Roadtrip: I’m Bored

Despite years of roadtrips, we still face the omnipresent “I’m bored”. Camille, now 12, has rarely had this issue since learning to read….and since then, she’s added knitting to her repetoire. Thank goodness for lack of carsickness!

Chloe

Chloe has been a bit more of a challenge. While she can read, she’s not quite the reader that Camille is. Once she’s made her way through her stack of homeschooling (or is that carschooling?), she tends to get bored. Because of our radio station/blog Gooney Bird Kids, we have a fantastic collection of music CDs. We spend hours listening to our favorite DJs on Kids Place Live. We listen to books on CD — some from our library, but, more often than not, Harry Potter — we own all seven books on CD.

Once Chloe has gotten bored with all of those options, she moves onto playing on her DS. I don’t love computer games, especially these “personal” games, but since the girls both play them, they actually end up interacting quite a lot. And the DSes are for extended car/plane/train trips only. They are not for everyday use. It seems to be a balance with which we are all content.

Camille

If all else fails, we play the “car games”. We spot license plates from different states (found an iPhone app to record our findings!). We work through the alphabet, spotting signs with words starting with consecutive letters of the alphabet.

As of yet, we’ve not had movies in the car. And, honestly, this makes me happy. While the DSes and books are “individual” activities, I still aim for the “family” part of the family roadtrip. I think DVDs would take us even farther from that “ideal”. No iPods or headphones on, generally.

In the past month, we’ve taken roadtrips to Florida, north Goergia and DC. Today the girls and I head to MS (and then NOLA). Hopefully, the “I’m bored”‘s will stay away.

One thing that I really need to work on is getting Camille to read maps. She’s a whiz with the GPS, but does not have the map reading skills that I would hope she’d have. Time to start coming up with some challenges for her, I think.

Our roadtrip entertainment:

• Books
• CDs
• XM Radio
• Audio Books
• DSes
• Games
• Sleep