Elizabeth’s Blog

Go For It

Well, it is hard to believe that our year on the road is over. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience with more memories and adventures packed in than we could ever have expected. It is hard to figure out how to share our experiences with everyone. Just picking a few special memories seems too shallow.

What I would like to do is encourage everyone to get out there and create your own adventure in whatever way you can and to create your own family bond and treasured moments. At least in our case, our trip got us to break out of our routine life and stretch the limits of our imagination and comfort zone.  No matter how exotic or mundane our destination, it has been the bonding time and new experiences that matter the most.

On The Road Again

Currently I am traveling again bringing the kids to camp. There are several differences with this jaunt than our longer trip. While traveling this past year (except in August before we left) we did not have the packing up hassle of choosing what to pack every time we moved or crunch time that last few days before you take a trip is always a rush clearing up loose ends before leaving. The other thing I have noticed is how packed the US airports and how much more hassle there is to traveling. Originally we thought traveling out of the US would be more cumbersome but I think traveling here is more difficult.

Reality Strikes

The ability to spend ten months with my family not worrying about broken dishwashers, car pools, charity work, team sports, volunteering at the kids school, paying bills and managing a house was an incredible and highly unusual experience. What I found was the ability to focus on the kids, enjoy the moment with them and have relatively few distractions that pull me from the things that I love.  Being with my family and sharing time and experiences with them was truly special. What I realized is that all too often my life before was centered on managing activities which as often as not did not directly benefit my family.  Although the volunteer work was productive and helpful, it all too often it took me away from my family. I realize that there will always be pulls but I feel like I have been blessed with a treasured family-only time and now feel like I do not want to readily relinquish that bond. It will be interesting to see if we can simplify and streamline our hectic and busy life in a meaningful way.

Stuff

One think that has shocked me be back in Jamestown is all the ?stuff? we have. I have spent much of the summer cleaning out closets, cupboards etc. to eliminate the masses of clutter that seem to be part of our life. It never bothered me before we left but it since living out of eight suitcases I feel the excess to a much greater degree.

Somehow, the scale of things in the United States seems like a ?Super Size Me? from McDonald?s issue. Everything is too excess. I keep thinking about the houses we saw in Africa and India which are the size of my laundry room. They were 8×8 or 10×10 maximum. I walk up our staircase at our house and think about the fact that none of those houses even had staircases. The walls and roof were tin with holes, no heat or toilet was to be found and often they had no ventilation for smoke. In the US they talk about the ?family bed? but in those countries there are only one or two beds for the whole household. The contrast in material items is dramatic but how different are we really as human beings?

Education

Having gone into this trip with grave concerns about our ability to home school our children, I am exiting the year feeling exhilarated about what we did as teachers and how much the kids learned. Don?t get me wrong.  We had a few whining days where it was hard to get everyone motivated, but for the most part Gibson and Sterling were wonderful. I learned so much about each of their learning styles and interests. I have to say it almost inspires me to do another year. There are such great learning tools out there and if I had more time and more space (books were our heaviest and bulkiest item) I think there could be lots of other fun and educational topics to cover and interesting methods of teaching.

Who would have guessed that I would enjoy teaching? The schooling also kept the children and me busy and provided a wide variety of activities to do while we were in transit or on planes. They thus did not get bored just reading; they could jump from one thing to another and the time would pass quickly. It was also an intellectual challenge to me to figure out the upcoming assignments and correct the completed work. However, contrary to most people?s belief, the time entailed doing that was not overwhelming at all. Everyday they had several workbook assignments such as math and vocabulary that they did independently while I dealt with travel issues or prepared their other work for them. To my surprise it was not an arduous task. It did not take hours and it was fun to think up projects and figure out what would motivate them and strengthen their skills in various areas.

To sum up the teaching aspect of the trip I feel like the children learned things on a multitude of levels. They learned:

+ about the different ways people live, their cultures and life styles, houses, jobs, expectations and challenges

+ about the huge variety in the landscapes and land forms in this small world of ours along with changes that are altering it both by humans and by mother nature.

+to gain an appreciation of the animal kingdom, and their actions and habitat

+ to acquired a perspective of where the world is going, how it is changing and where it has been both culturally and politically.

+ lessons from history about where civilization broke down and kaios ensued.

+ to ask questions and become passionate about a subject.

+ from literature and how it can relate to where you are and enhance your learning.

+ a global perspective on issues and developed a person interest and relationship or reaction to current events.

