Toys For Entertaining Travelling Toddlers & Children in Restaurants & Hotels Improvised

How do you keep your little ones entertained when travelling? You are waiting for your first course or main course to be served in a restaurant. Or you are in your hotel or self-catering suite, waiting for an important phone call. You want the children to be quiet but happy.

Cat's cradel picture from Wikipedia.

String For Cat's Cradle

We gave three children aged 3, 9 and 11 a book each. The books were wrapped in discarded brown paper and tied with old plain colour string. I was embarrassed not to have fancy coooured paper and ribbon. However, the 11 year old girl immdiately used her string to start cat's cradle and eave patterns on her fingers. The other two children wanted to be shown by her how to do it. That kept all three of them entertianed for 15 minutes until the food arrived.

The moral is, save a piece of string in your bag to creat a game. If you have two children, they can entertain each other with copying and competing.

Paper Fortune Teller

The one most people know is the fortune teller, made by folding in the corners of a swuare, turning the paper over, folding in the corners again. Draw numbers on the four top visible corners. 

Underneath write the question, or answer, or a good fortune prediction.

Children can decorate the top four corners.

From Wikipedia.

Paper Napkin Origami

You can use the white paper from envelopes thrown in the waste bin, or used to give you information on the hotel or conference centre. Or a spare paper tablemat for children in a restaurant. You will find instructions on the internet if our hotel or restaurant has a connection.

If not, you can download an instruction, printing at home or in the office.

Learn how to make simple paper folds. 

 A DIY Dolls House

You can improvise a dolls house from a shoe box and a tote bag. 

DIY Dolls House Furniture

A box from a free pen, made a a miniature sofa-bed for a Fisher Price dolls' house which had no funiture. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

A case for a pen (a free gift from Jiva Hoa Lu Retreat, Vietnam) opens up to make a miniature sofa.

Hoa Lu means flourishing capital. Hoa Lu is a former capital of Vietnam.

The small box in the bathroom or from previous trips makes a small suticase or delivery package.

Key Rings

The doll on a key ring (detached from the key ring) inhabits the house.

The car on a key ring (detached) becomes a car outside the house.

Flowers & Bases

Tiny artificial flowers from a corsage make a vase of flowers, or a plant plot. 

A thimble makes a plant pot or vase., or hem

Small coins make stepping stones on a green paper lawn.

Toothpicks make walking sticks ski sticks or broom handles.

An old toothbrush head makes a broom, or brush for a dustpan and brush. 

Dental floss makes a washing line in the bathroom or hangs teeny curtain, or xmas decorations from sparklers.

Christmas Cake Toppings

Christmas cake toppings include trees for indoors or by the front door or beyond the window.

A postcards of a hotel can go behind a window to provide a street view. when viewing the house from indoors.

A wine bottle cork maes a stoool or table covered with a teeny piece of fabric, such as an old handkerchief or hem of a skirt, or the end of a long tie belt. For stability, glue a coin under the cork.

A parasol from a cocktail makes as umbrella or a garden umbrella..

See later post on March 5th.

Improvising on a Working Holiday - from speech note cards to sewing thread

Problem
How do you improvise on holiday? Improvise notecards for a speech, sewing kit, dictionary.

Answer
Necessity is the mother of invention. Here are my hacks (hacks is an Americanism - in Britain we say tips).

Story
I was in a hotel in Wales as a spare partner when my husband was on a business trip. I am left in an isolated hotel room for hours and want to plan a speech. I have no card index cards. The shop has only drinks, clothes and Welsh souvenirs.

I created cards by cutting up all the white card I could find. I raided the waste paper basket, looked in the desk drawers, and searched my own and my husband's possession for white paper.

Tips

Writing Paper/Notecards
Sources of white paper:
Hotel notices -
daily newsletters,
Letter welcome Mr and Mrs so and so
the back of the key card holder
Free envelopes
out of date magazines with a page which is half blank
white card from new shirt
lower half of laundry list or returned laundry list no longer needed
ask hotel reception for used envelopes, scrap paper
back of paper bag
discarded packet from take away (Americans say take out) food.

Use pencil from hotel, or ask for one, and use item on desk top or magazine to create straight lines.
Draw lines along paper to create lined paper.
Draw lines for margin.
Draw line for frame
Draw line under headline or date.
Photograph your notes on your mobile phone as a prompt in a later meeting.
Email it to yourself for a permanent record.

How to cut
Fold thin paper over desk top edge. Reverse paper and crease the other way.
Draw line along fold.
Or keep folding until crease breaks or is weak enough for you to tear neatly.
Place heavy object such as a book or directory over paper to prevent the tea going diagonally across the area you wish to preserve.
Cut with scissors, nail scissors, or borrow scissors from reception. If they won't fetch scissors, ask them to cut the paper for you. (Choose non busy time. If you have time, chat to them first.)

Card Index cards
For notecards for speech or address cards
Copy any address card your already have.
Use a needle or safety pin or tip of pair of scissors to make holes on top right of cards.
Link cards with dental floss or plaited cotton from sewing kit.
Pull thread from free airline socks - you'll get another pair on the way home, won't you!
Use the blank backs of address cards to make notecards for speeches.
(If you really need the address cards, you can photograph your notes and keep the cards as address cards later.)

Sewing kit
Ask housekeeping or reception at hotel for thread and needle.
Use your hair or dental floss for cotton. Borrow a needle from housekeeping or another guest.

You need only three to ten cards for:
Speech outline
Shopping list
Language translation dictionary (1 Dates 2 Greetings 3 Illness 4 Menus 5 Numbers 6 Prices 7 Questions 8 Times)
You don't need to know how to say all these. Just ask the receptionist or a fellow guest or the concierge or a bored waiter to write down the words. Then point to them later when you need them.



(Not destroying anything vital, only items which are dated and will be thrown away.)