Have Toddler, Will Travel - Entertainment Carry-On

We're heading to Iceland shortly and I've been getting things together that we might need to have things go as smoothly as possible. It is an approximately 6 hr flight, which really isn't too bad. However, it is a 6 hour time change for us as well, and that part will be a little harder to handle. It is also almost constant daylight in Iceland right now, so I'm planning for a way to help with that.  The links are not affiliate links, I just added them so you can see what I have for her.  I'm only packing 5 "surprise" bags per direction (one for each hour), since there will be time during take off and landing where we'll be busy putting things away or settling in and not allowed to have stuff out anyway.  The surprise bags will each include 2 activity books, 2 finger puppets, a paper scene for her to build with glue dots and a snack.  Crossing my fingers that this will go well.  I'll share the printable paper scenes next week.

1) Dover Little Activity Books - 10 books, 5 for each flight  - 4-for-3 on Amazon : I focused mainly on the Invisible Picture ones (just need a pencil) and the coloring ones, they are small in dimension and will hopefully keep her pretty occupied.  I stuck to animals mainly and ABC type selections, however I couldn't resist the Little Airport sticker book and hope I don't end up regretting it.

2) Ohio Art Travel Doodle Sketch : A "drawing pad" that you can use over and over and over again, what's not to love? She loves to "color", which is basically her scribbling with any type of writing utensil.  I don't think she'll care that there is no color to this, just black lines

3) Triangular Crayons : Crayons that won't roll off the airplane tray table? Yes, please!  I can't remember if I got her the 8 count or 16 count, right now I'm hoping 8 count so I don't have 16 crayons to keep track of during the flight.  Just because they are anti-roll doesn't mean they are anti-fall.  I might need to try to whip up a crayon roll this weekend to hold them.  They're just straight line sewing, right?

4) I Spy or Seek and Find Bag : Hopefully, this works out well for her.  I think it will.  I made these for her and she has had fun looking at them a little, so I'm hoping she has the attention span to handle something like this.  I made two, one with little objects and this one with alphabet beads.

5) Finger Puppets : ours are from Ikea, we have a whole bunch from various places.  I'll be putting 2 different ones in each bag of the hour.  By the end of the ride we should only have 10 to deal with. I'll stick with the animals she loves, fishies, puppies, tigers, etc.

6) Portable DVD Player and a few movies : ours has about a 9" screen and it is several years old at this point so I can't find it with a simple search.  It's nothing fancy, but it will hopefully keep her entertained for a little while at least.  Her attention span will tolerate a full movie only if it's loaded with puppies or if it is Winnie the Pooh.  So we have some shorter movies that she loves, but we purposefully have kept hidden for a while.  She'll be super happy to see them, I hope.

7) MP3 Player : Mine is like this, but an older model.  I'll load up with her favorite songs, "Wheels on the Bus", "I'm a Little Teapot", "It's Raining, It's Pouring".  In another folder, I'll load it with her favorite songs to have me sing at night time, "Baby Mine", "Winnie The Pooh", "Bubbly", "Good Night Sweetheart", "Put Your Records On".  That way we can shuffle a folder, depending on whether it's nap time or awake time.

8) Favorite Books - Jamberry, Good Night Moon, and Tumble Bumble will hopefully be enough, board books are heavy and take up a lot of room.  I could probably just bring Jamberry and she'd be happy! I'll also have some books on tape on the MP3 player, and I can probably recite 10-20 purely from memory.

9 & 10) Pooh Bear and Blanket : These two go hand in hand. They are not exactly entertainment, but we won't get through the flight and naptime without them.  The blanket goes with her everywhere!  Pooh goes with her most of the time too, he's actually in a Tonka trunk just to the left of her when I took this picture.