Fun Games to Play on a Bus Trip

20 Questions

• This game requires critical thinking, not just guesswork. A player thinks of a person, place, animal or thing, and other players try to guess what it is, beginning with broad questions like “Is it a person?” and narrowing it down as they play, taking turns to ask their questions.

Guess the Lyrics

• Bring a mixed CD of lyrics that players might know. After you begin to play a song, pause it and ask the players what the next lyrics are. Even if they know the song, remembering the lyrics could be challenging and will keep them guessing

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Spock!

• This game, described on the Mom's Minivan website, puts a twist on the classic “Rock, Paper, Scissors” game by adding two extra options: Lizard and Spock, from Star Trek. “Lizard eats paper or poisons Spock,” says the website, while “Spock vaporizes rock or smashes scissors.” See the website for more detailed instructions.

Telephone

• In this game, the first player whispers a sentence to the person next to him, who passes it along to the person by her. See how much the sentence has changed by the time it reaches the end.

Build a Sentence

• Practice parts of speech by creating sentences using words found on road signs or bumper stickers. Each player looks for a noun, verb, prepositional phrase, adjective and any other parts of speech you tell them to find, then puts them together to create a sentence.

Match the Letters

• In this word game, one player says a word and the next player says a word that starts with the last letter of the first word. Make the game more challenging by saying words must have a certain number of letters, or relate to a certain topic.

Continue the Sentence

• One player says the first word of the sentence in this game, and each player adds a word in turn, trying to make the sentence as long as possible. The sentence will start to sound very silly after a while, but players will practice their grammar in the process.

Animal Game

• Count the animals you see, assigning each type of animal a certain number of points, suggests Games Kids Play. A sheep might be one point while a llama would be five points, for example. Players compete to get the highest number of points.

Stories

• Make up a story about one of the other drivers or passengers you see on the road. Have players take turns making up the story, or compare different stories about the same person. Stories can be silly but should stay clean and respectful.