You’ve just finished packing the car for your 8-hour road trip, and you can barely fit the kids in. You are on the road for about 20 minutes and you hear: “ Mom, I’m bored…” Really, you think, they are bored already. Oh, boy, this is going to be a long drive!

In the last blog post, we talked a bit about being engaged with your young reader and thinking outside of the book, as we coined it. A successful road trip calls for both creativity and engaged kiddos. Try a few of these ideas when you are headed out on your family vacation this summer.

For young emergent readers pack things like magnetic letters and a cookie sheet, paper and crayons, one of their favorite board books or a disc player with headphones. Encourage your child to build words on the cookie sheet and have them draw a picture and label it. Have them tell you the storyline of their favorite book or let them listen to a book on CD.

For early to intermediate readers, play the ALPHABET game. Start with the letter A, Find a word outside of the vehicle that starts with that A, then move to B…and so on…until you are at Z.

For young advanced readers have them help read the map. Yes a good old fashioned map and have them help you get to your next destination.

For the whole family, listen to an audio book and discuss what’s happening. Have your child think of an alternate ending. Have them draw illustrations.

Now that you’ll be appropriately packed... ENJOY THE RIDE!