Road trip flash cards

Create a simple on-the-go game

By Leslee Mason

While it may be tempting to let kids idle away their car time watching movies on a laptop or portable DVD player, there are better ways to spend those long hours. Use technology to make your own “family bonding” travel game.

Sick of hearing “Are we there yet?” Keep your family entertained with a custom flash card game.

Family-friendly fun in the car

When their daughter, Meghan, was younger, the Gambles struggled to keep her occupied during long road trips. “She did a lot of colouring,” says her mother, Jan.

Typical road trip games, such as I Spy and 20 Questions, were also played to pass the time. But a favourite, says Jan, was Spot the Cars and Signs, a game played with a deck of cards. “It made Meghan look outside, which is the whole point of a road trip,” Jan says.

Download our flash cards template and customize the game to suit your family.

Scene-spotter flash cards

Use the Gambles as inspiration for this computer-crafted card game. You can feature pictures of things you’d typically see on the highway: cars, trucks, signs and scenes. Each participating family member gets about five cards.

Tailor the game to fit your family. Stick to easy-to-identify items for younger kids. For older kids, up the ante with more obscure items such as out-of-province license plates, vintage cars or deer-crossing signs. Tailor the cards to fit the trip: rural or urban, winter or summer, etc.

Find cool clip art images for your flash cards at Microsoft Office Online.

Materials you’ll need

paper
clip art
printer
scissors
clear adhesive shelf-liner paper (optional)

As soon as you hit the road, you can start playing. It’s a great way to pass the time.

Steps to make your cards

Download our flash-card template and open it in Word.
To add images to the cards, you can use your own photos, find images online or visit Microsoft Office online for clip art.
As you want each family member to have his or her own deck of cards, you’ll need to copy and paste each image onto four cards (if four people will be playing). Choose another image for the next four cards, and copy and paste onto each. Repeat these steps until you have different images copied and pasted onto your cards.
Print the filled-in flash-card template on 8.5” x 11” cardstock. Printing on cardstock will make the cards sturdier.
Cut out each card.
To make cards more travel-friendly, have them professionally laminated. Or do it yourself, by carefully arranging and then sandwiching the cards between two sheets of clear adhesive shelf-liner paper. Cut out the cards, leaving a small amount of adhesive paper around them.

Now get playing. Give a stack of cards to each person, and whoever spots everything in the deck first wins.