Bow Wow asks: This saturday me and my friends are going on a trip,in a bus…how can we have fun inside the bus?
Hi Bow Wow –
Well the easy answer is that the most fun thing you can do on a bus is
to bring a dog along! Or better yet, lots and lots of dogs! Just
imagine how fun a long bus trip could be if you had, I don’t know, 67
puppies running around! It’d be great! They’d be playing, licking
everyone, nipping at your ankles, tug-of-war-ing, all great for the
first ten minutes or so. Then they’d start… uh oh… throwing
up… and peeing… and…
Okay maybe that wasn’t the best idea. Plus the bus company probably
wouldn’t allow it anyway.
So what are a few things humans can do on a bus trip? Hmm… I guess
biting other people’s ankles isn’t a great idea, is it? Too bad, it’s
lots of fun…
1) Singing! Is it just you and your friends on the bus, or are there
a bunch of other people? If it’s just you, I’ll bet you have about a
hundred songs at least that you all know. Find out how many!
2) Games: You’ll probably spend most of the ride sitting next to a
person, but if the trip is long, hopefully you can switch seat
partners a few times. Do you know any card games you could play? If
so, you could play one partner, then another, and then another. By
the end, you might find a champion player in the whole group! If you
don’t know cards, there are lots of other great games to play. Lots
of stores (larger drug stores, toy stores, and so on) sell special
games for traveling. They’ll have something like a checkerboard
that’s magnetic so the pieces stay where they should, or a chessboard
with holes for the chessmen. Anything like that is great.
3) Telephone: This is a really fun game, and it teaches everyone
something really important about human nature and communication! One
person writes down a fairly long sentence. Let’s say it’s “I love
Shirelle because she has the coolest website and she’s the prettiest
dog.” (I love that sentence!) Then that person whispers that
sentence, exactly word-for-word, into the ear of the person next to
them, but hides the paper in their own pocket, so no one can see what
the sentence said. The person who heard the sentence whispers it to
another person. They whisper it to another, till eventually EVERYONE
has heard the sentence. Finally, the last person (the only one who
hasn’t whispered it to anyone) says the sentence out loud. If you
have more than ten people, you won’t BELIEVE how different it is from
what is on the paper!
4) Counting: How many billboards do you drive by? How many hamburger
joints? How many bicycles? How many red cars? Any contest like this
is lots of fun, and helps you notice more and more about the world
around you. (But one note, some people like to play a game called
Slug-Bug, where they hit the person next to them every time they see a
Volkswagen Bug. This isn’t a good idea on bus trips – parents,
teachers, and bus drivers tend to get mad when kids hit each other.).
5) And here’s my favorite: Waving! Wave at the people you pass by.
Yell out “HI!!” as if you’ve known them all your life. Laugh, look
surprised. You’ll be amazed at the reactions you get. Some people
will stare at you as if you’re crazy, and others will get what you’re
doing and wave back, and… oh you’ll get all sorts of things! Of
course, if anyone actually starts acting creepy (following the bus or
anything), be sure to tell your driver. But most likely, you’ll just
have some silly fun.
Have a great trip! And be sure not to eat too much junk food before
the bus starts shaking! Or you’ll end up just like those puppies!!!
Your Friend,
Shirelle
