Recently we took a long vacation to Florida (read all about our adventures in Siesta Key and Walt Disney World!). Before we went
the Easter Bunny brought Travel Journals for the kids. The teacher in me wanted to try to make our trip somewhat educational…so why not get them to do some creative writing and drawing while we were on vacation?!? They loved their journals, and were so serious about documenting their adventures. I loved watching them work on them…both while we were in Florida, and when we came home. I can’t wait to show these books to them again when they are adults, hopefully they will be a treasure for them when they are older.
Travel Journals for Children:
The Travel Journal is also a great place for storing/sharing all the little odds and ends the kids pick up during trips…the brochures at every single place we visit, the map of every theme park we went to, the post cards they picked up at the gift shop and all the other mementos they want to keep. I was glad that Easter was before Spring break this year, so that I could have a “travel” theme for the baskets and buy things that were useful for our upcoming vacation.
Here’s what the Easter baskets contained: a personalized journal, colored pencils, sunglasses, a bright green shirt (because I like to color coordinate my kids when going to crowded places so I can spot them easily), a doodling book and few other small items to entertain them on the long car ride to Florida.
The materials for the Travel Journal project are simple, and it can be as cheap or expensive as you’d like. I opted for cheap, and bought them each a composition notebook, colored pencils and tape. And then I found some scrap-booking supplies on sale for them to use…perfect little pockets and such. I also dug out some of my own scrap-booking stickers for them to use. You could really go all out with this project and get your children a bunch of scrap-booking supplies, but I wanted to keep it pretty simple. For me it was all about their writing. While they worked I kept reminding them to write stories and not just tape in the pictures.
The Travel Journal project was a great learning experience for them, and I plan to do the same thing on future trips. (Side note from 2016…it’s now a year later and Henry still pulls his journal out to show people our trip). Here’s a few pictures of the Travel Journal project:
Another writing idea for young children is the Summer Journal, read about those in this post. How do you make sure your children keep learning even when they are not in school?
