Mission: Keeping a toddler entertained on a plane

We got back from California on Wednesday, and although I plan to post some pictures from the trip, I wanted to post these first because I was really happy about how they turned out.

I stayed up way too late the night before, going shopping for supplies and then making a whole bunch of stuff to keep Jamie busy and happy on the plane. Thank you, Pinterest!
(Are you on Pinterest? Are you addicted? It's hard not to be, dontcha think?)

Here's the collection of stuff I bought/made for him to do.

This one I got from this blog via Pinterest.

A geoboard! I decided that for travel I would use a small corkboard instead of a wooden board because it was lighter, didn't have to be painted, and easier to get the push pins in. I wanted to use these hair bands I bought (at Dollar Tree) on it, but they didn't have enough stretch.

I got this one from the same blog here. I got the puffballs and the magnetic letter set (which I want to get more of) at Dollar Tree. I stinkin' love that place! I bought a package of magnets and the baking pan (0.97) at Wal-Mart, as well, and still have lots of magnets left over.

I like that the sides come up, as opposed to a cookie sheet, to keep things more contained. Jamie loved rearranging the letters, I spelled things for him, and we made letters out of the puffballs.

Be sure to look at the link, because this lady had lots more uses for the puffball magnets for her older kids!

You can also use the other side and the magnets as a nice hard coloring/stickering/painting/whatever surface!
Here's the funny thing. Jamie loved the magnets so much, I actually didn't get to try out most of the other stuff on him yet! Near the end of the trip TO Sacramento, he finally got tired of it and we put fish stickers (yay Dollar Tree) on a paper. On the way back to Phoenix, he got mad when I took it away when the plane landed, and he refused to get off! (It was past naptime.)

This one was my own idea. Empty wipes case, and I photocopied colorable pictures from the church nursery manual and added a set of Dollar Tree crayons.

I super-glued a clip (from a free magnet I got somewhere) to the back to make a good coloring surface.

I have to say, though, the crayons don't work very well, and the ink from the pictures smeared. I printed them from our home printer. So I've been thinking about lamination and dry-erase crayons, maybe using a commercial copier or something...let me know if you have any ideas!

Another of my own ideas. Some felt shapes stored inside the case...

I meant to get a picture of the back by itself--that big blue piece of felt (the sky) is glued to the back of the wipes case to make a felt board.

Here's another option. Still trying to think of more ideas for this one.

I really want to try to do more creative things with Jamie, and I've had some more ideas on how to expand the uses of some of these since I made them. Hopefully this is the beginning of a more fun mom!

***Edited 9/20/2012*** I noticed that this post has had over 600 views--crazy for my humble little blog, and obviously due to Pinterest. Please, if you like what you see, make a girl's day and leave a little comment. It would make me so happy to feel like I had made a difference to someone!