Small toys for travelling

[klov]

Does anyone have any advice for small toys to take on a plane with a very active and bright 2 year old girl? We've been advised to take small presents and gradually introduce them on the short journey (2-3 hours) but other than stickers and books, I am struggling to find small presents. Can anyone help?!
Thanks

Glad you posted this! We're going on holiday with our 2.9 year old in July and I'm collecting things for the journey (1.5 hours in a car at each end, and 6 hours on a ferry in the middle...)

So far, I've got some sticker books, Something Special magazine with Mr Tumble doll, pens and notebook for drawing and a small chalkboard and chalks. The Entertainer did a 3 for £2 offer on some arts and crafts materials which is where I got the chalkboard and sticker books from.

We get the Thomas magazines sometimes and they have a reward chart section that DS really enjoys. We don't really do it as a reward chart but make more of a game of it. There are tasks like "name 3 green foods for Toby" or "sing a nursery rhyme for Percy" and for each task you get a sticker. Anyway, I was thinking of making my own game like this and tailor it to our trip, especially for the ferry bit so we can go on a kind of treasure hunt.

Of course, I probably won't get round to it and will probably just buy another Thomas magazine but thought I'd mention it anyway!

It isn't very small but one of these is great for planes, cars etc as they can't drop the pen/sit on the crayons and melt them/run out of paper. The Tesco one is only £4.

Born - Avoid chalk if you can the dust is a nightmare and sticks to everything !
The small aquadraw mats are good. Or the crayola magic draw stuff - no mess but don't get the glitter glue pen stuff. The reusable stickers are great - We stick a whole load on the seat back and then play the find the xxx game ...When it is found it then gets stuck on mummy or her younger sister and usually this lasts for a good 10-15 mins.
Drinks cups with straws in them . Small magnet jigsaws are also good .

I've been stocking up. I got lots of books, (lift the flap and story hairy mcclairy) little board books in box, wind up mini thomas the tank, crayons and paper, small aquadraw, stickers, i teddy and if all else fails portable dvd with gruffalo dvd.

All this accompanied by raisons, bread sticks, oat cakes and fruit bars.

Took all this last year aswell and he fell asleep two minutes into dvd and did't wake till we started landing. Don't want to jinks it by not being prepared this time!

Wow! Thanks for the feedback...better get collecting / shopping!

Rosa, thanks for the tip! I might save the chalks for when we get there...

Cheekychopsmum, what's an i teddy?!

I forgot to mention that we are also borrowing a portable DVD player and I'm going to stock my iTouch with apps, podcasts and videos but I'll try and keep these back for emergencies!

An i teddy (as seen on Dragons Den) is a teddy with a mp3/mp4 in it's tummy.

DS got one as a present a while ago and it's quite good. I'll just take the mp3/4 out of the teddies tummy so it is more portable. DS (2.5) has figured out how to turn it off and change what he is watching, so he feels very in control of it which he loves.

I've put a load of stuff I downloaded off 'you tube' (peppa pig, pingu etc).

I has come in handy on long journey's but I probably wouldn't have purchased it myself (because of the cost).

I'm sure you can use your i touch in the same way.

We did a 6 hr flight at Xmas with our 2.4 DD. We had a few new sticker books which she loves, A colouring book with a few crayons, the portable DVD player with assorted Peppa pig/Shawn the sheep DVD's plus a couple of mini pots of play doh with a few shape cutters. Second lots of snacking as well. it's only a couple of hours so that should be plenty to keep them amused.