Flying with a Toddler

 

Flying with a toddler (or a child of any age) can be intimidating. I have to say that I was a little intimidated myself this time, even though I have flown with M several times. She is very active right now, and we were flying alone without my husband. I wanted to be prepared, so I put a lot of thought into what I would pack to take to the airport.

What's in Our Bags

Car Seat
M is 3 now, so she needed her own seat. We had to take her car seat with us for her to sit in on the airplane (and so we would have a car seat when we arrived in NJ). There's no way I would have been able to carry the car seat, so I was so thankful to have this Go-Go Babyz Kidz Travelmate. I attached the wheels to the car seat, and was able to load our carry-on bags into the car seat to navigate the airport - so easy!

Wrap
I knew I was going to have to get M, a car seat, two carry-on bags, and a large checked bag into the airport. There's just no possible way to manage all of that without a carrier of some sort. I chose a woven wrap (mine was an Oscha brand, but similar wraps are more accessible, like Didymos, Storchenwiege or Dolcino) because it is just a long piece of fabric with no buckles or metal pieces (meaning I can wear it through security). I have worn M through airport security on several occasions, and I have almost always been allowed to leave her wrapped. They do require you to have your hands swabbed and sometimes do a quick pat-down to make sure there isn't anything in the wrap. It was an absolute lifesaver to have M on my back as I checked in and checked our large bag.

Essentials
I put what I consider "essentials" into one backpack. This included my wallet, laptop, chargers, spare clothes and a wet bagfor M, wipes, snacks, M's water bottle (empty), a couple of small stuffed animals, and a small blanket.

Activities
The second backpack was full of activities to keep M happy during our wait in the airport and on the airplane. My husband always makes fun of how much I pack for trips, but we have always had very smooth travels.... something must be working!

I found this awesome travel road set from And Next Comes L. I made several pipe cleaner trees, added pom poms for bushes, blue felt for lakes, and large popsicle sticks painted for roads. I had a small bag of cars and planes for her to play with, and she loved parking the cars around the perimeter to watch the planes land.

I already had a travel-size felt board that I made for a busy bag exchange. I made some transportation themed felt pieces. M especially liked flying the plane over the mountain. She also combined the scenes so the car could drive from the beach to the mountains. You can find the templates I used on my previous post.

I have seen this idea in several places, and it was a quick easy busy bag / Practical Life / Sensorial activity to take with us. The colored cards are paint chips, and I bought a container of multicolored large paper clips. I had the bend the paper clips a little to help M get the hang of putting them on the cards, but she liked sorting the colors and finally got the hang of the activity.

I love this DIY travel busy board from Mommy Testers. M isn't usually much into coloring, but for some reason she loves this mini legal pad! I bought some cheap mini markers (I couldn't find the Crayola Pip-Squeaks she was talking about). The markers were a little too big, so the Lego board that I velcro'd to the other side wouldn't lay flat (I could remove it to use since it just had velcro on the corners). I used a small cutting board (the lightest one I could find), so the Lego board is a little bigger than the cutting board, but it was still functional.

The new Magic Board is easy to pack and much more convenient than a ton of crayons or markers and construction paper.

B-inspired Mama has a cute Car Parking Numbers Game. I used a white colored pencil to quickly draw some lines for parking spaces. I put round stickers on the top of her cars and planes with numbers to match with the parking space numbers.

I used the back of the Car Parking Numbers sheet for the car pattern matching game. (This is the same game I made as part of the a Train Themed Birthday Box.)

The last thing I packed was a small baking sheet with a bunch of magnets. This kept M busy for the long flight to Seattle last summer, so I figured it was worth taking this time too. I have some printouts that are designed for these Do A Dot Markers. I cut them out and laminated them. I have several different types of magnets - pom poms with magnets hot glued to them, different sizes of round magnets (set from Staples), and buttons hot glued to magnets. These can be used for all kinds of activities - patterns, sorting by color or shape, etc. The magnets stick to the baking sheet, so they are really easy for M to keep track of while she plays with them.