+ flexibility and transition is ok and that the constant thing that is important is your love for family and the caring bond the provides security.

+ that other materialistic things are not necessary. You don?t need a house full of stuff to survive and that we actually need very little.

How my kids are different now ? they have a love and passion for nature, finding animals, and learning about them. Gibson has expanded his passion for research on animals and identifying them. Sterling continues to be the collector / gatherer of all things in nature. She has become even more of a voracious reader and can read with focus through any travel situation. Although my kids are shy when they first meet people, they are able to open up to others and ask lots of questions. They are curious and not afraid to ask tough and often technical questions. On the other hand they have not spent a lot of time with their peers and may be a bit behind socially. They are currently an interesting mix of highly aware of the world but less in touch with the newest toys, interests and activities of their peers. Unfortunately, to some extent, I am sure that they will catch up all too quickly.

How I am Different? My perspective on the world has changed drastically but I wonder if those who know me best will see how my soul has altered what a blossoming year this was for me. I want to thank my divine and loving husband for sharing this journey with energy, enthusiasm and wisdom.

Xoxo

Elizabeth

Well, as you know I am not a big blogger but I thought I should do a follow up from the fall and provide an update on our recent adventures.

Our New Zealand experience was wonderful and full of lots of nature filled adventures. It was a huge shock to go from India (3^rd world) to NZ (really 1^st world). No sacred cows roaming the city streets — only on the menus and behind fences in the pastures.

Our school work in NZ became more essays oriented. The kids wrote essays on all sorts of topics, most of which did not make it to the blog. Our educational ?field trips? included a highlight of taking a helicopter to the top of an active volcano and looking down into the cauldron. Then we had a children?s book author lecture on volcanoes and dinosaurs in New Zealand.

On the North Island of New Zealand, we had a wonderful guided tour of the Rotorua Museum and learned about the huge eruption that occurred there. The exhibit took one family and told about their experience — ironically it was the Hazard family. It is a small world. Unfortunately the Father and 5 of the children perished but the mother and one daughter survived and went on to start a school to educate the Maoris.

Other educational experiences were the Charles Darwin exhibit at the Auckland Museum which was perfect preparation for our Galapagos trip. Gibson?s interest in photography has blossomed this year and we were lucky enough to connect with a professional photographer who gave the boys a morning lesson. We attended a Maori performance and learned about their culture and the history in New Zealand. We were interested to see the arrival of the Beatles Music group on tour listed as one of the major historical events listed in one book.

Post NZ we arrived in Vancouver and officially started winter break for the kids. Yeah- schools out! The kids had a blast skiing in Whistler and then visiting my sister and family in Seattle. It was an opportunity for us to restock supplies, buy Christmas presents and generally get organized.

After New Years school resumed.  Since we basically completed most of the 4^th and 5^th grade requirements in the fall, we have had a chance to do some more creative school work. Some people will be bored with this school work summary, but it has been interesting for me to create the curriculum for this year and we spend so much time on school that it seems worthwhile reviewing it.

It was tough getting back in the swing of school in the Galapagos because we had such full days exploring with naturalists and learning about the area. However, I feel like we have settled back into our routine of 2 -3 hours of school a day 7 days a week. The kids are doing reports usually weekly (most are on the blog).

We started using a book called Writing Strands to continue improving the kids writing quality. Currently we are using lots of descriptions; recently Sterling described a lily and lily pad as looking like the top of a floating cupcake with a cherry on top — a description I love. Gibson described a lizard as the length of a new pencil, as thick as a glue stick and as heavy as a tube of toothpaste which really captured his size for me.

Both kids are doing a basic Economics workbook. It is a different way for them to learn about businesses and understand issues some of the crafts people and other entrepreneurs (including street peddlers) have to deal with. In Lima we noted what the street venders were selling at stop lights, everything from hard candies to packages of sewing needles. Each person decided what they would sell and how they would market it.

In vocabulary, we have continued using the Worldly Wise program and are expanding what they require with extra activities using the words. Both kids are also working on reading comprehension books which include root word sections. I also have a book on Latin and Greek roots and think this may be the way that I can finally include that.

Spanish is a big push right now. We are trying to have the kids at least comfortable in basic conversation. We have been using a couple of books but also working with guides and just trying to have basic conversations. Ted is quite proficient and the leader. I keep reverting to Italian.

Gibson is doing a book called Baseball Math — a perfect match for him. It uses baseball situations as word problems to solve math problems. Sterling is also doing a book of word problems. Each page takes a specific type of problem (i.e. long division, percentages),includes a story then poses word problems which the student must then solve.

