I mentioned the other day that I made several things for the boys to play with on our cross-country flight. One of the goodies in my stash was a box that I covered with velcro strips inside and out, inspired by this post on Chasing Cheerios. Since we were traveling, and I had no wooden boards on-hand, I thought a little box would be a good stand-in, and would hold the toys with the opposite strip to boot.
I tried to find objects that were both familiar and novel to the boys, so I included things like their favorite chicken figure, a smooth beach stone, a wooden Buddha, a pom-pom, a sequin flower, and several other objects.
The "game" is a nice quiet activity for single play. Because the box is light and a little big for the boys laps, it is a little hard for them to pull the toys off the velcro. I think when I make it again, I would make it on a mat, with a big, rectangular piece of velcro for them to stick the objects to. I'd like to sew straps onto a mat so it could be secured to a variety of surfaces, like the airline seat tray, high chair tray, back of a seat in the car, etc. It's cool to see them stick something vertically, so that it unexpectedly doesn't fall off... so I might add another square and mount it on the wall. Perhaps it would even be fun to mount several squares next to each other, one velcro, one magnetic, one cork or something like that.
Today Shoghi brought out the box again and played with much more attention than on the plane. It's so much fun to see these little ones concentrate and try to figure out something new, and an extra pleasure to see something I made in their hands!
You're sickening, you know that? Homemade toys and all that! ;-) Great idea, though... I'll think about something like this for my trip.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely going to consider your recommendation to bring a car seat on the plane, too.