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Travel Wise with Children
My friend Suzann told me a story which illustrates many truths about traveling with children. When her now grown (and very successful) children were school age, she took them to the King Tut exhibit, then in Seattle. The magnificent displays were overshadowed by "This is soooo boring!" and "how much loooonger do we have to stay here?" Sound familiar? "I was just furious by the time we walked out, " she said. "My viewing had been ruined, and I knew they hadn't gotten anything out of it."
Wrong, she learned later. "Do you know that the following year, almost every report and school project they chose had something to do with that King Tut exhibit."
Many parents have had similar experiences, so it's important to keep in mind some basic travel truths as you wander through quiet museum corridors or along mountain trails.
The Truths of Traveling Wise
Take this With You!
Travel Truth #1 -- The whole world is your child's classroom.
Travel Truth #2 -- Traveling is one of the best ways to enhance your children's education.
Travel Truth #3 -- Children absorb far more information than we as parents realize (even when they're complaining.)
Travel Truth # 4 -- No child is too young to travel. You just need to be aware of age-appropriate destinations and expectations.
Travel Truth #5 -- Traveling need not be exotic, expensive, far-flung or elaborate to engage young, inquisitive minds.
Here are a few educational travel tips that will make trip preparation more rewarding and enhance learning opportunities.
Encourage Language Arts: Vocabulary
Traveling is a great way to increase your child's vocabulary. Make a list of new words and phrases your child might encounter on the trip. Include historical names, locations, animals, people and everyday words which might be unfamiliar. Have your child keep a list in her journal of new words and phrases that she learns. On the trip home, play games with her new vocabulary. What are some synonyms? Rhyming words? Take the longest word and see how many other words can be made from it.
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