Why Painter’s Tape and Post-Its Are the Real Allstars of Family Travel Fun

The Real Allstars of Traveling With Kids: Painter’s Tape and Post-Its

Have you ever thoughtfully packed activities for a family trip that the kids barely touch? Or do they get bored within five minutes? It’s happened to the best of us. There’s only so much you can bring on a trip, especially with kids. But it also pays off to bring things to keep kids occupied. Here’s a simple idea that can help with this what-to-pack conundrum: bring items that have multiple (or even endless!) uses and have some ideas in your back pocket for how your kids can use them. The simpler and more basic the play thing, the more ways it can be used by your kids. Sometimes the best things to bring aren’t even toys or even intended for kids. This is why we think that painter's tape and post-its are the real allstars of family travel. The great news is these items are cheap and you might even have one or both of them already. We’ve got lots of ideas for how to use these travel allstars for kids of all ages:

Painter’s Tape or Washi Tape 

Painter's tape or washi tape comes in handy during travel for ripped pages in a book or labeling your kid’s packing cubes. It’s a quick fix for toys and tears. It also comes in handy for hanging up kids' art while you’re on the go to make your travel accommodations feel more homey. But the best thing about tape is how it can entertain kids for hours. Here are some simple ideas to get your kids going:

Toddlers:

• Stick and Pull: Give a toddler a piece of tape and let them go wild sticking it to different surfaces and then pulling it off. They can stick it on a window, chair, stuffie, table, even themselves! Use larger pieces of tape (4+ inches) and keep a very close eye on the toddler. Skip this activity for toddlers who can’t keep it out of their mouth.
• Tape Escape: Gather small items (animal figurines are fun for this) and tape them to a window, seat back, tray table, floor, or wall. You can tape them with one piece of tape for less challenge and multiple pieces of tape for more challenge. Then let your toddler help the items “escape” by pulling them out from under the tape. Many toddlers (and even preschoolers) enjoy multiple rounds and some kids can even tape the items up themselves.
• Stick Around: Wrap painter's tape loosely around a water bottle, tall cup, or other kid-safe cylindrical item. Invite toddlers to pull it off and tape it on again for another round. If that’s too tricky (or sticky!), then try this variation: put a variety of pieces of tape on a surface like a wall, window, seat, or tray table and have the toddler pull off each one and stick them all together in a pile. Then repeat. If you have multiple colors of tape, have your toddler sort the pieces by color. Press the tape down harder for more of a challenge.
• Tape Roadways: Transform masking tape into a mini roadway by simply drawing dashes down the middle. All you need is a couple matchbox cars and an airplane tray table, a restaurant table, floor, or any flat, clean surface. Make the road twist, turn, and intersect. Tape the roadway through a toilet paper tube to make a tunnel. Kids can add buildings along the roadways with mini milk cartons or small cardboard boxes. Don’t forget the parking lots – lots of kids get a kick out of lining up cars in parking spaces.  

We recommend washi or painter’s tape specifically because it is less likely to leave a residue on surfaces, but masking tape will work in a pinch. Just be sure to not let the masking tape sit in direct sunlight, high heat, or for more than a couple days. Washi tape can also work but sometimes doesn’t stick as well to a variety of surfaces.

Pre-K and Kinders:

• Sweep It Up: Mark a square on the floor using painter’s tape. Challenge the child to “sweep up” loose parts, colored pencils, legos, or other small items into the square. They can use a dust broom, spatula, or even a book or folder to “sweep.” Hot tip: this also works for actual floor clean up – make it into a game and they might not even realize they’re cleaning up!
• Jump the Lines: Are the kids bouncing off the walls in the hotel room or airport? Contain the energy with this gross motor activity. Tape a line or series of lines for the child to jump over. Try it with both feet, on one foot, or backwards. Increase the distance to make it more challenging. You can also test to see how far the child can stretch their legs or reach toes to finger tips and mark it with tape on the wall or floor.
• Obstacle Course: Take the previous activity to the next level by setting up a painter’s tape obstacle course. Make a straight line for a balance beam, zig zag lines for weaving back and forth, short lines for tip-toeing, arrows to show direction, and throw some pillows in the mix for kids to jump over. You can stretch the tape between chairs or between hallway walls for kids to crawl under or hop over. Let the kids be in on the process. The possibilities are endless!
• Sticky Experiment: Place a piece of tape sticky-side down between two chairs or between the armrest and seat back on an airplane. Gather a variety of small items. Let your kid stick each item to the tape to see how long they stick. Invite your child to make a prediction (hypothesis) about which item will stick the longest. Use your phone timer to measure how many minutes or seconds before each item falls off the tape. You can make observations, record the results, and ask: why do you think each item stuck as long as it did? Try it again to see if the results are different and ask why that might be. This is a great STEM activity to keep them inquiring like scientists while traveling! Another variation: use the same tape and try to balance as many small items as you can on the top of the tape (non-sticky side).

