Flying with a toddler or preschooler can feel a bit daunting, especially on a long-haul flight when space is limited and boredom hits fast. But with the right airplane activities, travel games, and playful distractions, those hours in the air can turn into a chance to have fun and connect with your little ones. It’s why I’m so passionate about sharing games with parents and why I ended up writing the bestselling Airplane Games for Toddler and Preschool book.
This blog post shares a handful of the games from the book (the book also includes fun activities and challenges that you can do together from your seats). Over the years, travelling as a parent has taught me that the best airplane games for young kids age 2 to 4 are simple, screen-free, and don’t require much more than imagination.
It really is true that when little children are involved, simple games capture their imagination the most!
So, what do you play when you are trapped in your airplane seats? Here are my 7 favourite airplane game ideas. I hope they help make your travels a bit smoother. And if you do like the sound of the games, please don’t forget to check out the book. The activities in the book are great not just for travel day, but you can also use them when you get to your destination, at meals out or lounging by the pool.
It may well be the best thing you pack!
1. What’s Gone From the Tray?
This gentle memory game keeps little travellers focused. Start by placing a couple of small items from your bag – maybe a toy car, raisins, a spoon, a sticker, anything you have to hand – on their tray table. Show them the items clearly, then hide everything with a jumper or blanket.
While it’s covered, secretly remove one item and reveal the rest again. Ask your toddler or preschooler, “What’s missing?” and let them take a guess. Each time they get it right, increase the number of items to make it more challenging. When they’ve had a go, swap roles and let them remove an object while you guess.
2. Big or Little?
This is a wonderfully easy in-seat game that little ones pick up instantly. You simply say the name of something – a grape or a mountain – and your toddler decides which of the objects is big or little (ie, which is bigger than the other). So in this instance, a grape is little and a mountin is big.
You can start to make the game more challenging by choosing items that are closer in size – a wellie boot, or a book – and have a discussion about what you think is correct. “If it’s daddy’s wellie, that would definitely be bigger, but what about your wellie?’
Don’t forget to swap roles as they’ll enjoy coming up with their own ideas as well.
3. Try Not to Laugh
This one always turns a dull flight into a giggly one. The goal is simple: make the other person laugh while keeping your own face as serious as possible. Take turns pulling exaggerated expressions, inventing silly words, wiggling eyebrows, or quietly pretending to be different animals – anything you can do without disturbing other passengers. If someone bursts into laughter, they lose that round, and it becomes their turn to try to crack you. There’s no need to keep score; enjoy the silliness, let the laughter roll, and soak up the extra bonding time.
4. Jumbled Nursery Rhymes
Perfect for older toddlers who enjoy spotting “mistakes”, this game involves reciting a familiar nursery rhyme with one deliberately wrong word. For example, you might say, “Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as yoghurt,” and wait for your toddler to gleefully correct you with, “Snow, not yoghurt!” Another favourite is, “Humpty Dumpty sat on a chair,” which always gets a happy shout of “Wall!”
5. Acting Without Noise
One of you chooses an animal and acts it out silently – perhaps flapping hands like a bird, padding hands softly like a cat, or wiggling fingers like a spider. No sounds allowed! The other player guesses the animal, and then you switch.
Once you’ve run out of silent actions, change the rules and play the noisy version instead, where you make animal sounds only, and no acting is allowed. Young kids love the contrast, and both versions work brilliantly on a plane.
Remember that all these ideas along with dozens more game and activities to do on the plane, are avaiable in my book: Airplane Games for Toddler and Preschool
6. I Spy With a Twist
Traditional “I Spy” can be a bit advanced for toddlers and preschoolers when played with letters, so this toddler-friendly version uses colours and features instead. One person starts by saying, “I spy with my little eye something that is…” and then adds a clue such as “…yellow”, “…soft”, “…shiny”, or “…tiny”. Your toddler then guesses objects in sight until they get it right. If they get stuck, you can drop extra hints like, “You can see it near the window” or “It’s on your tray table”. Whoever guesses correctly chooses the next object. It’s simple, quiet, and surprisingly absorbing for little ones.
7. Odd One Out
Start by listing four things. Three of them will have something in common, and one will be the odd one out. For example, “Car”, “Train”, “Cat” or “Bike”. Your toddler or preschooler has to guess which is the odd one out and why, “Cat, because all the others are modes of transport”. They especially enjoy this game if you can make it personal – ie, naming teachers or children in their class, or presents they got for their birthday. As they get better at the game, you can make the options more complicated.
If you’ve got a flight coming up with a 2, 3 or 4 year old, make sure you check out Airplane Games for Toddler and Preschool for hours of fun on the plane (that you can also use at restaurants and around the pool)…..it may well be the best thing you take with you on vacation!
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