10 Best free busy bags for long haul flights

We've done multiple long haul flights (24+ hours) with our kids at various ages between 11mths and 9 years. Here are 10 of our favourite busy bags for the 1-3 years ages group, made using things from around the house:

1. Beach balls. Hands down BEST toys we've ever taken on a plane. We took two and and used them A LOT at the stop overs in Hong Kong airport. We had so many random kids join in or look longing at our family playing with them. Great for all ages 2 to 42!

2. Things in a bottle. First version was paper beads made from junk mail in a bottle. This was definitely the  favourite for our 13 month old. Second version was pipe cleaners in a spice bottle, which was more interesting for my 3 year old.

3. Letter writing. This is my 3 year old's favourite busy bag, plane or no plane. We made a bunch of tiny envelopes and packed them in a zip lock bag with some pens, stickers, little notebook and stamps. Hours of fun writing "letters" to all his favourite people. (note: Christmas cards can be a good source of little envelopes)

Free printable tiny envelope - just for you!

4.  Small bag of figurines. We used old trashies that the kids had mostly grown out of. They acted out all sorts of adventures in the plane seat.

5. Fishing game. Made with soy sauce fish with an old screw glued in the neck and a magnet.

6. Buttons and a toy ute (pick up truck) and digger. A little bag with a collection of old buttons, and matchbox size cars was a big hit. We include a pair of eyebrow tweezers for non-airport travel, making it great for fine motor control play!

7. Small box with loom bands and hook and different coloured box sections. Sort the loom bands by colour. Even better if you can find someone to take turns with!

8. Threading. Pipe cleaners and melty beads in different colours. Match the beads to the pip cleaners.

9. Books. Any little book that your child might like. We particularly like tiny Pixi books and Thomas and Friends.

10. Apps! Our favourites include Mini Sago, Dr Panda and Lego Duplo apps.

Dinosaur carry bag with play mat

Here's the dinosaur carry bag with play mat I made. I think the pictures mostly speak for themselves.

Travel With Kids

So we finally went on our much anticipated long haul flights with Mr 5 and Miss 3. The kids used their travel trays once in an airplane (at my request) and once in the airport to keep beads contained, but really they would have been happy without them. Travel with a 5 and 3 year old is definitely different to a few years younger.

But on the upside... The trays fitted well, and worked well. If the kids hadn't had so much great video-on-demand they probably would have got a better work out.

We ended up buying a couple of tablets, and really between them, the in flight entertainment and the free flight activity book handouts, we could have flown with one other activity book per child, and had enough to do. Still the kids enjoyed the goody bags full of sticker books small beads and chenille sticks. 

So my top tips for flying with a 3 and 5 y/o:

1. Expect no sleep. Any sleep you do get is a fantastic bonus.

2. Take a couple of slices of plain bread (or something similar that your child likes) in case the meals are just not enticing enough.

3. Take a small bag of gummy bears for the whole family to use in moments of impending meltdowns (they take a little longer to chew, but are still small).

4. Take spare clothes for kids and parents for any orange juice accidents or similar.

5. Take a tablet loaded with as many apps as you can find.

6. Bring a book for yourself. You can be sure if there is one in-flight TV screen not working, you'll be persuaded to swap so that you're the one without a screen.

7. Bring headphones for the kids that fit them and stay on. We used ones we had originally bought for their leapsters.

8. Empty the kids' water bottles out before you reach the x-ray point so you're not encouraged to skull the whole bottle.

Top android apps for 3 y/o girl:

1. Anything from Dr Panda

2. Fairy dress ups

3. Angry birds

4. Cut the rope

5. Cooking games

Top Apps for 5 y/o boy:

1. Cannon bash

2. Cut the rope

3. Bad Piggies

4. Flow free

5. Unblock car

Top Apps to play together:

6. Tap play

7. Doors

Airplane Activity Tray, Take 2

So I thought I'd have a second go at the airplane activity tray to go on the tray table of the plane. This should help the kids keep occupied on our upcoming long haul flights, and help to stop toys, pens, pages, forks etc. making a dash for the floor.

