Remember when you were on family vacations as a kid, spending your summer playing that license plate game with your siblings as your family road-tripped to one vacation spot or another?  Aw, come on – you remember, don’t you?   Trying to spot a license plate from each of the 50 states?  I don’t remember ever finding all 50, but when you’re a kid nothing seems impossible!

So what kind of US 50 state games are popular these days?   Most kids on family road trips are engrossed in the latest Nintendo DS game or watching a DVD instead of looking out the windows.   We have a huge puzzle of the United States that takes up most of the kitchen floor when fully assembled, and it’s a great rainy day activity for the kids.  One thing I’d like to try with my kids is collecting a state quarter from each state, and learning a little about each one as we go.

The states are all so different, so there’s plenty to explore.  Even the laws and other state homeschooling information differs across the country!  And how about this – Do you know which 2 states both have the cardinal as their state bird?  (North Carolina and Ohio)  Just look at the trivia you can compile about this stuff!

I decided to ban the electronic gadgets for a while on our latest roadtrip with the kids.  We tried the license plate game, and don’t you know….they enjoyed it!  How much did they actually learn?  Well, does it count as a geography lesson when the kids figure out how rare it is to find a license plate from Alaska or Hawaii when you’re driving around Indiana?