One thing we did not have in the fall was a good spelling book. However, we found something that seems to be working really well now and I also have a new list of most frequently misspelled word that we are working our way through.

The first couple of weeks we mapped Central America and the major islands in the Caribbean. We start South America this week.

Now for the fun stuff. Field trips include: walks with a naturalist and native (the son of a Shaman) through the Amazon basin, studying the Incas and go to several ruins including Matchu Picchu. In Chile we took a tour of the world?s largest open pit mine and learned about processing copper, we floated in a pond seven times saltier than the ocean and learned you cannot sink in it — salt water is definitely more buoyant than water. We soaked in hot springs warmed by volcanoes and could detect the smell of the sulfur. We met with an astronomer and studied the stars in the area that has the clearest air in the world. We learned how salt marshes are formed and how salt leaches up from the ground turning the land white at Moon Valley. We also saw the area that 40% of the lithium in the world is located. For ?gym? we learned how to sand surf — Sterling has great form, Gibson has a future — Elizabeth does not!

Wow- it has been a busy January.

Finally, I just want to add that India was my favorite place until we went to the Awasi Lodge in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, located in the driest desert of the world. All of you who know me must be as shocked as I am to imagine that these two places have topped my chart. I hesitate to recommend these two locations because they are obscure but their natural beauty and warm hospitality awed me.

Well, here I am in Auckland- I know the movie was ?Sleepless in Seattle? but I am currently ?Sleepless in New Zealand? trying to get on the correct time zone.

We had the most wonderful time in India. I never would have guessed that our family would have been captured by its magic. We never really had an urge to go there and several times it was almost nixed from the itinerary. I am so glad we left it in!

New Zealand is total culture shock for us. No holy cows, camels etc. blocking the roads, no trash strewn areas, no street peddlers or beggars and no dust. It makes India sound horrible but it was not and we loved every minute of it.

Traveling in Bhutan and India was more challenging and the roads were much worse than any of our previous destinations, so doing school work in the car was difficult to impossible. One thing that Ted did on the bumpy roads was prepare a music appreciation class on classical music. They listened to a piece, rated it and then learned about the composer and what he was trying to express or how it fit into history. The highest ranking pieces were Beethoven?s 5^th and 9^th symphonies.

Reading

In Charleston the kids and I were part of a Mother / Son and Mother / Daughter book clubs. I had not realized how much I missed that format and group until our family all read a book and then Gibson led a book discussion on Dawa: The Story of A Stray Dog in Bhutan by Kunzang Choden. It is the story of an extraordinary dog that goes on a journey and finds enlightenment. It is Buddhism meets Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. It may be our favorite book of the fall.

Gibson continues to pour over every page of the animal guide books we get in each country. He knows every mammal, reptile and bird in Bhutan and India. Yesterday we picked up books on bugs, birds and mammal of New Zealand. He is disappointed that there are not many reptiles here and no snakes at all.

We continue to read both fiction and non fiction. Sterling read the diaries of the princess whose father built the Taj Mahal. They both read the story of her father and building the Taj. They also both read Gandhi and then the next day saw where he was shot.

The life of Buddha was helpful for them to understand the art in all the temples we saw.

We were given some Indian comic books that were folktales with a moral that were fun and different.

When we arrive in a new country the kids always read an article on proper etiquette and customs. In Bhutan they wrote spoofs on characters that did everything they should not do. They were very funny and quite irreverent.

Science

Unbelievably enough we found a great book store in Bhutan that had a series of science workbooks for kids. Sterling got water experiments and Gibson got how the body works. We have starting going through them. However, compared to everything else we are going they seem a bit mundane. It is a little hard to get energized about them when you are learning about tracking tigers and seeing their habitat first hand ? not to mention the actual tiger. Yesterday we went to the Auckland zoo with our dear friends Greg Neil and Jayne Tankersley (many of you may remember that they lived with us in Boston for four years while getting their masters & PhD?s and helped take care of Gibson and Sterling). Well, it was such a treat to see them moved home and now as amazing parents to three young children. It was a lovely day but the difference from seeing a cheetah lying next to the glass in the zoo verses even just a glimpse of a tiger after looking for it for three days in the wild is amazing. The tiger search was a huge adrenaline rush and you could see how people would get hooked on hunting for animals (with a camera). We learned about poaching, tiger statistics and how they are manipulated (sadly, over-estimated), park management, habits, personalities and diet.

