Some of the hardest minutes of the day aren’t the busy ones. They’re the waiting ones. The queue that hasn’t moved in a while. The clinic waiting room with the broken fish tank. The back seat in traffic that isn’t going anywhere. Ten minutes before dinner’s ready, when you can’t start anything that needs clearing up, which is its own particular stretch of the day.
And of course this is the moment you’ve got nothing with you. No colouring book, no snack, nothing in the bag but a receipt and half a packet of wipes.
The good news is that the best games for these gaps need nothing at all. Not a bag of tricks, not something you remembered to pack. Just the two of you and a few minutes. Here are four we come back to, youngest first.
Start with the simplest one
One of you says “I spy something blue”, and the other one finds it. That’s the whole game, and it works from about two, because pointing at the right thing counts as a full answer. If your child is older, make it harder by adding a second clue, so it’s something blue and something small. A car window or a waiting room is honestly the perfect setting, because the view keeps changing.
I Spy Colours
One player calls a colour and the other finds something that matches. From age two, pointing at the right thing counts as a full answer.
Shaped to your child and the moment you are both in.
The one that works anywhere
You name two things, and your child decides which is bigger. Or heavier, or faster, or louder. A cat or a dog. A bus or a bicycle. It sounds almost too simple, and then you’re eleven rounds in and someone’s arguing hard about whether a whale is louder than a lorry. This one travels well: car, bus, queue, park bench, all of it.
Bigger Smaller Faster
Name two things and decide which is bigger, heavier, faster, or louder. No materials needed, and rounds can keep going as long as the child wants.
Shaped to your child and the moment you are both in.
For the places you need to be quiet
You clap a short rhythm, your child claps it back, then they make one up for you. Start with two beats and see where it goes. The reason we like it for waiting rooms is that you don’t have to actually clap: tap it out on your knee, or on the arm of the chair, and it works exactly the same without turning every head in the room.
Clap the Pattern
One player claps a short rhythm and the other claps it back, then swaps. Can be tapped quietly on a knee or chair arm for places that need to stay quiet.
Shaped to your child and the moment you are both in.
For the older ones
“I packed my bag, and in it I put a torch.” Then the next person repeats the torch and adds something of their own, and round it goes, with the whole list recited from the start each time. It suits children from around three and up, and for a three-year-old two items is a proper win, so keep the rounds short. Older children like a theme: a dinosaur bag, a beach bag, a kitchen bag.
I Packed My Bag
A memory chain game where each player recites the full list and adds one new item to an imaginary bag. Suits children from around three and up, and works well with a theme.
Shaped to your child and the moment you are both in.
The waiting is the hard part, not you
If you’ve ever stood in a queue quietly dreading the next ten minutes, that’s not a failure of preparation. It’s just a genuinely awkward stretch of the day, and every parent we know has stood in it.
You don’t need to have packed anything. You’ve already got the only two things these games need. We’re all figuring out the waiting bits together, and you’re not doing it on your own.