Looking for ways to entertain your kids on a long international flight. Check out this list of toys that you can include in your flight entertainment bag.
Well, when it comes to traveling with a toddler there is no magic to it. Expecting an overactive little kid who is curious to explore just about anything around him/her to sit still and calm on 14 hours long flight., hmm.. best of luck on that! But every kid is different. In my case, I was dealing with a hyper little energetic sixteen-month-old little girl ‘Mishika’ who cannot sit quietly in one spot for long. She always likes to be engaged and exploring something new and definitely likes to move around a lot.
So, earlier in May when we decided to visit our family back home in ‘India’ I knew very well what I was dealing with and had started to prepare for our travel right away. We were looking at an overall 28 hours long flight journey with a break journey in Abu Dhabi for a couple of hours. When it comes to traveling with kids, a lot of work and planning goes behind the scene, like packing diaper bags, food, extra clothes, medicines, etc.., and the list goes on and on.
After being on multiple flight trips with Mishika from the time she was six months old here and now, I definitely have a lot to share. But not to overwhelm you all with a lot of information, starting first in this blog post, I am just going to speak about ‘what I carried in my carry-on bag to keep my little girl entertained on the long international flight’ a.k.a ‘flight entertainment bag for toddlers’.
Below are some of my most favorite toys to include in your flight entertainment bag.
1. Play-doh – A great activity to spark any child’s creativity by introducing them to different shapes and colors and not to forget that it is so easy to handle and is not messy at all – perfect for flight travels. I was carrying two colors of play-doh with me and whenever Mishika was bored of other things around her I would let her try her hands out creating different shapes, snowman, mixing both the colors, letters, etc.
2. Crayons – This could be your safest bet to get your little one’s attention. I carried a pack of crayon set and a small notebook to let Mishika scribble and draw pictures on. This activity was simple but I found it hard to manage with the crayons falling all over the place. The trick is to not give your little one more than two colors at a time to play with.
3. Plane paper scribble book – This came in handy to scribble as well as later on when the crayons stopped playing the trick, the paper book was helpful to make paper planes and boats. Mishika loved exploring all the folds and coloring her planes and boats.
4. Magnetic fish catch toy – I love this toy. Reminded me how much I use to love playing magnetic toys similar to this when I was a kid. This comes with a small stick with a magnet at the end of the stick and there is a fish with a cover and a magnetic ball in it. The fish is in the form of a puzzle and with the stick, you need to hold the ball and make it reach its destination. The best part about this toy is that it has no small / lose parts and just comes as one whole piece – perfect for a toddler who loves to eat everything around 🙂
5. Tape Activity book – A new activity that even I had a chance to explore for the first time and a really fun one. It comes with an activity book with shapes and colorful tape stickers. You need to mimic the example figures and fill the empty ones with tape stickers of the same color. I found this activity to be a highly engaging one for Mishika and it did buy us a lot of time.
6. Reusable sticker pad – This was an interesting activity that comes with a pad with pictures and reusable sticker sheets. All you need to do is pull the stickers out and match the shape. It was a fun way to show Mishika new shapes and introduce her to new letters as well.
7. Stuff toy – How could I forget my little girl’s ‘baby’ 🙂 Be it cow, bunny, dog whatever your little one snuggles with do carry it. We spent a lot of time on our flight journey putting Mishika's baby cow to bed, feeding her, and playing with her.
8. Water vow coloring book – Again easily manageable and a non-brainer activity. This comes with a water pen and a coloring book. All you need to do is rub the water pen which looks like ‘invisible ink’ on the coloring book and you will be surprised that it fills the shape up with different colors.
9. Tuddler set – This toy still has Mishika hooked to date. It comes with a pegboard with holes and a peg set. You can let your little one attach each peg in the hole or stack them up too for fun. This is a great activity and can keep your little one engaged for a really long time.
All these toys came in extremely handy on our long flights to India and did help us keep our little girl entertained and have a peaceful journey. But even after all this, to entertain our little girl we did walk multiple times inside and around all the cabins in the plane ‘I guess everyone in the plane could recognize us’ :), rocked, sang songs, etc. But all in total we had a great flight on both sides.
The best thing you can do for yourself when flying with a kid is to ‘be as well prepared as you can’ 🙂 Sharing a few more flight entertainment toy ideas below.
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