what to do for kids on a long haul flight??

[ctrbabe1]

Next Friday (5th) we are taking the flight from HK to USA with only a short layover in Taipei. I am traveling alone with my 2 girls (ages 6 and 2) as my dh can not get time off right now. In the past, we've taken night flights, so they slept most of the time, but this time we have a day time flight.

I have already bought a few new books for each of them to pull out when they get restless. For my 2 year old, one of them is a sticker/activity book that will hopefully keep her little hands busy for awhile. In the past, this airline has only had one movie suitable for children, so I can't expect that to keep them quiet for too long.

What else can I do to help make the trip more pleasant and to keep my kids quiet for 14 hours?!?!?

Thanks!

 

[carang]

buy yourself an ipod video and fill it up with kids' movies. you can buy a "splitter" so you can hook it up to two sets of earphones.

i allowed each of my kids their own backpack. two rules:
1) they MUST carry it themselves, so nothing heavy
2) no small pieces to the toys

that way, they could choose what they took with them.

i bought each of them some "silly putty", a special crayola set that has funky coloured paper covered by black, then you use a special pen to draw pictures. the kids loved it and i only had to worry about one pen.

crayons
colouring pages i printed off of the computer of their favourite characters (i told them we would give the pictures as gifts when we arrived, which they were thrilled with)
3-4 books
snacks
toy cars(i have a boy and a girl and they both love playing with them)
any other toys that they wanted to bring (my daughter chose "my little ponies" and my son....more cars!)

 

[Buckeroo]

Activity books are always great. I especially love the Klutz series. Check them out; they have a great selection of books that will keep children of all ages (from 3+) occupied for quite some time. I always bring these along whenever we fly. My SIL also brought some along for their 2-day drive from Toronto to Florida with her two kids and the books really helped.

I wrote a review for one of them (Totally Tape) in my blog.

Another thing that I've been doing lately is to prepare "books" -essentially just blank pages stapled together to look like books. My 4-yr old then tries to create a story, illustrate the pages and then I write down the "story" that he would dictate to me or sometimes even just spell out the words that he asks and he writes down the story himself. That usually keeps him occupied for a bit. I'm planning to have a few such "books" on me when we fly back to Canada this summer.

Good luck.

 

[0ze_Kid]

I do a few things to help the travel part of the trip go smoothly (our recent was a 9 hour car trip and both girls were gr8! I was so proud of them for not loosing it all day)!

As carang said, we too pack a "play pack" - a small bag or back pack for each child with small books to read, sticker books and stickers, colouring books, a recordable toy microphone from ELC (real success that one!), whistle (the one that doesn't make a loud sound), yoyo. Anything that was small and had a 20 minute entertainment value. Some of their own toys I packed away a month before travel. The idea was that they had not played with any of the toys so it also had novelty value! These packs became their toys to play with while on holiday. Also put a few snack bags in with carrot sticks and sultanas.