School Age:

• Tape Target: On the floor, tape three or more concentric squares for the target (we suggest squares because they’re easier to tape than circles). Label the squares with point numbers with the most points on the innermost square. This could be 3, 2, 1 for younger kids or 30, 20, 10 for older kids, but feel free to customize. Then make a line of tape to show where the kids should stand. Toss something soft like a rolled up sock, small bag of fruit snacks, or small stuffy to score points. For an added challenge, try this with paper airplanes!
• Indoor Hopscotch: Keep it old school with this simple game. Use the tape to mark out the hopscotch board. Painter's tape works on carpet as well as hard flooring so this activity can hold up for the whole trip. Can’t remember all the rules? Click here for a refresher.
• Tape Weaving Challenge: If you have at least two colors of tape, kids can try this criss cross tape weaving challenge. The results are beautiful and it’s worth the challenge. That said, it’s tricky (and sticky!), so maybe save this one for older kids with good fine motor skills.
• Resist Art: Grab some cardstock or sketchbook paper and apply the tape to create sections on the paper. Then paint the different sections with watercolors. Once it’s completely dry, carefully peel off the tape for the big reveal. Wanna skip the paint for a car/bus ride or flight? Try the same approach with colored pencils or crayons. Just be sure to completely fill in each space so you can really see the beautiful design the tape leaves behind. You can also mark out letters, shapes, numbers or even your child’s name with the tape and then color the paper around it. 

All Ages:

• Color Hunt: Hide various small pieces of tape all over your hotel room or a room in the rental home. Ideally, use multiple colors of tape so each kid can have their own color to find. This game works well with various ages of kids because you can easily adjust the level of challenge for each kid. Hide a toddler’s colored tape in easier to find places down low and an older kid’s colored tape in trickier spots higher up. Tape a square on one of the walls for each color of tape you use. As the kids find their colored pieces, have them tape their pieces in the corresponding colored square on the wall, trying to cover as much of the square as possible. Then the tape is all in one spot and doesn’t get crumpled up or left on the floor. Play multiple rounds with the same pieces of tape. Once you have the basics laid out, encourage school age kids to run the game themselves by taking turns hiding the tape pieces. And if you have an agreeable teenager who is willing, let them run the entire show and you and the other grownup(s) can kick back while the kids play. 

Post-its

Post-its: friend or foe? It’s true that it can be maddening when kids get a hold of your stack of post-its and stick them on every surface in the house or leave them in a pile on the floor. But kids usually just need a couple of basic ideas for how to use post-its in more creative ways to put them to better use. The bonus is that these activities can occupy kids for quite a while! Here are some ideas to get you going:

Toddlers:

• Open-ended Post-it Play: Just let babies and young toddlers go to town with post-its! Show the child how to peel them off, stick them to any old thing, and peel them off again. Put them at varying heights so the child has to stand up and reach for some and squat down for others. Let them experiment with sticking them on different materials like a water bottle, window, stuffie, shirt. It’s amazing how engaging this can be. Pro tips: this activity works well in a contained space like an airplane seat or car seat. Limit the number you give them for an easier clean-up.
• Color / Shape Sort: Draw some basic shapes in different colors, one on each post-it. For example: blue triangle, blue circle, blue square, red triangle, red circle, red square, yellow triangle, yellow circle, yellow square. Invite the child to sort by color and then by shape. You can also switch it up by doing letters, numbers, or other simple drawings.

Pre-K and Kinders:

• Post-it Puzzles: Arrange nine post-its into a square with all sides touching but not overlapping. Draw a continuous picture across all nine post-its and then scramble them and see if your little one can piece them back together. Give hints as needed. Post-its are perfect for this because they won’t slide around. See if your child can make a puzzle for you to put together.
• Letter Play: Write the letters of your child’s name on mini post-its. Let them make their name but putting them in the correct order. Depending on their skill level, try this with other simple words and even word families (pat, cat, sat, hat, mat, etc.).
• Memory Match: Lightly draw a letter, number, shape, or simple image on the non-sticky side of a post-it (lightly in pencil or crayon so you can’t see the image through the other side). Stick the post-its drawing side down in an array and take turns trying to find matches. Switch it up by making a set where the matches are a number numeral to a number of drawn objects, a capital letter to its corresponding lowercase letter, or sight word to a picture of that word. This is endlessly customizable to your child’s skill set and half the fun is making it together!

School Age:

• Post-it Origami: A pad of large square post-its is the perfect origami paper on the go! The sticky part of the post-its can make this a tad tricky but the upside is that the sticky part can also help folds stay in place or to help one note stick to another. You can try this star, a simple crown, a bouquet of flowers, mini envelopes, or any other origami design.
• Math Match Up: Write out equations on one post-it and the answers on another. This can be a great way of learning more about what kind of math your kids are working on at school. Have kids match them and write their own equations for you to solve. You can also give them an “answer” on one post-it and ask them to write three different equations that equal that answer. Brownie points for multiple operations!
• Flip Book Animation: Use a pad of post-its to make a mini flip book. Draw one simple image on the first post-it and modify the image slightly (just a tiny bit!) on each following post-it. Each change to the picture must be very small and incremental for it to work. Do the drawing on the part of the post-it furthest from the parts that stick together so it’s easier to see. Your mini-movie can be a simple stick figure jumping, a firework going off in the sky, or whatever you can imagine. You could also make a flip book to write a special message to someone. Write one word on each note and make sure to write quite a bit so that your mini-movie isn’t over in a flash. Check out this link for a how-to video.  

The activities listed here are some of WeeWander’s favorites, but the play possibilities for painter’s tape and post-its are endless! You kids can come up with their own games and activities.