Paper Airplane Landing Strips

I have been pleasantly surprised at how much fun my boys have been having making up paper airplane games lately. I love these kind of old school, quick indoor activities that kids of all ages (even those who need a little help with the folding) can enjoy.  In fact, making and flying paper airplanes has been such a runaway hit in our home I thought I'd share with you 3 of the landing strips they invented to enhance their play.

It's kind of amazing how the normally squabbling brothers have been cooperating, organizing flying experiments and scientific comparisons, and most impressive to me, they have been getting creative with landing strips. (Note: this post contains affiliate links.)

I last wrote about paper airplanes when I describes what a perfect play date activity it was for my older son and our downstairs neighbor. This past snow day the two of them made a few more from the fantastic Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes, which has superior instructions and trouble-shooting advice, BUT what has really gotten my two sons to have brotherly bonding time has been our Paper Airplane Fold-a-Day 2015 Day-to-Day Calendar!!

Every morning we fold the airplane of the day (we are going to have quite the collection by the end of the year) and give it a test drive before leaving for school. Then, almost every evening a big chunk of time is spent flying the new plane against the previous ones.

If your kids are paper airplane nerds like mine, encourage them to make a landing strip.

Here is their butcher paper landing strip. If you don't have a big roll of paper, you need to get one! It comes in handy for so many activities! My older son wanted to put point values in the circles, but I have banned all competitive games for the time being because "friendly brotherly competition" always ends in screaming.

Blocks. (Kiddo used our Twig blocks) Gather up your blocks or LEGO bricks and design a fancy landing strip for your paper airplane games. I believe the stack of blocks is meant to be an airport control tower!

Use tape directly on the floor.  I've never had trouble removing painter's tape, but I don't recommend using regular masking tape.

No doubt your own kids can come up with their own unique version! Do your kids love paper airplanes?

Curious about our elaborate planes? They come from these two sources:

All month long we've been celebrating fun indoor activities with fellow bloggers. Find more quick and easy indoor activities this week on the following blogs:

• Coloring rocks via Betsy's Photography
• Numbers cereal sensory bin via Adventures of Adam
• Car track with painter's tape via The Jenny Evolution
• Best paper airplane to teach the letter A via Sight and Sound Reading. Get a printable to make a paper airplane
• Make cardboard cookies via The Gingerbread House
• Simple rice sensory bin (I used to do this all the time!!) via Barefeet on the Dashboard
• Squiggle Drawing from Study at Home Mama

See our previous indoor activity posts in this series:

• Pen and paper game: Dots and Boxes
• Active indoor game: Land, Sea and Air
• Indoor activities for tweens

Or check out our (recently re-organized!) gigantic list of indoor activities for kids, ages toddler to tween.

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