Home Schooling on the Road: Ways to Educate From Anywhere

Welcome to the world of teaching! As many parents and guardians know by now, home schooling is a challenge, but it’s also an extreme pleasure to see a young person engaged and learning.

In case this idea works in your pop-up school and extended summer education, I want to share some tips about the Travel Project my eighth-grade students did in my French and Spanish classes. The project is so easily adaptable and could work for anyone.

My students chose a country that spoke the language they were studying and create an imaginary seven-day trip which could be presented as they wished: a picture album/itinerary/diary/ brochure/series of post cards or letters or a short story — a travel article, if you will, about the “experience.” Your kids could choose a country (state/city) relevant to class curriculum, a place they have already visited or one they want to discover, even a family member’s or hero’s homeland. How much information they find and how they present it depends upon their age, ability, engagement and interest. It’s also a great way to keep the kids having fun and engaged over the summer.

My students didn’t have the advantage of cell phone cameras, personal computers or even internet access; they photocopied pictures from books and manually cut, pasted and wrote about each picture: a label, sentence, paragraph or essay. Some created oral presentations or imaginative short stories (one teen was a fashion model on assignment, another a sport’s star on a traveling team). Your techy genius might be able to create a sophisticated PowerPoint presentation. However much or little they do, they’ll learn something about a place, its culture, geography, language, foods, art, sports, history and famous people.

Here are some ideas for “assignments.” Some kids can do them on their own with little supervision; for others, this is a one-on-one or team effort, perhaps with a sibling or sitter. Try for five of each category, if that’s reasonable, but one, two, three is fine. The idea is to engage your children, not to frustrate them.

Choose The Topic: Country (State? City?)

Capital City

• Find major sites: the capital, historic sites, a stadium, theater, museum, an architectural icon

Food

• Find foods grown, produced or found in/near the destination
• Find typical meals, ideally with those ingredients
• Find a cookbook about the country’s cuisine and a recipe, hopefully one you can make at home together
• Describe a meal; a birthday party, picnic, fine dining (from cookbook, restaurant menu etc.)

Baking Together. Photo: Fizkes | Dreamstime.com

Sports

• Discover the country’s most popular sport
• Find a sport similar to one that also interests your child
• Find major stadiums, top team rivals and the hometown team’s city
• Learn who won an Olympic medal or other major honor
• Find out what folks wear to play, when and where the sport takes place (country’s weather and climate)

Language

• Translate at least 10 essential travel phrases in the country’s language, for example:
  • Good manners: hello and goodbye, please, thank you, you are welcome, excuse me, and, “I would like … ?
  • Health: How are you?
• Numbers: one–20, 10–100 (by 10s), 1,000 and “how much is … ?” “where is?” “what time is it?”

People

• Find the country’s most important people: historic figures, artists, musicians, scientist, sports figures, or a famous person in an area that interests your child or you (encourage your child to learn about your interest in opera or marine biology; learn about a Pulitzer, Booker, Nobel, even a Grammy, Academy or James Beard award)
• Pretend to have met and interviewed the person and find out where they were born, studied, worked, describe major achievements

Resorts

• Find a place to go for fun, preferably a place where you could do an activity your kids enjoy, like ski or beach resorts; encourage them to identify the mountains and/or body of water for a little geography.

Adapt these suggestions to your family’s interests. Hopefully, something learned in this project will give your student a WOW! Perhaps, the place will soar to the top of your child’s or your family’s travel bucket list.