Compete to see who can find license plates from the most states or work together to find plates from all 50 states. Play an alphabet game and look for each letter at the beginning of a word on billboards and road signs. Have each member of your family create a bingo board with objects they expect to see on the drive, such as a field with cows, a fast food restaurant, a car with a luggage rack or a person hitchhiking and see who finds all of their items first.
Provide your children with a blank notebook so they can document your travel adventures. Let them record their thoughts at anytime throughout the trip or spend time in the mobile home each night recording the day's events. For an added challenge, label each page of the book with a letter of the alphabet and have your child take a picture of an item for each letter, such as everyone sleeping quietly for the letter Q, or a picture of you pumping gas for G, and have her write a brief narrative to go with the photographs.
Introduce your child to basic mapreading skills and let him track how far you have traveled by giving him his own map for the trip. Let older children highlight the route as you go, noting which roads you take or outline the route before you leave for a younger child. As you travel, have your child note where you stop by drawing a symbol on the map or placing a sticker in each location.
Before the trip, wrap up several small toys, one for each day of the trip. Once on the road, let your child open a new item at a designated time each day. Visit the library before you leave and check out a selection of books on tape or, for children who do not get car sick, several books to read during the drive. Spend time practicing storytelling skills by having each family member share their own story or working together to build a story with each person adding on their own sentence.
