Plane Activities (Part 2)

As promised, here's a recap of the activities we tried on our trip to Texas:

Another version of the Fruit Loop Chart .  This time, instead of coloring in the square, Levi practiced drawing circles.  He loves to draw circles and I think he preferred this to the first iteration.  (My apologies for the super-dark picture, but I don't know how to fix it.  My husband will wish I had him take the picture.)

A sticker counting activity based on The Poky Little Puppy, a favorite from my childhood that Levi now loves.  If you're not familiar with the book, five little puppies dig a hole under the fence to go out into the wide, wide world and scramble up a hill.  Levi tells us regularly about the puppy and the hole.  I've done this before (equally poorly-drawn on the fly!) with duck stickers and numbered ponds.

Before.

After.  

Notice how he likes to put ALL of the stickers on top of the number.  

Obviously, I finished the seventh hill for him . . . 

**The author of The Princess and the Tot blog just posted a tip about pulling off the sticker backing (leaving the stickers themselves intact) as way to make it easier to remove the stickers from the sheet.  This was frustrating for Levi, so I plan to try that next time!

I don't remember where I spotted this activity, but we tried a popsicle-stick shape puzzle.  He wasn't terribly interested, but I'll probably pull it out this week when there are fewer distractions.

The color-coded parking lot.  This got played with the most on the plane and at our friends' house (though some of that was Owen chewing on it).  I could've made it a lot cuter, I'm sure, but I was short on time and construction paper.  :)

Like my crayon handicapped spot?  Levi spots an "L" in it every time we see one.

He also thinks the lines between spaces are "I"s -- some yellow, some white.

I can count on him to stay next to the car while I unbuckle Owen as long as there's a "yellow I" to stand on!

The button-and-felt snake.  This was not a huge hit the first time around, but that might be because I pulled it out approximately two minutes before the flight attendant showed up with pretzels.  And nothing keeps my Levi from his pretzels.  So, I brought it out as a before-dinner activity tonight, and this time he was willing to try a few before he got distracted.  (This is a big theme for us lately, getting distracted.  I can't say I'm not disappointed, since most of the websites I've seen this activity on have glowed about its ability to hold their kids' attention for at least half an hour . . . )  We'll try it again in the future.

Can you see the farm-animal ribbon?  Found it at Hancock Fabric.  So cute!

This is not a great picture, being blurry and Levi's not doing anything, but you can see how high up we have to push the refrigerator magnets to keep them out of Owen's reach -- and still he's trying to climb up the side!

Clothespin capital-lowercase matching.  Frankly, Levi's just not that great with clothespins yet.  This was a so-so activity on the plane, but a hit at home later while Owen was napping and we could really concentrate.  We'll definitely be doing it again.

It was a nice idea, to put together so many little projects and package them in zippered pencil cases for easy transport.  But the long and short of it is, I have a toddler who is perfectly content to sit in his plane seat, swing his feet, eat pretzels, count the reading lights above him, and watch for the "buckle light" to go off.  I could've saved the carry-on space for reading material for myself . . . or a dozen more toys for Owen, who is much more difficult to keep entertained!