The License Plate Game

The license plate game; one of the ways parents kept from going insane on cross country trips back in the day.  Today, too.  We only allow electronic babysitting equipment for a little while each day unless it's being used for homework.  The girls each had a bunch of homework they had to do on the trip and used their computers or the tablet for that work, but we allowed them a little play time as well.  But only a little.  I won't even allow them to plug into MP3 players while on the road (I hooked that into the car stereo and we all listened to music on decent speakers, instead of those tiny pathetic speakers called earbuds).  They read books, coloured, drew, wrote and we introduced the girls to some travel games.

One of the games we introduced the girls to on this trip was the license plate game; how many state license plates (and Canadian provinces, while we're at it) can you find while we're driving.  They did remarkably well, finding 38 US states;

        Alabama           Arizona
        Arkansas          California
        Colorado           Connecticut
        Florida              Georgia
        Idaho                Illinois
        Indiana             Iowa
        Kansas             Kentucky
        Louisiana          Maine
        Maryland          Massachusetts
        Michigan          Minnesota
        Missouri           Nebraska
        Nevada            New Hampshire
        New Jersey      New York
        Ohio                 Oklahoma
        Oregon             Pennsylvania
        Rhode Island     Tennessee
        Texas               Utah
        Vermont           Virginia
        West Virginia   Wisconsin

They also saw two Canadian Provinces;

        Quebec               Ontario

We had hoped to see more provinces as we went west, but had no luck there.

Still, on the road for just under 60 hours and they found 38 states.  Pretty good for the first time playing the game, and we only went half way across the country using pretty much the same roads there and back again.  They didn't have quite so much luck with the number game, only getting as high as 64 on the entire trip (although, I don't think we really put nearly much effort into that one as we did the license plate game).

Next time out I think I'll add the alphabet game to the list.  More to do to pass the time and still keep interacting with one another instead of withdrawing into little cocoons of personal entertainment.