Airplane Activity for Toddlers

On our recent trip down to visit Great-Grandma, I was determined not to let our girl get too far out of hand on the airplane.  Of course there is nothing anyone can do to ensure good behavior, but I was very much wanting to try and hedge our bets.  A friend of mine told me that her mother used to hide toys in balls of yarn, and then she and her sister would have to knit the yarn to get at the toy.  Genius.  Unfortunately Delphinium (her nickname, but it's a long story) is not much on the knitting, being only two years old, so I wanted to come up with a way to use the same idea for her.  Thus we boarded the plane with a "treasure box" tucked into my backpack.

The treasure box was really a child's size shoe box around 4"x6"x3."  Inside the box were several old jewelry boxes of all different sizes (I knew there was a reason to keep them!) and inside each of them was... something special!  I actually went to Target and spent just $10 on small items I knew she would love.  First she opened a box containing a matchbox car.  That bought us at least fifteen minutes as she drove it all around her carseat.  Next came a purple pony with its own rolling suitcase. This was followed by a squish ball and a string of plastic beads (no no she doesn't play with them alone).  Last, but not least was a collection of stickers and a small box of crayons.

I am proud to say that she played and played with her various goodies.  In hindsight, I would not recommend including a ball because they want to, well, throw it.  However, the other items got all sorts of action both on the plane and after we arrived at our destination.  After she exhausted the fun of the toys, she took out the crayons and stickers and began coloring and decorating the various boxes.  We are planning to take a longer trip to the east coast this summer, and I will absolutely be making another treasure box for that trip.