Hello!

Before we became homeschoolers, I remember just trying my hardest to find a way to keep my kids quiet during long (and even short) family road trips.

 

Now just a note here, I STILL like to find ways to keep them occupied and quiet!! The major change is that as a homeschooling family, I like to try and introduce educational aspects into most areas of our lives, and travel is no different. The best part is that the kids don’t even realise they are learning and you don’t need to be a homeschooler to use these tips. Children, no matter what age can learn lots during travel and not only does it help expand their knowledge, most learning opportunities provide them with knowledge and memories they’ll cherish.

So how do you turn your Family Road Trip into an educational, yet fun adventure?

1. Give your children a travel journal.

Travel journals are FUN! This isn’t just for older kids either! Children of any age generally love to draw, write or share their own insights into their lives when given the chance to be creative, and while on holidays or family road trips, this is no different. There are lots of great options for kids travel journals, but it doesn’t need to be an expensive process. To keep things simple, our tips for creating a travel journal for your kids are:

  • Purchase a hard cover notebook from the supermarket, discount store or newsagency.  An A5 size is portable and a great size to have in the car.
  • Before you leave let the kiddos decorate their journal using stickers, protective contact book cover or any other way they like.
  • Guide your children with the types of things to record in their journal but don’t “enforce”.

 

Ideas for travel journal content for your kids:

 

  • Draw maps of places you visit, places you stay, even your holiday accomodation.
  • Draw pictures of places, buildings, attractions, wildlife and anything else they see.
  • Leave blank pages when they write about attractions etc so they can glue photos in when they get home.
  • Collect travel brochures and glue them in.
  • For older kids: Keep a daily journal of what they experience each day
  • Track Kilometres travelled each day along with times, fuel costs etc.
  • Anything else that may be of interest to your child depending on their age.
  • Pack a “journal kit” for the kids to use including scissors, pencils, glue etc

 

2. Track your travels on a map.

This is a really fun thing to do with children of all ages. Get a suitable map that shows both your home and your road trip destinations. Before you leave home, place a marker on your home town/city then, depending on the age of your children, help them to plot your travels on the map, or allow them to do it.

You can either do this as a family, or give the kids a map of their own. You don’t need to buy expensive maps for this, you can simply print a map out from the internet before you leave.

After or during your trip, for older children, this gives them to opportunity to research distances between towns etc. It’s also great for them to plot departure/arrival times, stop times and locations and fuel expenses. By turning this into a fun adventurous exercise this helps your child learn a whole range of life skills and mathematical skills without it being boring and mundane.

 

3. Give your children a camera or video camera to use.

Wondering how using a camera can be educational? This exercise is lots of fun for children of all ages.

Digital cameras work best of course (Not sure there are many people who use film cameras these days?). Not only does taking photos or videos allow your child to express their creativity, but it also assists them with language skills such as recounts (explaining something that’s happened or they’ve experienced in the past) as well as story telling, art and culture. Once you return home from your trip (or if you’re on the road long term, at any time) allow your child to create their own photo album, work with them to develop descriptions for each of their photos, or alternatively help them to create a collage using either just their photos, or photos, words, travel brochures etc to celebrate their journey.

This is only a few ideas of how your family travel experiences can be educational for your child. Of course researching places, people, animals etc that they have seen is a great way to broaden their knowledge and even if they don’t write it down, talking about it as a family is lots of fun and sometimes we underestimate the power of a simple conversation with our children and what they can learn from it.

 

Loreena Walsh is a small business owner, blogger, wife to Matt and Mum to Jackson (almost 9), Amahli (almost 7) and Byron (almost 5).  Loreena homeschools her children  and together they spend a lot of time travelling across Australia.  Loreena’s blog www.littleaussietravellers.com.au is her way of not only recording our past travels, planning and sharing our future travels but also inspiring other families to get out and explore this amazing country with their children. You can also follow Little Aussie Travellers on facebook or twitter.

 

We may get commissions for purchases made using links in this post. Learn more.
  • Everything nvolving kids should be made fun. Make it fun and they’ll learn from it

    Reply

  • Some of my favorite memories are road trip holidays with my sister and parents! We sang songs, played games, had a journal we wrote in every night about what we saw and did etc. I loved it and hope to recreate some of these experiences with my little family when y son is a bit older

    Reply

  • Never had the chance to road trip with the kids. Really hope to do some in my retirement years

    Reply

  • I can remember as a child going on school excursions, the other kids making a racket and not being able to hear what we were told and had to write an essay about. I didn’t want to go on the 2nd one and learn nothing. My parents decided to get the details of the 3rd excursion, did some research, got some maps and all of us went on a day trip. We wrote short notes about what we saw, copied the details on statues, monuments, plaques detailing the things we saw that had been officially recognised or opened at some time, took photos etc.. We learnt more in 1/2 day than I reckon we did on school excursions. We always took snacks and picnic lunch with us. That was part of the fun for we kids…… Years later I found out that the 4 of us and sometimes our neighbour who was a widow travelled for less than it cost for one on a school excursion. That meant more outings which we all enjoyed often in country areas we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to go to.

    Reply

  • I have read a couple of stories about families who have packed up their kids and their lives and hit the road. They’ve had an absolute ball travelling around visiting places. It made me wish we had done it with our kids,no many great memories made

    Reply

  • also what a great family photo lol. cheers

    Reply

  • This is interesting! Thank you for sharing this!

    Reply

  • Your idea of a road trip, or travelling even, is exactly how we are. We also homeschool our children, they love to learn, it is actually fun for them to be more knowledgeable about certain places, sometimes they get an extra boost of confidence when other people, especially adults – didn’t know things they do about towns we have visited… So everything we do has some sort of learning opportunity.

    Reply

  • wow i was thinking that you could get a huge world/australia map or globe and mark on it, the places that you have travelled

    Reply

  • Thanks for sharing; love a travel journal as it is such a great keepsake.

    Reply

  • For older kids the travel journal is a great idea and arm them with a camera – it’s all good.

    Reply

  • Love these suggestions. Going to try the journal and map

    Reply

  • A travel journal is a great idea. though you don’t want a family holiday to start feeling like a school camp!

    Reply

  • love the travel journal idea, I can imagine how much more fun it would make car times, and other times

    Reply

  • Great ideas – thanks for sharing!

    Reply

Post a comment
Add a photo
Your MoM account


Lost your password?

Enter your email and a password below to post your comment and join MoM:

You May Like

Loading…

Looks like this may be blocked by your browser or content filtering.

↥ Back to top

Thanks For Your Star Rating!

Would you like to add a written rating or just a star rating?

Write A Rating Just A Star Rating
Join