...and drawing, coloring, and more
When schools closed, my kids shouted “Hooray!” and I could understand. No more getting up early or eating breakfast in a rush, and more time to play. The next thing they said was, “But how are we going to learn about New York and London?” Really?
They were supposed to find out more about both cities and compare them at school, they had lots of questions ready, especially about New York, where they’ve never been. So to assuage the disappointment we gathered all our travel books so that we could learn about these cities, and also do some writing.
About traveling
I always look forward to a fun vacation, that chance to take a breather and come back home with lots of good memories.
When we go on holidays, we get a break from our everyday life and enjoy the novelty that comes with a change of scene – different food, weather, language, you name it.
And when it’s over, we may scroll through our photos, look back on our holiday, and look forward to our next escape.
But what happens when traveling is not an option? We can always daydream… and learn more about different parts of the world. So the first question would be: where would you like to go? Or, what part of the world would you like to find out more about?
What we did
We got together all our travel books, and did lots of reading. We also went on YouTube – Expedia has great short videos on major cities and regions.
We started with some art: what were their favorite landmarks in each city? I asked them to draw a picture of them. Then, I wrote NYC and LONDON in chunky letters and asked them to decorate them however they wanted. They chose a collage technique combined with drawing – they sketched some popular landmarks inside the letters. We also did some city puzzles we had at home.
After that, we wrote a story where a character travels to one of these cities. Having learned so much about both, they could include lots of fun details about London and New York.
They also had a chance to write a postcard (I’ve included a printable one in case your children want to write a postcard from a pretend trip to a city of your choice).
Finally, I asked them to write down some of their favorite landmarks and we worked on alliteration: Epic Ellis Island, Marvellous MoMA, Busy Buckingham Palace and more (you can see the pictures at the bottom of the post).
They had so much fun doing this that we decided to “visit” Paris next. We found a beautiful and inspiring map to colour, which you can download for free from The New Voyager’s website here.
Questions for little travel writers
The following questions may help you get started if you choose to write a story:
Why did you choose this place?
How did you (or your character) get there?
What aspect of it did you like the most? (weather, food, wildlife, etc.)
Do you speak the language of the place? If not, did you learn any new words?
What would you put in your suitcase to go there? What would you bring back? Did you have a favorite landmark?
If your kids want to have a go at “writing from abroad”, you can make your own postcard or download this one.
Happy writing!
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