Airplane Entertainment for Little Kraut

As we're preparing for a trip to Germany in two weeks, one of the main things on my mind has been how to entertain Noah on such a long international flight. He is super excited about the trip and loves airports and airplanes. He has already been on a few flights in his short life and has done great, so I'm not too worried about it. At the same time, since it's such a long flight, I want to be prepared and have a few new fun things available for him.

The plan is to keep everything a surprise until we're on the plane and then to bring out activities one at a time. When I picked out games and activities I chose ones that are creative and can be used and played with in a variety of ways, by himself or together with us, so that hopefully he won't be bored a few minutes into it.

Sketchbook and Pencils

Drawing and coloring is fun for everyone, and this can keep Noah entertained for quite some time, especially if we engage with him and draw things together. I bought a high quality nice looking sketchbook that we've used before on a trip and added to our collection of colored pencils. I love the artwork on these sketchbooks and the paper is nice and thick. Our local book/crafts/toy store typically has only a few different options, but of course Amazon.com has a wide selection, including some for a great price: http://amzn.to/1U4g2St
We already have a good selection of pencils, but I liked the ones that came with the sketchbook and I think they'll make for a great surprise.

Tell Me a Story Cards

I haven't tried these yet, but I think Noah will enjoy these Tell Me a Story cards. He might still be a bit young for them and we will probably be doing a lot of the story telling and talking, but I'm hopeful that it'll make it easier for us to create stories and keep him entertained talking, and he has a chance to grow into them and use them for a while. I decided to go with the Animal Village one, but the other ones look great too. I think these are going to be a hit and will stick around for future road trips.

Airport Sticker Pad

Noah isn't exactly crazy about stickers, but he does enjoy them and I just had to buy them when I saw these awesome airport theme stickers (http://amzn.to/1X4F8av). It'll give us a chance to talk about what's happening at the airport and on the plane. If you're looking for a less expensive option, there are really tons of different sticker books out there; Target usually has pretty cute ones in their $1 section. I thought about getting a Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pad but decided it was too large to bring on an airplane. I really like the Eyelike sticker series and may have just bought the Sky edition.

Melissa & Doug Scratch Art

More art... This is the first time I've purchased a scratch art pad for us, but everyone seems to love them and I'll think we'll have fun with this as well. I like that it's small and thin, but because Noah has never used it before, it'll hopefully come with a big wow factor.

Apps and Games

I'll also add some more games on my tablet and on an old iPhone that Noah will get to use on this trip. A basic drawing app can keep him entertained for a while and there are some fun educational apps. He's really into identifying letters and numbers currently and I'm sure I'll find some good ones that he'll enjoy.

Music

Noah loves loves loves music and I'll add a lot of his music onto the old iPhone. I also found yesterday that Where the Sidewalk Ends is available for free on Amazon Prime Music (http://amzn.to/1TOEbim). Noah is a bit young to really understand everything but he enjoyed listening to it yesterday.

He has his own set of headphones already. We decided to not get one with a volume limit that most kids headphones have, because it makes it impossible for us to listen to the same thing with two headphones - there's no way to get the volume right.

Books

I'm still debating if I should bring any books. We love reading books in this family, but they're just so heavy. I think I'll instead add some kids books on my tablet. I have a Surface and while I'm happy with it, if I were to buy a different one I think I'd get a Fire Tablet. I use all the Amazon apps already anyway, for reading, listening, and watching, it would just make so much sense for me. I never thought I would say that, but I also am considering a Fire Tablet kids edition for Noah. It comes with a lot of great features like a 2 year worry free guarantee and 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited which allows parents to set controls to what types of content kids can access and for how long. For example, you can make reading time unlimited, and limit apps and games. If not for this trip, I have a feeling we might end up with one some day.