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.

Home made reader

Early readers are fantastic for helping kids learn to read. But once they've read them, they've read them. I thought I could write my own reader for my daughter who is starting to read.

I called the book after her.

She adored it. Not only was it all simple words she could work out by herself (or with a little help), it was about her. What more could you want?

When choosing words I was careful to try and pick words that were simple to phonetically sound out like run and jump, rather than longer words that would leave her stumped and not feeling like she could read.

I used 2 pieces of A4 paper, cut in half, and folded in half (so each page was A6 size).

The text goes:

Miss 3

I am Miss 3.

I can run.

I can jump.

I can hug.

I can dance.

I can sing.

I am Miss 3.

I am great.

It took about 4 minutes to make, and was worth every second from the smile she gave when she'd finished reading it.

Thaumatrope

Making a Thaumatrope is a fun little activity perfect for a rainy day or holiday. All you need is some paper, sticks (I used kitchen skewers) and a bit of imagination. 

The classic picture is a bird and a cage. Draw the bird on one piece of paper, a bird cage on another and stick them together around a stick. When you spin the stick, the two pictures seem to merge together and the bird appears to be in the cage.

I tried a few more, a face and some face paint, and a tree and it's leaves. Miss 3 concentrated on her passions: butterflies and rainbows.

Solar Fairy Night Light

I've been very busy recently with winter colds, children and making up some things for a craft stall for a fundraiser at our school. Mostly wings, but now I'm also working on some solar powered night lights. The one above was my first prototype and still needs some final touches, but perhaps you can get the general idea.

Paperclip Chains

You can't get an activity much simpler than this. Paperclip chains (or necklaces or bracelets or houses) can be a pleasant way for the children to occupy themselves on a rainy day.

Pirate Accessories

Some simple accessories can turn a mundane morning into a pirate adventure. Grab the trusty washing-basket boat, make a treasure map, and off you go!

Cornflour Salt Dough vs Cornflour Soda Dough

I wanted to try making cornstarch dough after seeing the beautiful mushroom and beads by 5 Orange Potatoes. Her recipe calls for equal parts cornstarch, baking powder and water, mixed with half as much salt. That seemed like a lot of baking powder to me, so I searched around and found another cornstarch dough recipe for 2 parts salt to 1 part cornstarch plus water.

I decided to try and make both.

I was feeling a little lazy and so I didn't look up if it should be baking powder or bi-carb soda. In retrospect it was probably bi-carb soda, but seeing as I had more baking powder on hand, I used that. In the same way I assumed cornstarch was equivalent to cornflour. 

Both recipes were dead easy to make. The kids adored that it was fresh, home made and they helped to make it. Even better that they could keep and paint their creations when they dried.

The recipe with the baking powder was an opaque white colour (and a little dry and crumbly, I think I'd try and improve that next time). The cornstarch and salt dough had a beautiful slightly translucent white colour to it. I had a tiny paper cut on my finger, and working with the salt dough was like (to use a phrase) rubbing salt into a wound. Not very pleasant. Miss 3 had no problems with it, but I worried about the fingers of Mr 4 who suffers from eczema quite badly. The recipe with baking powder was not a problem and nice to work with.

In the photo above, the pink mushroom and balls were made using the salt dough, and the dolls house kitchen accessories and smaller mushroom were made with the baking powder recipe.

Magnetic Triangular Dominoes

I'm really happy with this magnetic triangular dominoes set I recently made. My kids have been enjoying using our Tantrix set, although it's a bit on the tricky side for Miss 3, and the pieces have a tendency to move around a bit when a new piece is added. I thought 3 sided dominoes would be perfect for them, especially if they were magnetic and therefore would stay where they were put (and give a satisfying click as they snap to the surface). And I just happened to have some old flat magnets that I was waiting to use to make something cool...

Instructions:

1. Take some old sheet magnets (our local real estate agents' advertising provide us with these free of charge :))

2. Glue a sheet of white paper on, to cover up any graphics on the magnet.

3. Print out some equilateral triangles (I used a free printable, and printed them at 250% size, so each triangle side is roughly an inch long). I used about 80 triangles.

