FAMILY VACATIONS Games help to keep kids occupied

With a few props and a lot of imagination, car trips with the kids don't have to be torture.
By MAJA BECKSTROM
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Parents with DVD players are all set for those long road trips with children. But what if you don't have one? Or the movie ends and you've still got 500 miles to go? Here are summer travel tips from parents and grandparents in the pre-digital era on how to keep your kids amused and your sanity intact when they ask, "Are we there yet?"
Long before movies, there were books. You can check out books on tape from your library. Don't forget extra batteries and headphones. Or, you could make your own, like Carol Lemke, a longtime teacher from West St. Paul who read picture books into a tape recorder before a trip. Her children would read along to the tape in the car. A xylophone marked the page turns.
Another idea
Lori Macdonald of Vadnais Heights, Minn., filled two spiral notebooks with magazine images of things they were likely to see on their drive to Mount Rushmore: animals, road signs, trains, barns and construction equipment. When they saw the real deal out the window, her two boys, ages 3 and 5, would check it off. A few blank pages at the end and some crayons let them draw other things they saw, including a blimp.
"They had a blast," Macdonald reports. "It was fun, easy and inexpensive."
For older kids, try travel bingo. Either make or buy bingo cards picturing what you'll see along the way and slap a sticker on the square when you see it.
Many parents, including Jill Denker of Vadnais Heights, swear by surprise treats. Denker pulls out a goodie-bag of toys, books, puzzles and snacks during the final two hours of the trip. Alternatively, wrap items individually and dole them out every 100 miles. They need not be elaborate. The key is novelty. A roll of tape can keep a pre-schooler occupied for miles. Other winners are a mini-Etch A Sketch, Matchbox cars, little books of crossword puzzles and other brainteasers, pads of paper, colored pencils and comic books.
Food
Then there is food. In her book "Trouble Free Travel With Children," author Vicki Lansky suggests tying a bagel by a string to a toddler's car seat. Donna Allgood of Roseville, Minn., entertained her two children by filling each compartment of a plastic 31-day pill dispenser with snacks: dried fruit, popcorn, pretzels, M & amp;Ms, Cheerios, raisins, small licorice pieces, etc. Make it a game and let them open a compartment as a prize every time they see something, like a water tower or cemetery.
Eat meals in the car to pass the time, and pack a ball or Frisbee for the rest stops. For drinks, use cups with lids so you don't have to worry about spills, or freeze juice boxes and use them to chill the cooler.
Of course, trips lend themselves to all sorts of geography games. Give each child a United States map. (Houghton Mifflin Education Place has maps you can print at www.eduplace.com/ss/maps). Color the state with crayons when you see its license plate. Make a goal of coloring the whole map by the end of the trip or the end of summer.
Another family makes trip albums on the go. Paste a photocopy of a map in an empty scrapbook and trace your journey in marker. Add postcards, cut-up brochures and snapshots of the sights. Take turns writing descriptions of what you see.
It you didn't plan ahead, it's worth having a few old-fashioned word games up your sleeve that require neither props nor forethought. Rosie Barber of Hudson, Wis., played an alphabet guessing game with her children and grandchildren. Someone starts by thinking of an item you can buy at a store and giving a hint by saying, "My father works at a grocery store, and he sells something that begins with the letter "A." Take turns guessing items that begin with that letter until someone guesses correctly. For older children, try Geography. Someone starts by naming a place, such as Afghanistan, and the next person has to think of a place that starts with that word's last letter, such as Nigeria.
Forgot the rules to your favorite childhood car games? No problem. Live and Learn, which sells educational toys on the Internet, has a page of rules for such games as Twenty Questions, the Alphabet Memory Game and Cemetery at www.liveandlearn.com/cargame.html.
Finally, there is bribery. On a particularly whiny leg of the journey through Florida, Lemke once offered each child a nickel for each 15 minutes of silence. Barber does the same in reverse. She gives each child a roll of coins at the start of the trip. Each time they ask, "Are we there yet?" they have to turn one in.
"It's surprising how they think before asking," Barber reports. "They really hate to give up any coins."