In the end, M was more interested in watching airplanes and buckling her teddy bear into her car seat than she was in most of the activities that I packed. In fact, my non-napper actually slept through the whole second flight! Maybe I didn't need to pack all of that stuff... but then again, maybe everything was so smooth because I had a backup plan :)

Transportation Sensory Bin

We borrowed The Scrubbly-Bubbly Car Wash by Irene O'Garden from the library. It's such a cute book with great illustrations. I made a car wash sensory bin that evolved a little and kept M very intrigued.

We started with an aluminum tub outfitted with a curtain of "fabric" (foam strips). I added clear water beads and shaving cream, and gave M some scoops, small cups, scrubbers, and a bunch of toy cars. She and her friends had an amazing time with this bin! M isn't really a messy kid, and it doesn't occur to her to splash the materials out of the tub, but I know this is not typical of toddlers. We had three friends over for a playdate, and this was a big hit. It was pretty messy, but the cleanup wasn't bad. Next time, I will either do this outside or put a tarp under the table.

The next day, I decided to switch out the shaving cream for some flubber. This was really interesting, because the flubber could be used to make tire tracks as the different cars drove over it. It was also fun to press the different scrubber brushes into the flubber to make impressions. M also realized that she could "hide" the water beads in the flubber to make little bumps for the cars to ride over. This was a lot less messy than the shaving cream!

 

The bin made one final appearance filled with water beads and water. This was a "keep M busy while I finish packing" activity, so my lack of attention made this the messiest by far (although M liked helping to clean up the water off the floor and table when she was done). I started with regular water, which made the clear water beads "disappear." M liked scooping the water and "invisible" water beads and dumping them over the cars. I gave her a small colander so she could pour the water and bead in to separate out the water beads.

Some of the water beads had a blue tint from being in the flubber, so I later added some blue food coloring to the water to see how that would look. The bluish beads disappeared, and the clear beads looked really cool in the blue water.

 

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Check out the rest of our Transportation Week activities!

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T is for Transportation

We are traveling again this week, so I figured it would make sense to include our travel as part of our Montessori activities. There are so many forms of transportation, so I'm expecting this theme to last at least two weeks. This week will be especially interesting, because some of the activities will go with us on the airplane! I will do a follow-up post to show everything we're packing.

What's on Our Shelves?

 

Practical Life

Building and Tools
We have this Take Apart Airplane out a lot - it's one of M's favorites. It's the perfect level of complexity for her right now. The screws are big enough that she can screw and unscrew them by herself, and she loves the drill!

Airport / Flying
Printing our tickets, checking luggage, going through security, finding our gate, boarding the airplane, taking off, landing, baggage claim - so much to learn! She's done it all before, but it's always exciting! Plus we will get to watch the airplanes take off and land while we wait to board our own plane.

Here are a couple of pictures from one of our trips last summer. Wow she has grown a lot in a year!!

Trash Clean-up
Originally the plan was to put contact paper over a picture of a trash truck so the stick side was out, and M would stick pieces of trash to the garbage truck to look kind of like this. BUT, I traced the truck backwards onto the contact paper... whoops! I had already laminated the truck and didn't feel like re-cutting the pieces of contact paper, so instead I cut the truck to make a flap that would open. I taped a small container behind the flap so M can use the tweezers to put pieces of "trash" through the flap and into the container (aka "garbage truck"). She actually really liked this!

Coin Sorting
Pay the toll! M knows what coins are, but she doesn't know the names of the different coins or their value. I figured a sorting activity would be a good way to introduce the idea that there are different types of coins. I can mention the names of the coins as we work on sorting them.

Washing Cars
At some point I'll get M to help me wash at least one car! Maybe we'll take another car to the car wash... who knows?

Sensorial

Car Wash Sensory Bin
This is an idea that has been forming in my head since I decided to do a Transportation Unit. I thought it would be so much fun to have a pretend car wash with foam strips hanging down to drive the cars through.

