Speeding Up Their Learning: 3 Essentials for an Educational Road Trip
Every kid loves going on vacation, but the toughest thing for children to endure is when the parents are trying to force some form of education onto them. A road trip is going to make a big difference to the quality of your vacation as it can bring you closer together as a family, and you’ll have the opportunity to share the journey together, but if you are trying to help your children learn a bit more, perhaps because they’re not fully engaged in school, there are a number of things that you can do.
Put Them in the Right Environment
Children learn better when they engage with the subject. If your child is not necessarily getting to grips with biology or nature, you can start to bring it to life. If you are making your way to the west of the United States, there is a great aquarium in Utah, SeaQuest Utah, that offers a wide variety of opportunities to get up and close with stingrays and other creatures, such as baby sloths and porcupines. The right environment can make a massive difference. When your children are engaged with what’s going on in front of them, they are not going to be bored, and they will learn a lot more in the process.
Learning Materials in the Car
You might not like the idea of forcing your children to learn, but it’s about giving them a huge variety of things to choose from and making sure that each one is subtly educational. If your children get bored after spending so much time in the car, now is the perfect opportunity to put on something in the car that gives them educational benefits. If you’re driving hundreds of miles, audiobooks are going to make a massive difference here. You can all take it in turns to choose an audiobook, and if you are covering a lot of miles on a road trip, you will invariably find that you are exposing your children to a wide variety of literature. The best thing to do is to get them started on less dense material. Perhaps Harry Potter before you upgrade to The Lord of the Rings!
Giving Them Drawing Materials
Rather than giving them painting materials (which could make for a very messy car), this is another way to keep your children occupied while also being creative on a long journey. An educational road trip is not just about forcing things upon them, but about making sure that you understand what their definition of education is. Plenty of drawing materials, such as colored pencils and paper can give you an insight into what they like to create. They may not like drawing but would rather write, so this is the perfect opportunity for you to start giving them more structured tasks. Writing assignments done in a fun way can make a massive difference to how they learn, not just the art of storytelling, but cursive handwriting as well.
You may have a lot on your plate if you’re trying to get your car ready, but you can certainly spend a bit of time preparing your kids for an educational road trip that everyone will benefit from!