Alphabet Game

While driving from Virginia to Pennsylvania, Amanda and I had about 5 hours to kill. After talking about some random things, doing a mental check that we didn’t need anything else, and listening to music, she mentioned she didn’t know any car games.

“Well, what did you do when you were younger?”

“We talked. There were 5 of us, so mostly we talked.”

There were five us as well, but we did not talk the whole time. Don’t get me wrong, if you keep silent, even as a child I would keep talking and talking until you begged for mercy, or more often than not, just walked away.

However, in a car, there are no places to walk away too. Plus, every once in a while, a very far while, I have nothing to say.

Seeing as a lot of our car travel happened when we were younger, and it was just at the start of when TVs started to appear in vehicles, we did not have any. This was also around the same time that Game Boys were starting to come out, which means they were super expensive and we, like the TV did not have one of those either.

Some of the younger generation might have started to hyperventilate at that last paragraph. What in the world did we do then?

We had a few options actually. Sometimes my mom would make little kits, with games, coloring books, a photo copied map of where we were going so we could follow along, snacks, and travel games like magnetized chess or Trouble. We also had the option to read or sleep. I often choose sleep.

We also played games. Sometimes we just counted the different state license plates, or travel games like magnetized chess or Trouble, but we also played the Alphabet Game. This was done in teams, pairs, and singular. It is just something we always did on road trips. Amanda had never played this game before. I taught her and so now I shall pass this game on to the rest of the world. A google search might have it as well, but these our “house” rules version of it.

How to play the Alphabet game in the car Rules.

1.       First establish if this a team or singular event.

2.       All words must start with the letter. Example. You can you use Apple for A but not that.

3.       The only exception to this rule is the letter X. You can use signs like exit for the letter x.

4.       You cannot use any signs, license plates, stickers, or any other words that are on a Vehicle or truck.

5.       You cannot use the same word on the same sign as someone else. One of signs say Food and has Dairy Queen listed. Person A called out Queen for the letter Q. Person B cannot use that sign and that Dairy Queen. But, if they pass the actual Dairy Queen sign or another sign that says Dairy Queen, Person B can use it. It can be the same word, it just has to be on different signs.

6.       You can use words on buildings, billboards, and any kind of sign

7.       The use of abbreviations needs to be established before the game. Is KFC acceptable for all the letters? Or DQ? Or does the whole word need to be spelled out. 

8.       You can use multiple words from the same sign. If the sign says Alferd’s Best Cows, you can call out all the words and you’ll have you’re A, B, C taken care of.

9.       Pay attention and think ahead for words that you are looking for. Like Zs come most often around Zoos and Work Zones.

10.   No shouting at signs before words are readable to try and guess that there is a Dairy Queen on them. You have to see the sign first.

This game can be played A-Z or Z-A to mix things up. Enjoy and have fun!

If you know any other games you can play in a car let me know by leaving a comment.