5 Math Games to Play on Your Weekend Road Trip

I love trying to incorporate learning into everyday activities, especially travel activities, so I was excited to find these five car games from Whizz Education that will help spark learning, and learning about math in particular, during a lengthy car trip. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Count the Cars: Choose a car color, like red or green, and ask the kids to keep a count of how many cars they see during specific legs of the trip. Or if you stop at a rest area, have them count the number of cars they can spot at that rest stop.

Do Some Gas Math: Ask kids to think about how much money they think it will take to fill up the tank, as well as how many times the tank will need to be filled before you reach your destination. Also, have them keep track of how many miles you were able to go before needing to get more gas.

Magic License Plate Number: Choose a number of the hour, like 21 or 15. Kids will need to add, subtract, multiply or divide numbers they see on license plates to reach the magic license plate number. For example, a 7 and a 3 on a license plate can be multiplied to reach 21.

Size Up Your Ride: Before you head off on your car trip, find out how much your car weighs (you may find this in an owner’s manual). Then have your kids guess the amount to see how close they can come to the actual weight.

Interesting Road Signs: Look for mathematically significant road signs on your car adventure. For example, maybe you can add the distance to the next two towns on a road sign to get to the distance of the third town listed on the sign.

Do you have any math-oriented games that you like to play in the car? Let me know in the comments below and have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Photo Credit: Rene Mensen