Math

Ted continues to do ?Everyday Math? with the kids and we finished the Abeka Math books for grades 4 and 5. The kids are doing speed tests and Mathmania Puzzles until we get home at Christmas and get some new books. Although Gibson is now a wiz at metric conversions I would like to get a workbook for Sterling to use for next year.

Interviews

Our kids tend to be on the shy side with new people (I know that may surprise some of our long time friends). So we are going to have them do a series of interviews of people we meet. Look for some of their write ups in future blogs.

China / India

The kids are also in the process of writing a comparison of these two countries which are so different and yet so important to the world in the coming years. Their insights and understanding of these two cultures will help them as they grow up and hopefully make them more compassionate and informed citizens of the world.

Vocabulary and Spelling

We continue to do spelling tests and have vocabulary books and flash cards. I am always looking for fun ways to practice our words so if you have any suggestions, let me know.

Charities

We have seen so many great organizations this fall from Tasmanian Devil Rescue Centers to Aids Counseling Centers. We have asked the kids to choose three and write a description of why that organization deserves assistance.

Educational Field Trips

They continue daily. Highlights would include:

The Bhutan National Museum for costumes, weapons and artifacts housed in a Ta Dzong (watch tower)

Dzong?s of Bhutan. They are the forts/ monasteries with monks as young as 8

Jama Masjid ? largest mosque in India

Humayun?s Tomb- predecessor architecturally to the Taj Mahal

Bhangarh- abandon medievel town

Taj Mahal- I only need to add that Gibson lost a tooth there-

Agra Fort- where Shah Jahan (builder of the Taj Mahal) was under house arrest for the last years of his life

Tiger hunting with a naturalist for 3 days- we finally saw one on our last day

Pushkar Camel Trading Fair- complete with snake charmers

Walking down a street in India is a field trip and experience in itself.

Questions

If you ever read one of our blogs and have a question for the kids, please feel free to send it to us. If we do not know the answer, it will be fun for them to research it and get back to you. We love hear from our friends!

As a ?teacher? / Mom I was afraid that we might let the school work slip, either by getting lazy or being overwhelmed by the teaching process or travel pace. I am incredibly proud that after 10 weeks of travel we have not missed one day of school (7 days a week). On a rare occasion we have not gotten all the assignments done but we have been incredibly diligent and focused. The quantity of work completed astounds me. The thing we have not focused on is typing skills and a foreign language, either Latin or Spanish. If anyone has a recommendation on a great Latin vocabulary program, please let me know. It is something Gibson has expressed a repeated interest in but I have not found the right workbooks yet.

Newspapers

Newspapers are a luxury. When we do get them I love to read and cut out articles on places we have been, are going to, or are in the process of mapping. Yesterday we mapped Yemen and then I told them that the coordinator of the bombing of the US Naval ship had been let out of prison and then put back in prison after a protest from the US. There was another story about new automobile horns being sold in Hanoi that sound like animals (i.e. roaring lion, neighing horse etc). In a city of constant horn honking, this new product was not a surprise and we could understand how it would be a hit there. However, the article said people are getting frightened from the sounds and are sometimes having traffic accidents. The government is talking about outlawing them.

Mapping

We have continues our ?mapping the world? project. ?Baseball geography? has been a fun way to learn the locations. They get a single, double or triple depending on how hard a location they map correctly.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary has been a big focus. Gibson has a fantastic book, Vocabulary Building, in which each lesson focuses on a different subject area ranging from business to space to World War 2 etc. Sterling?s book does both phonetics and vocabulary. The non-fiction books we had on China, Vietnam and Cambodia had glossaries in the back and we turned them into flash cards. Our final resource for words is the little pad I keep in my purse. Whenever someone asks what a word mean,s I jot it down. The most recent words include some that would never be in a traditional vocabulary book. They were also brought up in some unusual locations including Hoa Lo Prison in Vietnam and the Opium Museum in Thailand. Here are some examples: mortar, pestle, initiate, obese, interrogation, addictive, diabolical, guillotine, propaganda, buttress, sedentary, produce, smuggle, heroin, opium, cocaine, provocative, riot, anomaly, congregate, conjugate, meteorologist, diversity, a la mode. You can see that a lot of heavy topics and issues are being discussed, but we do end up with learning about ice cream!

Writing

The kids are doing lots of writing assignments. Many of them can be seen on their blogs so I will not go into much detail. They love doing fiction stories set in locations we have visited. A highlight for them was writing the shadow puppet play and then acting it out. They have also written some funny stories trying to utilize as many current vocabulary words as possible.