4. Glue the triangles on the magnets.

5. Write all the combinations of 3 numbers on the triangles. E.g. [0,0,0] [0,0,1] [0,0,2] ... [0,1,1] [0,1,2] ... [1,1,1] [1,1,2] ... [5,5,5]

6. After a little experimentation I found I wanted to go back and make a second copy of all the triangles with 3 different numbers, with their numbers written counter-clockwise rather than clockwise. E.g. [1,2,3] compared to [1,3,2]. This makes it much easier to make a complete wheel from the pieces. Mr Crafty later told me he's played with a commercial version of this, and part of the fun and challenge of the game was that they didn't have the two versions of these tiles. That way if you did make a complete wheel it was a real achievement. This makes me wonder a little if the commercial version has been a little clever about which numbers to put where in these tiles. But for us, seeing as Mr 4 and Miss 3 are my target audience, I think it's much nicer to have the extra pieces.

7. Colour the numbers in. E.g. 0 = orange, 1 = red, 2 = yellow. Not really necessary, but lets face it, colouring can be a nice relaxing activity, and I have a soft spot for pretty coloured things.

8. Cut the triangles out.

9. Find a metal baking tray or metal surface to play on. We used our lovely Melissa and Doug magnetic chalk board, but for a great travel version you could also use a metal suitcase.

The kids (and their parents) really enjoy this one. And there even enough pieces to play two separate games at the same time. 

As an afterthought I covered them with small hexagonal pieces of clear contact paper. To protect them against wayward mothers who knock their glasses of water over on top of the pieces.. To do this, find a printout of hexagons e.g. this one, print it out to scale so that the triangle matches with 3 of the 6 corners from the hexagon, and wrap it on. A little fiddly, but it only took me an hour or so while I played a game with Mr 4 at the same time.

Target Practice

Such a simple little game, this peg catapult delighted the kids. I taped a bottle lid to a clothes peg, and then I taped the peg to a plate. We rolled up balls of paper, and made some target plates. All that took less than 5 minutes, and then I could make dinner while the kids played. 

The inspiration came from here.

Sidewalk Chalk

Some more great times with sidewalk chalk. Both my kids have done their first great drawings and writing with the fat chalk sticks. Probably because it requires less fine motor control, and more fresh air. 

Our all-time favourite is a chalk road for bikes, trikes or scooters. I draw out a road, about a foot wide, with some intersections. If I'm feeling enthusiastic I'll add dotted lines down the middle of the road, traffic lights, (personalised) parking bays or a petrol station. If the kids are feeling in a drawing mood they'll add arrows, houses, pedestrian crossing, sweet shops. Once my son even drew a grocery shop, and then when he was writing the sign for it he asked me how to spell "very boring things shop". Sometimes we've drawn letters along the side of the road so they can sing the alphabet song while they're riding.


Sidewalk chalk is also good for life size portraits or hopscotch, or (a favourite of all the neighbourhood kids, but not so much of me) grinding the chalk up to make "fairy-dust". Although the fairy-dust game keeps the kids busy and industrious, and fairy dust is then good for making hand prints and foot prints on the concrete, it's also good for making hundreds of chalky footprints through the house!

I think the best thing about the sidewalk chalk roads and artwork is that they last until the next rain, and then you have a clean canvas to start you new creation.

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.

A Homemade I-Spy Book

I have been eyeing off the beautiful home made i-spy books like this one from Delia creates. I wanted to add some of my own home-made i-spy pages to the restaurant/travel dry-erase books I've been making, but when I'd finished the pages I put them in a $1 photo album and really liked it. Perhaps I'll laminate them and put them in the travel book later.

It was such a simple project. Just get a collection of toys, spread them out on a plain background so that you can see everything, and make a photo. I carefully didn't make them too cluttered and busy, because the kids find that too difficult and loose interest (see my post on i-spy bags). I then chose 5 or 6 objects to photograph, this time making sure that there was enough space around each object that I would be able to crop them into a smaller image. I then put them together with a little rhyme of up to eight other things to find.

Mr 4 likes to read the rhymes, and Miss 3 has the pictures she can match. The kids loved helping me do it. Although of course, true to the nature of children, the help made the project much more challenging. After printing I noticed that one of the search-for pictures showed a pram that Miss 3 had taken out of the dolls house to be play with at a crucial moment. The project took several days to make 10 puzzles (there was something about spreading out a nice collection of toys on the floor that meant they needed to be played with for a couple of hours). The last one we did, Mr 4 gathered all the things, spread them out and helped with the rhyme. He loved seeing his own toys, especially his sticker-reward chart, which was filled with all sorts of different stickers.