I had been eying off the vinyl table cloth in the shop with roads on it, but it was so expensive, and I already had perfectly good plastic at home... so I decided to turn the trays over and draw my own road. My own? Well, a bit of a co-operative effort with the kids.

Here's how I did it:

A piece of vinyl (I used an old kids splash mat) 32cm x 50cm.

4 pieces of something more firm (I used some laminated paper). 2 need to be 3cm x 24.8cm, and the second 2 are 3cm x 21cm.

Some elastic and some velcro.

Measure 2 cm from the corners, draw a triangle and cut it off. This makes the corner less bulky when folded.

Turn the plastic over, measure half way along the long edge. Place the two shorter strips of laminated paper 1cm from the edge and close to the centre line (but not overlapping so you can fold the tray in half to store/carry). Use sticky tape to hold it in place.

Sew it down, folding over the plastic as you go.

Position the longer laminated paper strips on the short side of the plastic. They should be about 1cm from the edge, but take care that they are corner to corner with the strips you've already sewed on, without overlapping. See the fine read lines in the picture above for my attempt to show this. If they overlap, you won't be able to neatly fold up the sides of the tray.

To make the front edge of the tray, take a small left over strip of plastic (about 3cm x 21cm) and roll it into a small roll (or something else soft, on my first version I used wadding, but it was a bit messy). Tape it in place on the front edge, again leaving a gap at the centre line for folding. Fold over the front edge about 1.5cm and sew it down.

Cut small strip of elastic about 5cm long. Sew one end on the inside of the tray, close to the end of laminated paper strip. I did it on the side wall, but it would also work on the back wall. Sew the other end to the back of the tray at the other edge of the laminated paper strip.

When you assemble the tray, pinch the corner into a triangle and tuck it under the elastic. 

On the front side of the tray, fold over the corner and sew down (it would have been slightly better to sew right down to the corner like I did first time). Sew a 3cm strip of elastic across the end of the laminated paper strip.

When you fold this corner it, it makes a little triangle that can be slipped under the elastic.

To attach the tray to the plane tray table, I sewed on 4 strips of elastic to the back side. I sewed them slightly inside the laminated paper strips. This makes them on slightly inside the edge of the bottom area of the tray when assembled. (This means if the plane tray table is slightly smaller than expected the activity tray should still sit nicely.) Sew the elastic strips so they are pointing outwards. Sew a rectangle of velcro (hook and loop) to the other end of each piece of elastic.

I decided this would be best because:

1. it seemed simple to do, 

2. it gave me two ends so I could adjust the length of the straps a bit to cater for different sized tables, 

3. I can open them up and twist them around the back arms to the tray table if needed and 

4. I can open them up and push them to the side if I want to use the activity tray on a train or table.

Finished the sewing, now to decorate.

First I roughed out the outline using lead pencil. I only had a black and a red permanent marker in house, so I used them (Mr 5 insisted the roads should be red on his). I then used an eraser to remove any unwanted pencil lines.

We then found (after trying all the felt tipped pens and finding they all rubbed off) that pencil coloured in beautifully, and wouldn't wipe off with a wet cloth (although can mostly be rubbed off with an eraser), and so the kids could add some extra colour to the pictures.

Solar Powered Night Light Dioramas

These are a couple of the solar powered night lights I've made for a stall I'm hosting with a friend at a local school fundraising market.

Edited to add a few more:

Plane Trip Bingo 3, 4 and 5

Here are a few slightly trickier plane trip bingo sheets I've made and thought I'd share. They're free to download, although I do appreciate comments :). 

Here's a plane scavenger hunt of moderate difficulty I've made. Download it from here.

And a second hunt of moderate difficulty. Download the free printable from here.

Here's another slightly more difficult one. Download a free printable from here.


