Games that we make up in the car

My husband and my own family home are located within Klang Valley vicinity. So any 'balik kampung' trip from our home is taking only 1 hour maximum (due to traffic jam). Thus any trip longer than 1 hour is quite alien to both my kids. They will bombard us with the magic question "Are we there yet?" for every 15 minutes. 

Therefore to avoid the repetition of the magic question, my husband will always engage the kids to look up for the state border signage. So once we passed the border, my husband will make the announcement. "Okay, we have now reached Negeri Sembilan ". Then my eldest child, a boy, will rattle off all the info about that state's football team. He will list out the players’ name (if he knows) and how the state team have performed so far in the league. This is a passion that he bonded with my husband, even though my husband is more to English Premier League. As for my daughter, she will be 7-years old this year, I am curious on how she will relate the new state with any of her passion. Maybe we have to test her during our road trip next month.

Anyway, both of us (my husband and myself), always encourage our kids to look out the scenery during the journey, to observe the not-so-familiar landmarks and to read almost all the signage. Sometimes when we do came across an extraordinary name of places, we will try to tell the kids the origin of that place's name or else ask the kids to conjure up their imagination on how the place got that name. It is a very interesting activity as it could end up hilarious or unbelievable.

Since children’s can only focus for a short period, sometimes we will put up a quiz session (regarding the road trip as school lessons will bored them) or we will exchange ‘teka-teki’. The kids can also give us puzzle to be solved. Once my son has put up a question “A couple is residing in a bungalow, they are not working there, they work normal job, they do not have a lot of money, and how they can own the bungalow?” After almost 30 minutes try to guess the answer, he gave out the answer as “They buy the bungalow by using credit cards”. Yeah I know it is very illogical but that’s how the then 7-year old perceive the world. That’s the opportunity where we as parents could educate him about financial.

A long road trip can also expands the knowledge of us as a family while making the sweet memories for the kids.