We traveled for my dad’s Celebration of Life last week and I knew it would be a difficult week for the kids, so packed some extra materials to help keep the kids occupied during the event and other appointments.
On-the-Go Activities
We will sometimes bring these activities to a restaurant, on the rare occasion that we go to one. But, they also worked great for travel. Once again, many of these ideas are inspired by Mini Jetsetter.
For each one of my kids (3 and 5), I put together a pouch with art materials, a sketch book, mini colouring book, mess-free painting, water ring game, and at least one animal figure.
I also gave them each a mini lego set in a pencil case.
Everything above is from Dollarama or was a gift from the hairdresser or came from friends’ goody bags. The water ring game is from Jean Coutu (a drug store in Quebec) and the mess free painting sheets are from Amazon. Nothing is precious. I include things in these kits expecting them to get dropped, left behind and gifted to other kids we meet.
On-the-Go Sensory Activity – Pluffle
I packed an extra sensory activity, in case we needed to occupy the kids for a while at my mom’s house. I brought a ziplock bag full of Pluffle because it’s very light weight and you can squeeze the air out in the bag so it packs up small.
At my mom’s house, I dumped the bag into a bin and brought out some of the play kitchen dishes – and voila, a Pluffle tea party. It kept the kids busy for 2 hours. To me, that counts as a success. The only drawback to Pluffle is that it can be messy. We needed to do some sweeping and vacuuming after the activity.