I started with a wrapping paper tube that I cut in half and covered in black duct tape. I then taped popsicle sticks across the top to make a beam to suspend the foam strips. I hole punched the top of the strips and tied pieces of string through the holes and around the popsicle sticks so they could swing a little. I taped the whole structure in the middle of a metal tub. It looked a lot prettier in my head... but it was functional.

I added shaving cream and clear Water Beads, as well as several toy cars, a few scoops, and some cleaning brushes. So much fun!! M couldn't wait to try this out!

Painting with Wheels
Creating Artists for Tomorrow beat me to this one! Check out last week's post to see how M painted with toy cars.

Taste
My husband and I watch Airport 24/7 Miami about Miami International Airport. Last week we watched an episode that talked about how they prepare the meals for flights, and mentioned that they add extra seasoning because your taste buds are less sensitive when you're in the air. Interesting... I thought I would pack some small snacks for M - something sweet, sour and bitter - for her to taste while we're in the air. Then we'll try it again later in the week when we're not flying and see if there's any difference.

Language

T is for Transportation
I'll continue introducing letters like I have done for the past few weeks. I put out the letter t sandpaper letter and a bin of objects that start with the letter t (turtle, treasure chest, tooth from a shark, tractor, tweezers, tiger paw, etc.). In the future I'd like to include her in these letter scavenger hunts, but she doesn't really understand the letter sounds well enough to be able to pick out what letter a word starts with yet.

Alphabet Train
I saw this adorable letter matching activity on Toddler Approved and had to make it. I laminated the "boxcars" and put velcro instead of tape so we can use it over and over. I plan to extend this later for matching lowercase and uppercase letters or pictures of objects that start with different letters. I made the "wheels" too small, but M didn't seem to mind. She has already done this activity twice today, and was SO excited to show her friend this activity when he came over to play this morning.

Flannel Board Storytelling
When I was teaching, M went to an amazing daycare at our local community college. If I was still working she would definitely still be there. The flannel board stories were always one of her favorite activities, and her teachers said that she would often stay in that area and play with the flannel pieces long after the story was over.

I made some mini flannel boards out of felt for a busy bag exchange about a year ago, but M never showed much interest in them. I wasn't very crafty with the felt pieces I made, and just had basic shapes that could be used like Tangrams. Clearly I had fun with them...

Anyway, I decided to get a little more crafty to see if she would like the felt pieces if they were already in recognizable shapes, and success - she did! I found the templates on Pinterest for the car, plane and helicopter, truck and boats, and another truck and traffic signs. I freehand cut the sun, clouds, grass, water, road and mountain. I don't sew, so everything is glued together with tacky glue. I also added some small pieces of a Dry-Erase Sentence Strip that I cut up with pieces of sandpaper glued to the back. The sandpaper sticks to felt, so I can write words on the dry erase strips to label things.

Math

Color Matching Parking Lot
Toddler Approved has a neat color matching pattern set to use with toy cars. I made a set for one of M's friends for his birthday, and I've wanted to make a set for M ever since. I haven't showed this to her yet because it will be one of our new travel activities.

Transportation Timeline
I'm really doing it this time! It's not the ideal timeline that I want to eventually make (right now I'm thinking about some kind of fold-out accordion-style timeline that we can add pictures and details to as she gets older).  This is a really simple timeline - it doesn't even have years on it! I printed pictures of various forms of transportation that are mentioned in one of M's library books, Visual Timeline of Transportation by Anthony C. Wilson. I laminated the pictures and put velcro on the back. I added pieces of velcro to a dry erase sentence strip so the pictures could be added in order from oldest to most recent as we flip through the book.

Numbers Game - Car Parking Lot
This easy idea from Craftulate is used for number matching. I plan to draw the parking lot with numbered spaces on the back of the blank parking lot for the color matching activity (above). It would be really easy to stick numbered stickers onto the tops of the cars. I may try mixing it up by putting stickers with dots on the tops of the cars to correspond to the numbers on the parking spaces.


I have a couple other craft and snack ideas that I'll post in the updates later this week. Stay posted!

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