Reading / Animal Husbandry

Their favorite Vietnam books were a series by Quang Nhuong Huynh and Jean & Mou-sien Tseng about Tank, a water buffalo, and his master, a small boy, during the Vietnam War. In Thailand, Sterling liked Silk Umbrellas by Carolyn Marsden. It is about a girl who learns from her Grandmother how to paint umbrellas. Her sister, who is not as talented as she is, ends up going to work in a radio parts factory. Boom the Street Walking Elephant was Gibson?s favorite fiction book (based on a true story and the fate of many elephants). It is about an elephant that is abused and has to earn money for his owner by working in a dump during the day and doing tricks outside bars and nightclubs all night.

By far Gibson?s favorite books would be the technical guide books we have gotten on shells, reptiles and animals in Asia. He pours over them trying to identify the last skink or shell we saw. He is writing reports on animals and trying to compose his own guide book because he is not happy with the ones we have. He loves to read and research animals as well as look for them on any walk we take, whether it is just around the hotel, or in a forest. Gibson is our research / photography hound and Sterling is our mighty hunter. She can catch anything. Together they are a ferocious combination for the poor tadpoles, hermit crabs, millipedes, frogs, lizards, and snails that they catch on a daily basis. They do nightly walks hunting for wildlife. Reptiles seem to be the most interesting species for the moment. We have a friend in the United States that is getting his PhD in Herpetology who is kindly consulting via e-mail and sharing his stories of traveling and collecting snakes.

Educational Experiences:

Aids Center in Ho Chi Minh City

Cu Chi tunnels from the Vietnam War

War Remnants Museum

Lacquer Factory

Marble Factory

China / pottery making village

Orphanage with Agent Orange children

Lake Tonle Sap ? saw boat people who may never go on land and who live in extreme poverty with terrible sanitation

River Kwai Museum and Cemetery dedicated to all POW?s and ?slaves? who built the railway

Received a blessing from a Buddhist monk

Learned how to train & bathe elephants

Well as you can tell, I am not the prolific blogger in the family. However, I did want to add some schooling updates.

In China we focused more on reading and writing (you can see some writing examples on their blogs). We had five work books on China and lots of other resources. Unfortunately we will not have as much great material on other countries until we reach India. Some of the topics we covered included: Chinese Magic #Squares, Chinese inventions, poetry, Chinese etiquette, history of the terra cotta warriors, Chinese folk tales, the Zodiac, oracle bones, bronze production, the spread of Buddhism, Chinese science advances, and burials traditions.

The kids read up a storm. I had some fabulous fiction books set in ancient times and during the Cultural Revolution. From the Dragon to the Eagle traces a bolt of blue silk on its journey along the Silk Road from China to Rome. Chinese Cinderella, in addition to the usual saga, describes a girl who helps some American pilots who were shot down over China after bombing Japan. Tiger is a story both kids loved about young kung fu fighters set in ancient China. Gibson read TinTin in Tibet. I do not know if he learned much from it but he giggled out loud when he read it. I also had several non-fiction books about China including: culture, history etc. By the end of our China visit, we had either mailed or given away all our China books and we were able to delete one whole suitcase!

In Hong Kong the first place we went to was Victoria Peak. In the mall (there are malls everywhere in Hong Kong) at the top of the peak we happened upon a Children?s Educational bookstore ? with every book in English! We bought a whole new batch of work books that are wonderful. We got books on grammar, vocabulary (we had just finished the Wordly Wise books), comparative religion for children, phonics and reading comprehension. I never expected to find so many perfect books ? we really hit the jackpot. Then Gibson and Sterling found a snake facts and activity book that they have had fun doing together.

Our mapping project is progressing. They can map all the countries and major bodies of water in Asia. Tomorrow they begin the capitals and then we will move on to major land configurations. When we watched the Special Olympic opening ceremony on TV (we were actually in Beijing and offered tickets at the last minute but did not get the message ? It broke my heart not to be there live!) the kids were pointing to their maps all the places they knew, tried to find the countries they did not know, and figure which countries we will go to in the future. It was fun reinforcement.

