Elizabeth’s Blog

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.