Fun bus activities: bus recreations that liven up field trips and school excursions
Introducing “bus rec” activities for children in daycare, kindergarten, and elementary school! As the pleasant season approaches, the much-anticipated field trip day for kids is on its way.
For many children, it may be their first time riding a bus to visit an aquarium or a zoo with friends.
In this article, we’ll introduce “bus recreation” activities—games you can play on the bus to make the trip even more fun.
All of them are simple to prepare and have easy rules, so if you’re wondering how to keep kids engaged on the bus, give these a try.
They’re also great for livening up the bus on school trips!
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Fun Bus Activities. Bus recreations that liven up field trips and school trips (41–50)
Ateji Kanji Quiz
This game is a bit challenging, so it’s best suited for upper elementary grades or junior high students.
If you know lots of kanji, you can come up with all kinds of playful spellings.
For example, you could write 偽物蟹棒 and read it as “kanikama” (imitation crab sticks).
The answers probably won’t come easily, so put your heads together and think as a group.
Coming up with questions is tough too, so it’s a good idea to prepare them in advance! Including trendy words will really liven things up.
One-in-a-hundred survey
Do you know the “1 out of 100 Survey,” a popular segment from the variety show Waratte Iitomo? It’s a game where you ask a question that seems likely to apply to only 1 out of 100 people, and you clear the challenge if exactly one person actually fits.
That said, gathering 100 people can be tough.
In that case, you can still enjoy it by reducing the number to, say, 10 people.
It’s also fine to play with a larger group, like 200 people.
Feel free to adapt it flexibly to suit your situation.
Number-guessing clap
The person asking the questions says a number, and the person answering claps that many times.
For example, if they ask “What’s 1 + 1?” the answer is to clap twice: “clap clap.” Everyone gets excited because you have to answer in rhythm! The questioner also has to keep thinking up new problems one after another.
It’s also great for a teacher to ask the questions and have the children answer in turn!
Photo guessing quiz
How about having everyone bring a childhood photo and enjoying a photo-matching quiz? Some people probably haven’t changed much, while others might look completely different from when they were little.
If childhood photos feel a bit embarrassing, baby photos are fine too.
It makes the game harder, but maybe even more fun.
You could also create multiple-choice options.
If you can match someone from their baby photo, that’s impressive! Try guessing from the eyes or the feel of their smile.
Whose cry is this?
This is a game where the teacher or someone makes an animal or insect sound, and everyone guesses which animal or insect it is.
Besides familiar animals, mixing in ones where you might wonder, “What kind of sound does this animal actually make?” can really liven things up.
Sometimes there are kids who are very good at doing animal sounds, so it might be fun to let them take on the role of making the sounds.
Color-finding game
This activity is a fun game unique to bus recreation! While looking out the window, try to find objects that match the prompt color.
You’ll surely come up with lots of answers.
Even kids who are usually absorbed in video games will have a chance to notice the beauty of the scenery outside.
If you don’t know the name of an object in the answer color, adults should tell them.
It also becomes a chance to learn about various things.
Hand game ‘Ochi ta ochi ta’ (literally: ‘It fell, it fell’)
This is a well-known activity in kindergartens and nursery schools.
It can be enjoyed not only when traveling by bus on field trips, but also indoors and outdoors.
You don’t need any equipment and there’s no set time limit, so it’s perfect for filling small gaps of time.
For young children, it gets lively if you choose simple, easy-to-understand prompts like apples or bananas that match their age.
For elementary school kids and older, it might be fun to try a slightly more challenging variation.