A few of the educational activities we did were:

Tai Chi class by a master

Calligraphy lesson from an artist

Chinese writing lessons

Tour of Opera Training School, watching part of a dress rehearsal

Tour of Tibet Museum, General Stilwell Museum, Shanghai Museum, Ancient Postal History Museum, Ancient Chinese Pharmacy Museum

Sturgeon Fish Hatchery tour

Lesson on acupuncture

Tour of a silk embroidery boutique, showing all stages of production (from baby silk worms to finished dresses)

Tour of Three Gorges dam

The most intense and meaningful cultural exchanges we had were either from going to private homes, visiting schools or meeting baseball players. We are invited to see a number of people?s homes including an artist whose family has been in the same house for 400 years. We also went to the home of a very poor Tibetan family who barter for almost everything and live in extreme poverty. Other amazing opportunities were visiting a Braille School in Tibet, meeting a Beijing baseball team (for baseball and then a banquet at a neighborhood restaurant in our honor!), going to a Buddhist nunnery (the women were absolutely bald and incredibly kind and sweet to the kids, offering them their lunch, having them sit on their prayer mats, and asking great questions), meeting a group of Chongqing high school kids who wanted to practice their English (we invented a new type of Frisbee football with them), going to the new home of the matriarch of a relocated family along the Yangtze River, hanging out with some great Shanghai college kids who play baseball (I kept expecting the keg to come out).

I know Ted and the kids have written about many of these experiences but when you see the list all together and add the orphanage we went to today where a big group of the kids are maimed and crippled because of Agent Orange, you realize what a remarkable experience this has been so far, and how vastly different peoples? life experiences are. This is what we have wanted to show our kids.

Thanks for your interest in our continued adventures! I promise to write you back if you e-mail me at elizabethhazard@yahoo.com

Love to you all-

Elizabeth

I forgot to mention the debate we had in Uluru (Ayres? Rock) about the color of the rock there. It has a magical ever-changing hue that was very difficult to describe but here is our attempt to capture the essence of the color: cinnamon, cooked pumpkin, ochre, tan/orange, old She-Oak pine cone shredding color, rust, brick, little league baseball field red dirt colored. We never quite felt like we had the right word to share the mystique of it

Oh, are we ever sad to leave Australia!  It has been amazing and wonderful!  Even though every time we open our mouths they know we are from America, at least they understand us and we understand them.  We are on the plane to China and already I can tell this is going to be a whole new adventure for us.  The Stewardesses barely understand English.  I asked for a cracker and got absolutely blank stares from two ladies holding a platter of crackers.  As Dorothy says “Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore”.  We are not in Oz (e.g., Australia) anymore either.  

Our school working is flying along.  The kids have done over 100 pages in their main math books and almost 50 pages in their other math book. 

The trick to motivating the kids, keeping them enthusiastic, and keeping their work level at high quality has been the most interesting thing for me to learn.  They are really self motivated and excited about many things.  For instance, they enjoy doing research and giving written and oral reports on animals.  If we had enough time they would do one everyday.

Gibson can spend hours reading guide books and trying to identify animals or writing a report about one of them.  He loves it.  They also like the fact that we (Ted & I) do reports as well.  Since we can’t interrupt each other during our reports Gibson wants us all to have little notebooks to take notes on other peoples reports and to write down questions for the end.  They had fun doing an Australia ABC’s list –it will make it to the blog soon.  Sterling had a blast doing fake brochures for places we have gone.  Bullo River and the Great Barrier Reef might want a few copies.  Everyday that we had a guide or had a tour of a museum or zoo I would take notes and put together quizzes for the next day.  It kept the kids on their toes listening and helped the retain more.  I am including part of a quiz from our last guide in Daintree National Park.  You might have fun seeing how well you do.

Australia was a great place to start in our quest to be able to map all the continents that we travel to.  I got blank laminated maps of Australia and every other day we would fill in 32 different water and land locations including territories, capitals, places we went, deserts (do you know that there is the Gibson Desert in Australia?) and seas.  It was a helpful way to recognize where we were going and by the end they could map all the locations freehand.  Asia is going to be a bit more challenging.

The hotel in Cairns hit the jackpot when we left because I could not bring to China all the Australia books we bought along on our trip.  Every gift shop we went in we looked for Wildlife guides, Aboriginal stories, stories set in the area, and books on specific animals.  We now have the Fieldings’ Definitive Guide to Reptiles in Australia (we could not part with that!).  Our book of Australian birds also went everywhere we went and is well marked.  We finished both the curriculum books that covered Australia and one that I found about Tasmania.  They were a fantastic complement to what we did out and about and I really liked the reading comprehension portion.  I am thrilled I will have similar books in China.