Rice Play Tray

This is a great activity for a rainy day, or for when you want to make dinner without a couple of tired kids under your feet. Just get a baking tray, pour on a cup of uncooked rice, and find all your small diggers and tip trucks, tractors and animals. It usually ends up with a bit of a rice on the floor, but that's very easily swept up. And definitely worth it if it keeps the kids happily playing quietly.

Coffee Table Road

This is one we've done quite a lot of over the years, especially when Mr 4 was heavily into cars. Just cover the coffee table with a large sheet of paper, draw a road on there and let the play begin. As the play progresses the kids usually ask for some other things, like a school or park or more traffic lights, but they also really enjoy adding their own drawings to it. We've even sometimes drawn train tracks for the wooden trains, with stations etc. Depending on the age of your child it can also be good to have different coloured car parks for different coloured cars.

Cars, Roads and Construction Site Cake

This was such an easy birthday cake, because I could just make it around the bulgy shape of the cake as it came out of the oven. The tiny teddy cars were made out of little slices of iced cake, with a teddy biscuit pushed in. The wheel were M&M's and the headlights were made from piped icing. The traffic lights were made out of jubes on tooth picks (I cut dinosaur jubes into squares). The grass beside the road had green died coconut sprinkled on for extra effect. There were 6 little party guests, all very happy with their teddy in a car.

Outdoor Footprint Painting

From an early age, my daughter has loved to paint. And outdoors on a big piece of paper is definitely one of her favourites ways to enjoy it (I think because she's allowed to get paint on as much of her as she chooses). Even my son really loves it, despite the fact that he's never enjoyed getting messy. Take a big roll of paper outside, fill a tray with paint, and away you go. I also put out a clean bucket of water for my son so he can be in control of how painty he is. Great for hand prints, foot prints and even nappy prints. Just watch the foot prints, as paint underfoot can get very slippery. At the end it's just a matter of hosing down the ground and children. This is can be as much fun as the painting was!

Simple Plane or Car Games

Here's a list of games I've collected (with our upcoming long-haul flight in mind), which are suitable for preschoolers in a plane or car or even in a tent on a rainy day. They should need nothing more than your body, or pens and paper (and the occasional piece of sticky tape).

Travel Games for Kids:

1. Odds and evens (pick odd or even, then stick out 1 or 2 fingers like scissors paper rock, count your fingers and your friends fingers to see if the total is odd or even).

2. Find 3 things starting with the letter…

3. I spy.

4. Thumb wrestling.

5. Stretch and wriggle. Find all the body parts you can wiggle.

6. Randomly select two body parts and try and touch those two body parts together. (Maybe make a spinning wheel with lots of body part names, or write lots of body parts down and close you eyes and pick, or get two people to choose one part each).

7. Try and guess who I am.

8. Write the alphabet, fill in an animal starting with each letter.

9. Write the alphabet, fill in a food starting with each letter.

10. Write the alphabet and find something you can see starting with each letter.

11. Draw a picture of things you might expect to see at your destination.

12. Draw a picture of a zoo.

13. Draw an outline of one or two people and then fill them in.

14. Draw an outline of a scene and then fill the picture in: a beach, the sea, a campsite, a garden, space etc.

15. Paper bag mystery. Put something in the spew bag and you have to try and guess what it is.

16. Guess the letter. One person closes their eyes, and the other draws a letter on their palm or back or foot. Could also be done with numbers or shapes.

17. Guess how many seats. Count them.

18. Hangman.

19. Naughts and crosses.

20. Close the square.

21. Make finger puppets.

22. Make a finger puppet movie.

23. Make paper clothes for a doll.

24. Make a puzzle (with square pieces).

25. Travel memory. Look at a plate of objects for 1 minute, then take the objects away and try and draw as many of them as you can.

26. Mr squiggle. Draw a few squiggles on a page and the other person has to turn it into a picture.

27. Make a scavenger hunt from a magazine.

28. Find something of every colour of the rainbow.

29. Find something in the shape of a circle, square, triangle, oval, rectangle, trapezoid, arch.

30. Tell a fairy tale from your head: 3 bears, Gingerbread man, 3 billy goats gruff,etc.

31. Tell a book from your head: any bedtime story you've told enough times to roughly remember by heart.

32. Make paper houses.

33. Make a mobile phone or robot out of empty fruit juice or dried fruit boxes. 

Mom's Mini Van and this site have heaps more travel game ideas.


Do you have any other good travel games?