While on a recent road trip, I explored ways to pass the time and make the journey more pleasurable.

Eat Well

Pack a snack that is healthful and wholesome, rather than sugary or greasy.  This will help prevent the need to stop for expensive gas station snacks and avoid low-energy crankiness mid-trip. Take water with you and stay hydrated.  Dehydration can lead to headaches and sluggishness, in addition to tummy troubles and a general feeling of being unwell.

Car Sick?

WebMD¹ says, “the vestibular system – the body’s system to help regulate balance and motion – and the  system send corresponding signals to the .”  Sometimes, these signals conflict, such as when you are sitting in the back seat of a car.  You are looking at a stationary object (the seat in front of you) but your body is feeling all the turns and speed.

Traditional medications are antihistamines, which can make people drowsy. Here are a few alternatives to over-the-counter travel aids to decrease feelings of carsickness:

• Try to look out of the front window, if possible. Keep your eyes moving, not focused on a static point.
• Ginger or peppermint oil can be used aromatically or under the tongue. You can add a drop to water in a glass or metal (not plastic) bottle to drink, or just smell the oil directly from the bottle.  You can also apply topically to pulse points or the back of your neck, but may want to use a carrier oil, such as coconut oil, first.
• Motion sickness wristbands or beads for your pressure points or the ears can be worn.
• Eat something before you go – a small, low-fat meal is recommended as fat, greasy meals may increase feelings of nausea.

The Games that People Play

In addition to the perennial “I spy” (“I spy with my little eye, something that starts with ‘A’”) and license plates games, many fun road games have been invented.  The complexity of the game can be increased based on the problem-solving abilities of the players.

To head-off the dreaded, “Are we there yet?” have kids monitor the trip’s progress in entertaining ways.  For example, the average song is roughly 3.5 minutes.  (You can round to 4, if you prefer.)  So a 60 mile trip, at 60mph, would be around 17 songs.  Each passenger could prepare a playlist of 10-20 songs, for however many hours the trip will take, and then count the songs to see how far you’ve come.

Another math game is to calculate the trip from miles to kilometers. If the average person walks at a pace of 3.5 mph, how long would it take to walk the distance?  How many marathons would you have to run to cover the trip?

For more media-minded individuals, there are always movie or music games.

• Person A names a movie. Person B names a second movie that shares a common actor. Then, Person C (or A, if there’s only two of you) names another movie that shares an actor with Movie 2 and so on.  For added complexity, you could make it that all three movies have the same actor in them.
• Books and Movies: How many movies can you name that were books first?
• Music: Name a title. Next person names another title that starts with the last word (or letter) of the previous title.
• Listen to the radio. Try to guess the artist of the song as soon as it starts.  Change the station periodically to capture different genres, especially for cross-generational groups.

Variations of these games could be used for topics of sports, sciences, and social studies, whatever subject is most appealing to the players.

The key to a pleasurable road trip is to have fun and minimize discomforts along the way.  As long as transitions can be seen as exciting adventures rather than unpleasant or anxiety-producing inconveniences, the memories of the journey can be as gratifying as the memories made at the destination.

Happy traveling!

¹http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/how-to-beat-motion-sickness?page=2

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In this day and age of technology, more and more web-based resources are becoming available at our fingertips. Apple’s iTunes App Store, for example, has hundreds of applications specifically geared towards children’s learning and enrichment. Likewise, more e-learning websites are cropping up all over the Internet, offering a seemingly endless amount of educational lessons and tutorials in the form of short videos. Such educational resources are great for homeschoolers, teachers looking for ways to differentiate in their classrooms, and the life-long learner in all of us. While some parents may frown upon the use of web-based videos as a learning tool for their kids, I believe that these can be great resources for supplementing one’s education when used in moderation.

Some of the benefits of e-learning include:

• The freedom to discover and explore. With all of the information available online, your child has the opportunity to discover new subjects and delve deeper into topics that interest him or her.
• The freedom to learn at his or her own pace. Your child also has the freedom to decide on the pace of learning based on his or her ability in any one subject. In regards to videos specifically, your child has the freedom to control (literally) the speed of the lesson by pausing, rewinding, and fast-forwarding through content if he or she desires to review or skip specific segments of a lesson.
• The freedom to learn practically anywhere at any time. Since these are web-based resources, your child can learn anywhere you have access to the Internet and a computer or mobile device and at times that are most convenient to your family’s schedule.

With all of these benefits of e-learning in mind, I did a little research of my own to pinpoint which websites out there are the most gifted kid-friendly. Each of these websites is devoted to providing accessible, user-friendly educational tools; and best of all, these resources are free to the public! So here are my picks. Enjoy!

3.

NeoK12 is a website that offers educational videos and lessons, including games and quizzes, specifically geared to Kindergarten through 12th grade students. According to its mission, NeoK12 promotes learning through educational videos because they “believe that kids learn best when they ‘see’ how things work, when, where and why they happen.” Through its comprehensive collection of videos, kids can learn about areas of study such as geography, social studies, physical science, English, math, and the human body. The site even hosts segments of the Discovery Channel show How It’s Made.

My picks:

• – Learn about the properties of the four fundamental states of matter: solid, gas, liquid, and plasma!
• – Check out this lesson on how our organs, vessels, and muscles work together in our bodies’ circulatory systems.
• And for fun,

2.

Khan Academy seeks to “help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace” via video tutorials and lessons. It currently hosts a library of over 4,200 videos on topics ranging from chemistry, physics, trigonometry, and even humanities.

Students can create their own profiles to track their activities and earn achievement patches and badges, while parents can track their child’s progress over time. There is also a community aspect to this website, where students can ask questions about a concept they didn’t understand and have them answered by other Khan Academy students.

My picks:

• – Get an introduction to one of the coolest numbers in math! It also informed the .
• – Learn about the nuts and bolts of our DNA in this video about cells, chromosomes, and genes.

To learn more about the origins of Khan Academy, view creator, Salman Khan’s TEDTalk, .

1.

An offshoot of TEDTalks, TED-Ed delivers “Lessons worth sharing” through brief videos on topics ranging from the arts and literature to mathematics and psychology. Each lesson also includes multiple choice and open-ended questions for your child to engage with the content, as well as a “Dig Deeper” section, which provides additional information and resources for your child to further explore the topic.

My picks:

• – Learn about how the invention of the train shaped the invention of standardized time zones.
• – Check out this fascinating video on bacteria and its chemical language!

(Please note that ������Ƶ is not in any way affiliated with Apple, Inc., NeoK12, Khan Academy, or TED. We just wanted to share some of the great resources we’ve found with you!)

What’s your child’s favorite online resource? Please share in the comment section below.

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