We are almost done with the Worldly Wise book.  The kids really like to do those pages; which surprises me.  There was a funny boy at Meadowbrook School who for Halloween dressed up as an old fashion prisoner with a ball and chain and labeled the ball “Worldly Wise” and put all his vocabulary words on it.  We are using those words and new words we come across for spelling words.  How many kids have Aboriginal as one of their spelling words?  I think I am going to get some other resource for spelling.  I know there is a list of the most commonly misspelled words.  I will benefit from that too. 

We finished one easy geography activities’ book and are half way through the next.  It has covered some great topics that are really pertinent to our travels including all types of mapping, latitude & longitude, hemispheres & continents, season & the earth’s orbit, day & night, & the earth’s rotation.

Art has been an area where we have not put as much focus as I would have liked.  The kids did paint our guide and Ted’s face with ochre and a native plant as a paint brush like the Aboriginals (call me a party pooper-  however, I led the way in licking a green ant’s behind).  At Uluru we saw cave painting and learned what some of the symbols meant.  We also saw some ladies sitting on the ground making Aboriginal paintings but we never got around to doing it ourselves.  It’s a bit like pointillism and takes a long time.  I wonder if the French knew about Aboriginal Art? 

When it comes to zoos, I should start with the fact that I am not a zoo fan.  They always seem boring, uninspiring and a zoo is a zoo whether it is in Boston or LA.  Well, Australia has totally changed my mind on that thought.  Every zoo or animal park we went to had lectures by the zoo keepers every ½ hour.  We would go from lecture to lecture and learn so much!  Not only would we learn about the species but also about the characteristics, history and personality of that particular animal.  It may be that U.S. zoos are too big or cash poor but just relying on signs at U.S. zoos is a shame.  I hope they expand their educational opportunities to visitors.

I have been so grateful to all our guides.  I hope they see this thank you.  The knowledge that they have at their fingertips is mind boggling.  The more they asked the kids, the more engaged the kids became – whether it came to trivia, recent research, or meaningful geology, science, history  or biology.  The information and energy they exuded was fantastic. 

To give you an example of what we do every night after a day out exploring, the following sampling from our quiz:

Last Australia Quiz (sample)

Who was the naturalist on Captain Cook’s boat?

What territory has the most biodiversity?

How many square miles is the Daintree rain forest?

What does Eucalyptus mean?

The kopok plant is a yellow flowering tree with apple like fruit.  When it opens, what is its interior used for?

How many Aboriginal people are there in Australia today?  A. 100,000 B. 400,000 C. 2,000,000

How many non-Aborigines live in Australia?  A. 1,000,000   B. 10,000,000   C. 20,000,000 or D. 2,000,000

4,000 years ago who came to Australia?

What did they want to trade?

What did they introduce?            

What is a placental mammal?

What marsupial lives in America?

Do all marsupials have pouches?  If not, list two without.

I have been so busy that it has been hard to get motivated to get on a computer. Just so everyone knows, my blogs will probably be few and far between. Ted will keep everyone more in the flow on our day to day life.

If our trip for some reason ended tomorrow, I would say it has already far exceeded my expectations and the learning that we have had has been far greater than I ever dreamed. That said, I am thrilled this is only the beginning and that we have gotten into such a good routine. We usually get up between 6 and 6:30 a.m. and the kids go straight to whatever table we have and start their work while munching on a banana or something. They usually choose to do math first and we do four pages each morning. Other daily items are 4 pages of worldly wise, 2 pages of geography, and Australian reading comprehension. Ted also spends time each morning with each of them on a University of Chicago book called Everyday Math, which is a terrific book.

Everyday I choose other things to alternate in and out for variety. Some examples so far have been: matching tracks to the animal, geography matching games, and lots of projects around Australia.

Everyone in the family chose an animal to report on. They researched their animal and then we all gave oral presentations after dinner one night (Gibson’s on wombats is on his blog).

Special readings so far include information on animals both non-fiction (Tasmanian Devils, penguins, echidnas, koalas, kangaroo, seahorses, seals, dingoes etc) and traditional folk tales, Australian etiquette (did you know that thumbs up is not polite? I keep catching myself about to do it!), the Opera House, and Tasmanian history.

They are keeping hand-written journals as well as their on-line blogs.

The kids can now take a map of the continent of Australia and freehand mark in 32 important locations including cities, oceans, states, capitals etc.

I make quizzes on what the naturalists have presented every couple of days to make sure the kids are staying on their toes and listening.

I am proud of how disciplined we have been (school is 7 days a week) and how much work we have already covered. However, it is not our morning working that is the most amazing — it is what we do afterwards with the guides. Since the focus of the trip is learning we have tried to have guides, naturalists and tours in as many places as possible. We learn and see so much more and get such insight that it is amazing.

A few of my highlights from the past two weeks are:

Behind the scenes tour of the Sydney Opera House

Attend Barber of Seville at the Opera House (I was amazed at how intently they watched)

Sydney Aquarium; focus on platypus and crocodile exhibits

Guided tour of Australian Museum; focus on skeletons & minerals

Sydney zoo to see animals we were giving reports on. Go in the cage and get photos with koalas

Blue Mountains with guide to see their “grand canyon” and get up close to wild kangaroos and feed wild crimson rosellas (a bird in the parrot family).

Tour of nature preserve in Tasmania by its Director, where the kids fed kangaroos, saw a mother and baby Tasmanian Devil, held a baby wombat (they are incredibly snugly!) and pet koalas. In addition to the great animal encounters the information that the kids received was fantastic.

Full Eclipse of the moon over the Tasmanian country side.

Tour of platypus & echidnas nature center

Tour seahorse breeding farm

Night time “hunt” for kangaroo, wombats and possum with naturalist

Walk through a rainforest with a naturalist

Feed a bottle of milk to an orphaned baby wallaby

Go to sea lion covered beach with naturalist

Walk with naturalist and find wild echidna

Find fairy penguins on rocks below our house with naturalist

T & G played baseball with team in Adelaide and had a picnic with families afterward

Hike around and then watch sunset by Olga rocks then go back to watch sunrise over Ayres Rock and hike around it with naturalist

Meet reptile specialist for touch and learn about animals around Ayres Rock. Sterling is the snake, lizard loving queen. Gibson liked the dingoes but we decided Scallop probably would not.

Night time astronomy lesson at Ayres Rock Observatory

Now can you see why I have been a bit busy to get on the blog! We miss you all. Keep in touch. Xoxox

Elizabeth

On the plane to Sydney:

I have been thinking about what type of journal I want to keep and have decided that, since the whole thrust of this trip is education for the kids, that I would focus on an educational perspective.

I have to admit that I am nervous about teaching the kids. Having no formal teaching degree and making the switch from Mom to teacher is a bit daunting. I know the kids are bright but it is going to be interesting figuring out their learning styles and what motivates and excites them. The other challenge is going to be finding the time to have them focus on the rudimentary items. I know through the travel experience, they will learn a ton during the trip, but they also need to spend time on the basics of math, writing, reading, vocabulary etc.

We spent a lot of time talking to educators and teachers and getting their favorite resources. Also, long-time friend Bambi Wood helped us enormously this summer, providing advice and extensive research into resources. She really increased our confidence that we could handle this process well.

Our goals are really quite lofty for this year. They include covering two years of math and wordly wise and doing a lot of journaling, writing and analysis. Keep your fingers crossed. It will be fascinating to see how much we like all the books. Ted has also gotten a ton of computer based educational products.

In Jamestown we did a test week of school before we started the trip. It was amazing how much work we covered during that time! I think that it was a very helpful and insightful week. I have learned that making it fun and setting high standards very important. I think this is especially important at the beginning. I know that Mother / Teacher relationship is being tested a bit. The math seemed a bit dry and boring. We have since gotten some additional more creative books to do along with the drill style book we have been using.

Today our first day of our journey was exciting and productive. After we finally got out of the house- no small undertaking- we drove to the Boston Museum of Fine Art for a guided tour of their Asia department. It seemed like a great way to give the kids a broad overview. We had a wonderful guide who did a great job bringing things to life. Afterward I had the kids write about three things that they learned. I think that might be a great way to ensure things do not go in one ear and out the other and help them analyze things a bit more.

We have a bunch of historical fiction and non fiction children’s books for each country. We have started the Australia books and I think that will help them get a better perspective on each country.

I will not list everything each day but here are a few other things we did today: I had a great time zone curriculum and explained the zones and looked at maps. We analyzed the time changes for the cross country flight we were on and I quizzed them with questions to try and stump them- with no luck. They really got it. Tomorrow as we are flying across the International Date Line I will incorporate that. It was fun to explain why a person on the east side of a time zone has sun earlier etc.

In mapping they looked at topographical mapping and how to read them from above, read the elevations, and create a profile elevation map.

There is also an amazing reading comprehension book that has page long articles on various aspects of Australia (i.e. Plant life, geology etc.) and then a page of questions to answer. Today Gibson did one on marsupials and also on people of Australia.