with multiple finds! Go ahead and print out our free Road Sign Scavenger Hunt and start a game on your next trip! The only con is that the driver might have to listen to their own favorite podcast versus taking part in the game, but is that really a con?
Here's the PDF to print the Scavenger Hunt shown below in color:
Here it is if you prefer it in only black and white and fewer graphics, to save ink:
