Nice to meet you virtually, btw!

Melissa (meltrier on rav/twitter)

The reason I was going to focus on nursery rhymes and such is that I’m terrible at making up stories! I wish I knew a way to work on that.

We definitely always take random cars, no favorites. But then we have a ton so that’s not hard to do :)

I thought of another idea — lacing cards, printed on cardstock, and then you can color in the picture. I got the idea from a recent post on the Ottobre blog.

So far I’ve avoided anything really small like Lego or beads in case they spilled and the kids had a fit trying to get them back. I wonder if there’s a way to do beads in some sort of container? The toddler does like stringing beads on pipe cleaners, we’ve done that once before!

I’ve also always snottily bypassed Color Wonder — but this might be the time to try it!

Thanks again everyone :)

I’ve gotten vinyl at Joanne’s. I also save the vinyl bags from sheets and comforters to use. I’m happy to give you some, you only need a square window, right? Small stuff: beans, bead store, buttons, playmobile toys?

Stringing beads on a pipecleaner is fun and color wonder stuff with no clean up is easy on a plane.

For nursery rhyming finger puppets, go easy on yourself! It is so easy to make up odd little stories with characters based on the happenings of the day or the lessons you want them to learn or what they inject themselves that its a-ok if you don’t remember the story behind the 3 Little Pigs. Example stories: the dragon who wanted to be a butterfly (don’t forget to name the hero after your kids) or the Owl who would only eat peanut butter.

My other tip is to wrap little things in wrapping paper to make them more special. Even snacks.