If you’re headed on an “are-we-there-yet?” road trip with
the kids this summer, why not make good, playful use of those seemingly endless
hours in the car?
Bringing along some fun toys for the ride will give your
kids the message that the journey is as much a part of the vacation as being on
the beach or visiting Grandma or hopping on the rides at Great America.In fact, if you’re willing to turn off your
cell phones, it may be one of the few times all year you can count on the
family being together without competition from television, computers, and phone
calls.
Make the connection—family play is great for kids
“Don’t underestimate the importance of these family times
together,” encourages Susan J. Oliver, Executive Director of Playing for Keeps
(www.playingforkeeps.org), a
national not-for-profit dedicated to better outcomes for kids through
increasing their access to healthy play.
“One of the most comprehensive studies of American youth
ever conducted, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, has
established the importance of children’s connectedness with their family as the
most important predictor of whether their adolescence will be relatively
healthy…or marked by negative choices such as violence behaviors, emotional
distress, drug abuse, and early sexual activity,” reports Oliver. “Playing
together while you travel can help create family-focused time and
connectedness.”
First stop:the Internet.
While you’re getting your trip organized, fire up your
printer and make a visit to the Internet.You’ll find dozens of downloadable travel games and activities—most for
the cost of printing them out at home.
Where to start?Run,
don’t walk, to your computer and visit the mother of all travel game
sites—appropriately titled Mom’s Minivan at http://www.momsminivan.com/.Here you’ll find 101wonderful car travel
games and ideas, organized by the age of the child (older kids, toddlers, and
babies).There is a whole section of
printable game boards (bingo cards for up to four players to keep track of
types of automobiles you see on the road, ditto on off-road sightings of signs,
animals, buildings, etc.).Don’t miss
the scavenger hunt lists, lyrics for sing-along songs, and yes…remedies for car
sickness.
Another worthwhile stop on the web is About.com, where
you’ll find simple word games described along with several games you can print out,
like Tic Tac Toe, Connect the Dots, and license plate games.Go to http://travelwithkids.about.com/cs/printgames/a/simplewordgames.htm.One fun thing about this site is the number
of related travel articles for parents—and articles on parenting in
general.Careful—you might find
yourself spending more time than you planned on this site!
You’re not done getting your in-car play organized if you
haven’t visited http://www.kidsdomain.com/.There is lots of fun stuff here that will
work on the road.The downloadable
games you’ll find when you click on “Travel Games” are helpful because they
rate the difficulty of actually making
the game and list the materials you need to get it done so it’s playable.(Idea:involve the kids in making their own travel games.Hmmm.Now there’s a way to get your packing done without interference.)While you’re on this site, click on “Print
and Learn” for more games that can be used in the car.Check out the crossword puzzles on various
topics.The clues are given in pictures
rather than words—great for younger kids who want to practice writing letters
of the alphabet but are still in the emergent literacy stage.By the way, visit this site again when you
get home for lots of fun crafts ideas organized by type of project, season,
type of materials—including recycled materials—and more.
Looking for more?Check out
Earth Explorer Toys
Beyond all the great stuff you can download for free are
good old classic games—and fresh new offerings—that you can buy to throw in
your play bag for hours of fun in the car.Many games come in travel versions that are easy to use en route thanks
to magnets and redesign of game board pieces to stabilize them.
Lots of parents are asking about travel play this
summer.“It looks like there will be a
good amount of family time in cars this summer At Earth Explorer Toys we take pride in getting to know families
and helping parents find the travel games that will fit the ages of their
kids—especially when the children span an age range and parents want something
all siblings can enjoy.The travel
games that have been popular so far this summer are:Hang Man (Melissa &
Doug’s new wooden travel version), Bananagrams, Filo, Sticky Mosaic’s and
Rukus.
Have fun!
Whatever you decide to take along, remember that a
family vacation is a chance to relax, play your hearts out together, laugh, and
simple be a family.And that is not only fun.You are creating memories and you are
creating connectedness.It’s a worthy
investment in your children’s future and a great way to spend a summer.
Busting “Bounty Boredom”:
Choosing
Toys that Keep Kids Interested and Engaged
If your family includes gift giving in your celebration of
the holidays, you are probably familiar with the wildly enthusiastic reaction
kids have when they see piles of brightly wrapped packages waiting to be
opened.Those moments of hyper-charged
anticipation when excited children can barely contain themselves add to the
holiday magic for many families.
Yet many of those same families experience a let-down after
all the gifts are unwrapped and all the must-have toys are assembled and filled
with the required number of size AA batteries.The same child who asked over and over for that heavily advertised
ultra-popular toy plays with it for a while, then quickly loses interest.
Is there any antidote to this pattern?How can we keep children from desperately
wanting particular toys, only to get bored by them within hours or days of
unwrapping them?
“Fortunately, there are ways to avoid what I call ‘bounty
boredom’,” says Terri Bracken owner of Earth Explorer Toys, a toy store that specializes in personalized service and offers a staff highly
knowledgeable about the developmental benefits of play.“The solution starts with changing the focus
when you are selecting toys for a child.It’s not about what
advertising has convinced the child he or she must have.It’s about
thoughtfully selecting a product that fits the child’s developmental level and
true interests.If the toy is a good
fit with strong play value, it won’t end up in the flash-in-the-pan pile at the
bottom of the toy box.”
Playing for Keeps, a national not-for-profit organization
dedicated to promoting healthy play, offers several suggestions for choosing
toys that can hold a child’s attention.
Focus
on the play, not the toy.Rather
than evaluating the features of the toy, think about the features of the play that the toy will
encourage.Said another way, good
play—and the likelihood that a child will maintain interest in a toy—is
about what the child can do with
the toy, not what the toy can
do.
Find
products that let kids make up the story.Look for toys that leave room for the child to use her
imagination.Though it may seem to
adults that electronic gadgetry in a toy or connection with a television
character makes it more fun, often the opposite is true.Toys with minimal “bells and whistles”
engage a child more fully because she gets to make things up—the story,
the play routine, the sounds, the movement and more.What child doesn’t like that?
Give
gifts that foster different types of play.When you are shopping for holiday gifts, think about
assembling a group of toys that offer a “balanced diet of play” that will
encourage a child to use and explore all parts of himself:his developing muscles—both the large
running around ones and climbing ones and
the smaller, more refined hand muscles; his brain; his growing speech and
language skills; and his ability to play well with others, to be
compassionate, and to solve problems.
Consider
limiting television, especially around the holidays.Time for free play is a wonderful and
healthy alternative to television and by avoiding its constant barrage of
advertising, parents can help control the holiday “gimme’s.” Many communities
have an array of fun family-oriented activities around the holidays that
can also divert children from focusing on the toy of the moment—and keep
them more open to more engaging play materials that fit their
developmental levels.
At Earth Explorer Toys we encourage parents to be sensible about how they
manage toys that come into the home.“If kids have too many toys, of course they won’t play with all of
them.For starters, they won’t have
time.So consider giving them fewer
this season…and perhaps diverting some of those dollars to buying toys for
disadvantaged children.”
Another strategy, is to put some of the holiday
bounty away so kids can focus on fewer toys at a time.“Pick out two or three toys to leave out,
and stash the rest in storage,” recommends OWNER.“Based on your child’s interest level, rotate the toys so that
you put one or two away and bring out one or two fresh ones every couple of
weeks.It extends the play value of the
toys…and you can make the holiday joy last for several months.”
