Monthly Archives: June 2018

Airplane Activities for a Three Year Old

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My family loves to travel, and since I’m a teacher, we always travel a lot during the summer. Since it’s been awhile since we’ve flown with Buddy, I spent a lot of time looking for new activities for this trip.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

This trip was our first airplane trip since Buddy turned three. Before Buddy was two, we always flew with him on our laps. But we worried about his carseat getting lost when we checked it, so once he had his own seat, we brought it onto the plane. (We always travel with our Evenflo Tribute LX, which I would recommend. It is cheap and only weighs 9 pounds!) Buddy loved having his own seat and we had the peace of mind knowing that it wouldn’t get lost. However, it prevented him from using the seat tray or reaching the window, so it limited some of our activities.

Now that Buddy is three, we could finally buy the Ride Safer Travel Vest. We literally have waited years for Buddy to use this vest instead of a car seat for traveling. It adjusts the car seat belt so that it hits his body correctly, making it just as safe as a regular car seat. We used it for the first time on this trip, and we loved it! It was so great not having a carseat as we navigated the airport. It also let me bring activities that used the seat tray and window again.

Here are the things I packed to keep Buddy entertained on the plane:

  • Duplos – Buddy is really into his Duplos recently. In fact, he wanted them brought on this trip so much that he snuck blocks into both my bag and Hubby’s as well! I brought a quart sized bag worth onto the plane. I made some small pictures of things to build for another trip, and I brought those too. (Read more about my Duplo Busy Bag and get the free printable here.)
  • Bingo game – I bought this for Buddy’s Easter basket. He loves the game Zingo, and I thought he’d enjoy a bingo game. He loved it, and played about 10 games a day during our trip!
  • Snakes and Ladders Magnetic game – I bought this right before our trip, because I wanted another travel game to play with Buddy. He enjoyed it, but he didn’t quite have the attention span to play the game all the way until the end. This will probably be great in a year or so.
  • Disney Eye Found It card game – I first saw this game on a list of things to keep you busy in line at Walt Disney World. It’s the perfect game for us because I love all things Disney and Buddy loves look and finds. We played this a lot on the plane, and on the trip.
  • Spot it game – There are a bunch of versions of this, which all look great. We have the Disney Planes one that also has letters. It’s fun because Buddy loves the Planes movie and it’s great alphabet practice. It is also easy to play with just one person or with a whole group.
  • Thomas the train minis and play mat – Buddy loves everything related to Thomas the train. We have several sets of the minis, and they are perfect for travel. For this trip, I decided to print and laminate some train tracks. I gave him a couple options, but he especially loved this free zoo train printable from In Our Pond.
  • Stickers
  • Paperback books and magazines – I love paperback books for travel because they don’t take up much space. We subscribe to High Five, and it’s great to have a lot of new stories to read and puzzles to do.
  • Hidden pictures sticker book – Buddy loves look and finds, so I was excited to find this sticker book with hidden pictures. It was a lot of fun, and it will last us a long time.
  • Playdoh and tools – I missed having this as a travel option when Buddy was in his car seat. He was very excited to have a chance to play with Play doh on the plane. I brought some tiny tools to go along with it. We have these and the small ones in this kit were great.
  • Window clings – I also missed this when Buddy was in the car seat. These are usually available at the dollar store, but this set of letter window clings looks fun.
  • Crayons and paper
  • Wikisticks
  • Small dinosaurs – Buddy loves dinosaurs and he helped decide which ones from this set came with us on the trip.
  • Kindle and headphones – We only let Buddy use our Kindle Fire on trips, which makes it extra special. I load it up with some videos, apps, and books before we leave. I especially love checking out new library ebooks to have new reading material for Buddy that doesn’t take up extra space. We have these Kids Gear Headphones, which have worked well for us.
  • Reusable stickers – We love colorforms, and we have a couple different sets. They are reusable vinyl stickers, and they take up almost no space. I bought Melissa and Doug Reusable Puffy Sticker sets for Buddy’s Easter basket, and they were great when we had a long delay at the airport.
  • Magnadoodle – We have this travel sized Doodle Pro, which is a lot of fun. So much fun, in fact, that when we left it behind at my dad’s house we bought another one at the dollar store. The Doodle Pro is much nicer, but when our suitcase is pretty full, the smaller dollar store one is great too.
  • Teeny Tys – Buddy loves all stuffed animals, and he always gets to take one of our smaller sized ones with us. I love bringing his Teeny Tys on trips because they are so small and a lot of fun.
  • Water Wow– These are reusable paint with water pads, that are not messy at all. We have a bunch of them, and we rotate them for different trips. When we fly, I leave the water pen empty and then fill it later with a water bottle. These also have a look and find aspect, which just makes it even more fun.
  • Snacks – I am a firm believer in over packing, especially when it comes to snacks on airplanes. On this trip, our plane left on time but we ended up diverted due to storms and stuck in an airport for several hours. It was late enough that all of the restaurants were closed and we had to have snacks instead of dinner.

