See How Easily You Can Make Your Grandkids Smile Even When They’re Sick

Sick days and rainy days can sometimes spell “blue days” for grandkids. My east coast grandkids and I enjoyed some “sick time ” together last week. With each child plus grandma taking turns at being sick, our long walks, bike rides, and playground visits were off the to-do list for a while.

Grandson Big-Bro came up with a fun idea that helped keep us busy throughout the week. We had a “paper airplane extravaganza.” Whichever grandkids were well on any particular day had a blast accumulating several, as fast as grandma could fold. Sick little ones got such sweet smiles on their faces, in spite of their nausea, as each new paper airplane design landed on their laps. Grandson Big-Bro got so enthused we had a great time discovering new sites and new variations and even came up with one or two of our own (though I’m not sure we could ever replicate those ).

These paper airplane plane designs are fun for homeschooling projects as well. They can help turn critical thinking skills into a fun educational experience.

10 Paper Airplanes – This is my all time favorite site for paper airplanes. As you might guess, there are 10 designs ranging from easy to hard. I must admit, I am not very good at making the harder airplanes, so we went with easy and a couple of mediums. My grand-twins and I shared the same favorites: Arrow, Dart, and Moth. I love that this site has little animated directions that help you see how to fold them. Even a klutz like me can make some great flying planes!

Fun Paper Airplanes – I loved that this one had the designs available to print out. It made it really easy for me to figure it out. There weren’t as many choices and my grandkids liked 10 Paper Airplanes’ designs a little better so this was my second favorite.

The DC-3 of Paper Airplanes – This was the hardest one we tried. My grandson fell in love with this one but I never did get past step 14. I just couldn’t figure out how they were turning certain sections. Grandson Big-Bro took the half-folded plane, played with it, and figured out a way to make it fly. It’s not the same plane but he sure loved it! Great lesson for both of us that things don’t always have to be perfect in life to be enjoyed! Needless to say, I was very proud of him!

U.S.S. Enterprise + – Finally, in honor of the new Star Trek movie that just came out, that I’m DYING to see, I just discovered the directions for some incredibly great paper airplanes that look like they may be fairly difficult to make, along with designs for the U.S.S. Enterprise. I am including them for all the older grandkids and Trekkers everywhere, not to mention all of us "of course we're not aging" Baby Boomers Generation . The sites for some are Japanese but it looks like they are using wordless directions. I’ll be showing these to my grandkids and bookmarking them for when they are much older. If any of you get brave enough to try them, do let us know how you like them.

If you get a good photo of the finished (or even half finished) results of any of these paper airplanes OR if you have a great site I missed, I’d love it if you’d send it to my email for a future article. Kaye@SandwichINK.com

And if you'd prefer a little extra help, Amazon has a terrific selection of books that can teach you how to make paper airplanes for kids, including the Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes which has several cool paper airplanes preprinted in it.

If you are looking for fun activities for grandparents and grandchildren, these should give you a flying good time! Enjoy.

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Tagged as: activities for grandparents and their grandchildren, building cool paper airplanes for kids, granny nannies, simple paper airplanes, The Baby Boomers Generation, the sandwich generation issues