Kids Travel: A Backseat Survival Guide
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The Klutz Kids Travel Backseat Survival Guide harkens back to the heyday of driving cross-country in Mom and Pop's station wagon with the woodpaneling and tinny speakers. Maybe you would play the license plate game, twenty questions or some version of the Alphabet game where you name things in alphabetical order that you see speeding by and then have a round of singing 99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall.
This is a memory that my husband and I miss at times while we are cruising along in the cushioned minivan, while the kids watch a Disney movie on the DVD player. We chose a portable, rather than installed, DVD player, so we could limit the movie watching and encourage the type of interaction that comes from playing with each other in the backseat. This Klutz set gets us started playing those same games that we remember.
The Klutz book is spiral-bound, colorful and ends with a reasonably heavy-duty clipboard. The book details all sorts of games — Classic (Hangman, White Stretch Limo), Car Games/Rituals (Cow alert, Punchbuggy) or interactive games that require writing or dice. There are also IQ tests for the driver, mini mysteries to figure out and word games. Kids who are more into crafts can weave a friendship bracelet or play string games.
There are two more parts to the set: A plastic zipper envelope with different things that you need to complete some of the activities, such as pens, dice, a loop of string for cat's cradle and more. There is also a 100-page Kids Pad with lots of neat activities, from dot-drawing, fill-in-the-blank stories, rebus pictures, Bingo and more.
Tips
Klutz says this is for ages 6 and up, but 6 seems too young to me. If the idea is to occupy your children while you drive or assist the driver, then I would say this is good for children with strong reading skills.
