We travel quite a bit and doing so with younger kids can be a bit challenging. Silas is a bit too young to be entertained by much. Ellie likes to use the iPad but on longer trips this can get old really fast!
I found a great website with ideas and patterns for busy bags. I made several of them for Ellie for our trip to Cancun and she just loved them!
I made everything myself with just a few craft items.
"The hamburger game" - (1) cards with various hamburger orders (2) the different hamburger parts are made from felt
Cooking - Everything is made out of felt and Ellie could pretend to cook various
items on the stove top
Lacing - These were made with foam and a string and Ellie really liked working on lacing them and pretending she is sewing!
Pizza game - Same concept as the hamburger game except this requires Ellie to count out the different items that go on each pizza. Educational AND fun!
Mr. and Mrs. Potato head -- Once again, everything is made out of felt
Caterpillar - Made the caterpillar on the computer using various sizes of circles. Ellie has to match small and big pom poms to the small and big circles on the sheet
Spelling Cards - (1) made the cards and printed them out (2) Bought a bag of letters at the dollar store
So, Ellie has to match the letters from the bag to the letters on the card.
So, Ellie has to match the letters from the bag to the letters on the card.
Spelling beads - (1) made the cards with easy words along with a picture (2) bought this bag of beads with the alphabet on them from craft store.
Ellie has to lace the letters to spell the various words
Ellie has to lace the letters to spell the various words
Sorting - found a bunch of random items that were various colors. Ellie can sort them by color or size
Cookie game - Printed the "cookie sheets. Each cookie sheet has cookies with multi-colored "chocolate chips". Ellie has to match the colored poms to the chips.
The Ice cream game - (1) made a stack of cards #'d 1-10 (2) made various different colors of "ice cream" scoops from felt. Ellie has to draw a card and then place that # of scoops on the ice cream cone.
Sock game - Made this completely out of felt. Ellie has to match the socks and she also really liked pretending to do laundry. I wanted to make other clothing items but ran out of time.
Fishing - (1) Made the fish from 2 pieces of felt and sewed a magnet in between them. (2) used a popsicle stick with a string/magnet to use as the fishing pole. Ellie enjoyed trying to catch the fish, but it was a bit hard so maybe the felt was to thick!
So, that these are the kinds of things we pack along with us to keep the little ones busy. I cannot wait until Ellie and Silas can play them together - it will be so much more fun for them.
