This week I am hosting the MKB Book Club discussion of Family on the Loose, a wonderful book about family travel by Bill Richards and E. Ashley Steel. Chapter 7 is about travel journals, which just happen to be an excellent language activity!
The traveling I did with my kids when they were young was to Spanish-speaking countries and was done with their language skills in mind. From the time they could write at all, I had them keep travel journals, not only as a record of the trip, but also as a way to use new language they were acquiring. As the authors point out, what a child takes away from a trip can be a function of how much they reflect and record in their journals.
I so wish I had had the suggestions from Chapter 7 of Family on the Loose for all those trips! The authors have a wonderful list of ideas for travel journals. There are prompts that are appropriate for children at different ages, and my children would have loved many of them.
We used traditional hard cover books, one of the options Family on the Loose discusses. Since my kids were young and the journals had lots of pages, we used the same journal for several trips. This was not a plan when we bought the books, but it worked out really well. As we were traveling, the kids liked looking back and I think they probably reread their journals more than they would have if we had used a different book for each trip.
The What to Write in the Journal section of the chapter has lots of wonderful ideas. Some of them, like drawing or collecting ticket stubs, maps, menus, etc., came naturally to my kids. Most of the prompts are not at all obvious, so of course I didn’t think of them. Now I would give anything to have my kids’ 6- or 8-year-old responses to prompts like:
– Describe one character you met that day.
– Make a list of things you would like to bring home with you. These could be works of art, food, ideas, phrases, or people.
– Describe the sounds you heard that day.
Family on the Loose also has great suggestions in the Alternative Ideas section. Again, I wish I had had this book when my kids were younger! Each of my kids went through stages where they would have loved the different formats the authors suggest. In particular, I think the Post Card Photo Album is a something almost anyone would enjoy making.
The focus of this chapter is travel journals for kids, but I would add that keeping your own journal is also worthwhile. Although at times it seemed like just one more thing to do, writing helped me slow down and process the experience we were having. Having a record also has come in handy as the trips start to blur with the years!
Do your kids keep journals when you travel? How do you inspire them to write? Do you keep your own travel journal? Please share your thoughts and ideas in comments and on the MKB Book Club Google+ thread.
Don’t forget to check out these other posts about Family on the Loose.
- Chapter 1 and 2: Dads the Way I Like It – Jan. 9
- Chapter 3: Discovering The World Through My Son’s Eyes – Jan. 16
- Chapter 4: Kids Yoga Stories – Jan. 23
- Chapter 5: MarocMama – Jan. 30
- Chapter 6: Spanglish House – Feb. 6
- Chapter 7: Spanish Playground – Feb.13
- Chapter 8: The European Mama – Feb. 20
- Chapter 9: Kid World Citizen – Feb. 27
- Q & A with Ashley Steel: Chasing the Donkey – March 6
You will also find an excellent collection of posts on family travel on the MKB Book Club Family on the Loose page. If you are a blogger, feel free to link up!
Aisha from expatlog
Feb 13, 2014
Sounds like a great book – my 8-y-o daughter has a flair for writing but I needed ideas to engage her interest and make it seem less like homework. This looks like it might have the answers!
Melissa
Feb 13, 2014
This really makes me want to take my oldest on a trip! She is just starting to write, so hasn’t journaled when we’ve traveled in the past but, llike you, I have found it to be such a wonderful way of processing and documenting a trip myself. I always added little bits from the day – tickets, receipts, new words from the day.
Using a journal or notebook when planning the day is great, too. I remember making a two page spread in my journal with little drawings of fruits and veggies and their Russian names before my first trip to a Russian grocery store, and then going back to them at the end of the day…Thanks for reminding me how much I love travel and travel journaling! 🙂
Julie A
Feb 13, 2014
My intention on our last trip to Europe with our 5 year old was to do a journal with her. Lots of family visits and a wedding kind of side-tracked that plan, but you have re-inspired me for this year’s trip! I love the idea of those prompts. Can’t wait to give this a try!!! Now to just save up for the tickets…
Julie
Ashley Steel
Feb 13, 2014
I love your photo of all the travel journals your kids have kept. It would be really fun to see more examples of things different people have done. One friend’s child made a nature guide during a trip – photos of leaves, berries, insects, animals, and then a whole book on the species, interesting facts for each one etc. I think that sort of detailed project is something that has to come from the child but the options are endless!
This last trip, I am ending up making the travel journal as a photo book. We didn’t really nudge the kids to write while we were in Thailand and I regret that now. We did have them answer a series of questions and I will include their answers and thoughts in the photo book. Traveling with teens is a whole new world 🙂 Thanks for a great post!
Jenny
Feb 13, 2014
I love the nature guide idea! You’re right that traveling with teens is very different. I don’t know about you, but I found myself letting them deal with everything and totally relaxing. Not only do can they carry their bags and mine, they hail cabs, get directions, choose restaurants and just generally move through space more effortlessly than I do. It pays to have dragged them around a lot when they were young!
Jenny
Feb 13, 2014
I know how those best-laid plans can go, but it sounds as if you have plenty of time for travels and journals. There are pages of prompts in Family on the Loose and lots of ideas for making journal writing fun. Looking back, I can’t believe how unoriginal I was, and how little help I gave my kids! One more things to do differently with grandchildren, should that day ever come.
Jenny
Feb 13, 2014
I like that planning idea! Wouldn’t that be fun as a family? Key vocabulary and drawings – it would work for just about any outing, and predicting what you will see and hear is an excellent way to process new language. Of course, we do this kind of things with classes before field trips all the time, but it never occurred to me to do with my own kids. Great idea!
Jenny
Feb 13, 2014
It is wonderful that your daughter has that gift! Good luck finding inspiring prompts and formats. There are lots of ideas in the book that I didn’t touch on in the post, and I am sure there are websites with suggestions too. It is definitely a talent worth cultivating!
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