On the rare occasion when we had access to a printer, we added a few prints of favourite photos to augment other entries.Īnd then there were stickers-lots of stickers! We thought it would be fun to collect stickers everywhere we were and decorate the journals covers. Courtney always a sucker for a photo booth, insisted we add silly strips of photos from Palm Springs, Tokyo and Florence too. The kids enjoyed taping these items onto their pages with washi tape and soon we had entries full of everything from postcards to feathers, ticket stubs to bottle wrappers. We also looked for small souvenirs to place within them. Some of their finds fit neatly within the journals so we began making it a regular thing. I know Marlow and Quin are content to comb beaches for hours on end seeking the tiniest of treasures. Our kids – I think most kids – are innate collectors of bits. Scrapbooking was another favourite activity in our journals. Name and describe the animal, list its unique characteristics and tell us how you discovered it.’ ‘ Or, ‘On a trek through the Australian outback, you discovered a previously unknown animal. For example, ‘write an imaginative story involving the local animals, places and foods you have been enjoying in Sri Lanka. Like the regular entries, I found it helpful if I prompted them with questions or gave them a few parameters to work within. One of our kids’ favourite journal activities was creative writing. We documented things like their populations, official language/s, indigenous people, capital cities, main industries, interesting historical facts and sometimes just random or funny trivia – did you know the longest place name in the English speaking world is ‘Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu’ in Hawke’s Bay, NZ? Some of our maps focused on countries, others on cities or regions, but each highlighted the destinations and landmarks important to our journey.Īfter creating a map, our next entry was usually facts about the respective country. It was a fun a way for the kids to visualize and orient themselves in each new country, and a sneaky geography lesson. We all love maps, as objects of learning and beauty, so we decided a map of each country we visited would be a great addition to the journals. Who were they and what games did you play with them?’Īs time went on we discovered more creative ways to use their journals too. For example, ‘You spent seven days in Tokyo this week, how would you describe the city to your friends?’ Or, ‘You made some new friends in Pichilemu. I also discovered that their writing flowed more easily if I wrote out a few questions to prompt them. Mornings, we quickly learned, were far better than evenings for the kids’ concentration. Instead, we adopted a weekly, or semiweekly if a lot was happening, approach. Plus, there wasn’t always something memorable or interesting to write about. I was definitely asking too much of them. It took only two days to smash my delusions. I imagined them sitting around a cozy table each evening, teeth brushed and pajamas on, logging their adventures, thoughts and feelings from that day. When we started our journey I thought that the kids should write in their journals daily. We wanted to share some of the things we learned in this post. Thankfully they enjoyed the activity and over the course of the year we refined our journaling process, came up with several different activities for them and discovered the best materials to use. We decided early on that each would keep a journal as part of their homeschool. Journaling for the kids, on the other hand, was not optional. Courtney struggled to keep up a journal too, but argues that this blog is ours. I kicked myself for neglecting it but between homeschooling, planning our travels and helping out with this blog, I just couldn’t find the time to write. Mine, scrawled in A5 size notebook (a thoughtful ‘going away’ gift from a friend), lasted until about Chile and never really got much more detailed than a series of random notes. When we set out on our adventure, we all had ambitions to keep a journal. They are brimming with the thoughts, memories, drawings and keepsakes from a world seen through the eyes of an 11, 9, and 7 year-old. Our most cherished mementos, however, will be our kids’ travel journals. If we ever get through sorting and editing all of it, we’ll have some wonderful imagery to look back on. Over the past fourteen months of travel we’ve probably amassed 5,000 photos and 50 hours of video.
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