Or go to the other Plane Trip Bingo games. 

Plane Trip Bingo 2

Here's another Plane Trip Bingo that's perfect for those weary times after a meal, but before your tray is cleared. Download the pdf Here.

Or go to the other Plane Trip Bingo games.

Plane Trip Bingo

I noticed that there are plenty of scavenger hunts out there for road trips, but not so much for in a plane. So here's a scavenger hunt I made for in a plane and thought I'd share. It should be relatively easy. Download the Plane Trip Bingo here (for free, although I always appreciate a comment!)

Or see one of my other plane scavenger hunts:
Meal Time Plane Bingo
3 Somewhat Tricky Plane Bingos

Travel Cars Mat

These travel cars mats are something I made for a long haul flight a few years back. They were great on the plane; the little cars tucked securely inside when they were folded up, and they fitted easily on a little table or into a handbag. They were also great for other waiting times; at the doctors, at friends' houses etc. 

To make them I used some old curtains that had the white lining on the back. I hemmed them with bias binding, although the material doesn't fray, so hemming was just for looks. The bridges I made using fabric scraps sewed over some thin plastic (cut from whatever packaging rubbish we had in house). They're not super sturdy, but they do the job of getting the imaginations rumbling. 

I have a snap machine to put snaps on (which I bought way back when I was first pregnant and thought I'd be using in all my endless "free time" as a new mum making cloth nappies. Ha ha!). So I used snaps for the bridges, where I'm sure velcro would probably do the job. I put a couple of different configurations in, so that the bridges can be moved around.

The road I drew on with a permanent marker, and coloured in using water colour paints. I have seen some mums making beautifully sewn on roads. I like the quick and dirty option when available.

I finished with a loop of elastic sewn on at one edge, ready to keep it all together while it's travelling.

Travel Activity Book

I really wanted to make some wipe-erase activity sheets. I first bought wipe erase pens, but although they wrote well on clear folder pockets and smooth clear plastic, I found they wiped off very easily. This made the drawings (and little hands) very messy. Not to mention that the ink didn't wash out of clothes. Meanwhile they wouldn't wipe off laminated pages at all.

It wasn't until I heard about dry-erase crayons from Crayola and found a $5 packet of them at Target, that this idea really started to take shape.

The dry-erase crayons don't work easily on clear folder pockets (too much drag), but they do work well on laminated paper. Even better, they rub off quite easily with the cloth that comes with them, but don't rub off on your hand.

So then, time to make an activity travel book. I wanted something that would be suitable for planes, restaurants, the back of the car, rainy days, etc. so I made the pages A5 size.

I first started with some scenes that could be filled in with crayons or stickers. Miss 3 loves finishing a scene, wiping it off and then drawing it again. Especially if she has some company to do it with. Her favourite is the scene with the people, but I also included a space scene, underwater scene and a road. I used ripped paper, stickers and crayons to make them.

I then printed out some spot the difference puzzles (Mr 4's favourite puzzle at the moment), and I drew in some activities like a maze, thumbprints to make thumbprint doodles, and make-your-own sums in the left-over spaces. The crayons unfortunately don't show up fantastically on the red paper. The kids love mazes which are like streets with a different picture at each dead-end. And the maze lasts longer because they like visiting each object in turn. They are a little too easy for Mr 4, but that just means he tells me how they are too easy while he's busy doing them.

Next I put in the classic travel games: battle ships and close the square.

I also put in a blank page with a few other suggestions of games like tic-tac-toe or hangman that could be played there. I wrote the alphabet along one side to make hangman easier.

Finally I put in a home made plane scavenger hunt.

Edited to add: I have now made a plane trip scavenger hunt you can download for free from here.

I bound the book together using ring loops. This way I can change the pages to add things like my homemade i-spy pages (if I decide to add them in), new puzzles, new mazes or a page to collect stickers on. I can also take out the plane i-spy, and put in a car bingo etc.