All of us at Thrifty Family Travels LOVE travel!!! Whilst Myla is only 5 – she knows quite a lot about different countries and loves to be involved in our planning our trips.
So how do we get her involved? Below are some things that we do to ensure Myla is involved in our travel plans, you might like to do these too to get your kids involved in your travel plans.
1 – Watch you tube.
Watch clips from youtube of various countries around the world, particularly the ones you are going to visit. This give you an opportunity to discuss the different cultures your child will experience when you visit the country and prepare them for anything they might see which is quite different to the country they live in.
2 – Talk about it at meal times.
Most of our evening meals include loads of discussions about places we want to go to and things we will do when we are there. Myla really wants to go to Rio thanks to the animated film “Rio”.
Heck when I see all those colorful birds and dancing in the movie it makes me want to go there too!
3 – Look at images on the internet
Jump onto google and search for images from the country you are going to visit. Similar to watching you tube this helps your child understand what they are going to experience in the country they are going to visit and ask any questions they need to.
4 – Teach your child words from different languages
Before heading to any country we always try and learn a few basic words like “please”, “thank you”, “hello” etc. Surprisingly
Myla picks these words better than we do. Kids are like a sponge and appear to learn new languages quicker than adults.
5 – Make a map of the country you are visiting
This is one of our favourite things to do when we are visiting a new country. We jump onto google, download a great map and then mark all the places we are going to visit on the map. We then add some pictures of the cities we are going to visit and put it on the wall in our living room. Myla is always looking at the map and talking about the places we are going to visit.
Anyway that’s a few things we do to get Myla involved in our travel plans – what things do you do with your kids to get them involved?
Like the idea of making a map, will definitely do that for our next trip!
Thanks Annabel. It gets my daughter asking questions about the places we are going to see and just prepares her for the trip a little better. Also I love talking about our travel plans so this works well for me!!