We still have a couple more car and plane trips ahead of us this summer. If you have any other fun ideas for travel activities, please share in the comments.

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If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Counting Game

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This week was our first Time to Read Tuesday of the summer, and I have been waiting to do this activity for a long time. We read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, which is a favorite of Buddy’s. I first saw the idea of doing a counting game with this book on Mommy Needs Cookies’s Blog. Since Buddy loves this book and he loves games, I knew this cookie game would be a great activity for him.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by cutting out a circle for each of us from paper. I also got a large handful of black beans and a die. After we read the book, Buddy and I counted out 20 beans for each of us. This was great practice for him, because he has trouble counting after 12. Then we took turns rolling the dice. We put that amount of beans on the cookie. Whoever finished getting all of the “chocolate chips” in the “cookie” first won. 

Buddy had a lot of fun with this activity. He enjoyed the counting and it was good practice looking at a die and determining numbers. In the original activity, she used a uno deck to practice reading the numbers. I can see that being a fun way to extend this game for Buddy when he is a little older. 

Buddy had so much fun that we ended up playing this game 3 times! It was a lot of fun for both of us. I’m sure we’ll play it again soon.

Alphabet Easter Egg Hunt

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Yesterday morning, Buddy told me over breakfast that he wanted to do a surprise.  I took that to mean that he wanted to do something a little different than usual. Fortunately for both of us, I had an idea ready to go.

Buddy has been very interested in learning his letters lately, so I’ve been busy looking for fun alphabet activities. I saw several different versions of an alphabet scavenger hunt with Easter eggs on Pinterest, and I knew Buddy would love it. I really loved the coloring sheet on Playdough to Plato’s blog, but when I asked Buddy, he said he would prefer using magnetic letters on a baking pan.

While Buddy was playing with Hubby, I pulled out a bag of magnetic letters and put each letter in an Easter egg. Then, I hid them around the house. I also found an old baking pan and I wrote each letter on the pan with a dry erase marker.

I gave Buddy his Easter basket, because I thought he’d find all the eggs before opening them to match the letters. But actually, Buddy decided to find and match one letter at a time. Then he put the empty egg in the Easter basket. He used up a lot of energy running back and forth between the eggs and the pan. 

Buddy had a lot of fun finding the eggs, and even more fun matching up the letters. He was especially excited when he knew the letter. Because he went through the entire alphabet, I saw exactly which letters we need to spend extra time on this summer. 

This was such a fun and easy activity for a rainy morning. Buddy had a lot of fun, and he got some great literacy practice as well.

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King of the Grill Father’s Day Gift

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Every June, I spend a lot of time figuring out a good gift for Father’s Day. I want Hubby to know how much we appreciate him. And I want Buddy to make a part of it, because really the gift is from him (and not me). Finally, I want it to be useful in some way. That’s not an easy task.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

Last year, I saw some King of the Grill Father’s Day gifts with handprint lions. I liked the idea of handprints, but lions didn’t really seem like something Hubby would especially appreciate. Then I saw a picture of a grill and handprint flames, and I knew that would be a much better picture for us.

Hubby had been complaining about how bad our oven mitts were, so I decided to get some really nice ones for our project. I’ve similar handprint oven mitt gifts done with oven mitts from the dollar store. But I wanted nicer ones that would be an improvement on our current ones. I ordered these ones and we have really loved them.

To make the grill image, I painted Buddy’s hand with acrylic paint. We did a red handprint, an orange one, and then a yellow one. I tried to spread them out a little so you could see all of the colors. I painted the blue grill with acrylic paint as well. It took many layers to get the deep blue color in the picture. Then I used a paint pen to write the King of the Grill and the year on the oven mitt.

Once the paint was dry, I covered it with a light towel and pressed it with a hot iron to set the paint. It should remain if we ever decide to wash it.

Hubby loved it, and we both use it a lot. I wish I had done it on both oven mitts though so if one got ruined, we would have a back up. (I almost ruined it last week… hopefully I won’t do anything else to it!) It also would make a nice set to have two of the same oven mitts.

If you are looking for a handmade Father’s Day card, check out our template here. And if you have any other great ideas for Father’s Day, please share in the comments.

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