Travelling by plane with children is a little like playing a game of Russian roulette. You never know what might happen. They may be perfect angels on the flight and sleep right through it, or you will have to face everything from food fights and air sickness to countless, “Are we there yet?”, “I am so bored, why is this taking so long!” type of questions all through the journey.
So as parents, we know to always go prepared. Make sure you have something to keep them entertained every hour of your journey. Of course inflight entertainment can be one of those things, but remember if you want to watch a movie while travelling, then you know you have to bring things along to keep them occupied.
Here are a few tried and tested ideas to keep your kids occupied on a flight.
1.Crayons/Markers/Colour Pencils: Pack along a ziplock pouch of crayons and some sheets of paper. Come up with themes or ideas for them to draw.
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2.Carry Some Clay/Playdough: Playdough never disappoints. Bring some modeling clay on airplane and let your kids make random things. They might just surprise you with their imagination. Also bonus: mess free!
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3.Make a Toy Bag: Take a couple of small ziplock bags and add an assortment of tiny toys to them. Children love surprises and will love looking through the bag for new toys. Remember you don’t necessarily have to buy toys for this bag. Add old ones like rattles, or parts of mobiles. Or grab household items like wooden bangles and colourful lids and watch your kids use their imagination.
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4.Card Games: Good old Uno cards or just plain old playing cards can also help pass time while travelling.
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5.Paper Games: Crosses and zeroes, Name-Place-Animal-Thing, Join the Dots; are all age old fun, family games! Games like Cross and Zeros, Name-Place-Animal-Thing, Join the dots etc a can be a lot of fun. You may in fact learn from your school going kids about such new games.
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6.Magazine games: Pack a couple of magazines or use the inflight magazine and ask your child to find different things. For older kids, pick a word ask them how often it appears on a page. For younger ones, pick a colour and ask them to find pictures.
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7.Travel tickets: Let’s say your flight journey is 3 hours long. So make 6 tickets and put them in a small bag. Ask your kid to give one ticket in every half an hour interval. This keeps them patient while they play on other games.
8.Books: Depending on your child’s age, carry a couple of books. Maybe picture books or his favourite story book. You could even read these First Experience Books if it is your child’s first time travelling.
9.Puzzle Games: Puzzles can be an absolute fun way to kill time. You can buy the small puzzles or maybe a big puzzle depending on the age and duration of the flight. It will definitely keep them engaged.
10. Origami: This is a great way to pass time. Teach kids some craft with sheets of papers. Creating your own airplane in the plane, how apt isn’t it? You can also ask your kids to colour what they’ve made.
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11. iPad: Lets admit it, we all are thankful for this one. Download some games and let your child spend some time on the iPad.
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12. Finger Puppets: Get some finger puppets and ask your kids to make up stories and narrate them. They will be self-occupied with them. You may even use that airsickness bag available on planes.
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13. To Do Lists: You can ask your kids to create a list of what they want to do at the particular destination you are going to, a list of what they want in their birthday party, a list of places they would like to go to and other such lists.
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14. Sticker activity books: Bring along your child’s favourite sticker activity book, right from princess and fairies to superheroes, you have plenty of themes to choose from and finding and pasting the right stickers is every child’s favourite pass time.
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15. Wipe-Clean Writing Books:  These write and wipe books are great to entertain a 3 year old and above who is learning to write on their own, it keeps them busy and fun for them as they enjoy, writing and wiping.
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16. Spot the city on a map: You will always find a map in the inflight magazines, so if you have an older kid, ask him to spot the name of a city or find the closest city to your destination.
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Tarun Sakhrani
KSP Team
