Independent Summer Enrichment and Exploration: On the Go!

This is the second post in a three-part series about independent summer enrichment and exploration for gifted youth.

If you’re on the go this summer experiencing new places, your gifted child may jump at the chance to take the experience to a new level. A new project, a different kind of conversation, or a brief activity can spice up the time at or in between events and destinations. Here are some tips and suggestions for fun, educational activities while traveling.

• • Google Earth is Your New Friend. With Google’s recent upgrades, your child can assist you with Google’s Personalized Travel Planner, and then, while traveling, they can explore enhanced features including topographic maps, 3D cities, and satellite imagery as part of tours created by scientists, storytellers, and nonprofits.

• • Explore As You Go with the Field Trips App. The Field Trips app (formerly Google Field Trips) provides real-time information about historical and cultural locations or events taking place around you. Just open the app on any street in any town, and Field Trips will show you the details for that location. This takes exploring a new city to a whole new level!

Podcast Goodness. Has your child discovered podcasts? There’s a world of great listening out there you can listen to as a family while you travel and use as food for great thought and discussion. The first link below, from the School Library Journal, poses some helpful questions as you find the right podcast fit:

• Podcast Party: A Curated List of Nine Teen-Friendly Podcasts
• 6 Teen-Approved Podcasts for Family Listening
• Who Says Kids Don’t Have Podcasts?

• • Geocaching: Up for a treasure hunt? How about the world’s largest? This family-friendly experience draws people of all ages across the world. You and your child can find hidden boxes (in “caches”) around the world, sparked by the longitude and latitude coordinates posted online, and aided by maps, GPS devices, and other apps.

• • 5 Questions for That Tour Guide. Natural curiosity drives great questions, and your child may already be known for their art of inquiry. Challenge them to come up with five of the most creative questions they can for a tour guide while visiting a site. Evaluate the experience afterward: did you get the answer you were looking for? What were you expecting? What new questions does the answer spark for you?

• • Landscape Scrapbook. Does your child revel in natural wonders, or perhaps need to take an eye off the screen for a few minutes? This activity balances tech savvy activities with nature appreciation. Want to create an online scrapbook with notes about great vistas you saw? Create a free Thinglink account for your child, which allows them to take a photo and enhance it with notes, web links, and other images. A paid account allows your child to add audio and other features. Your child can embed these images in Facebook posts, a website gallery, or a family blog. Your child can also personalize the notes to reflect cool facts, unique interpretations, and their aesthetic and artistic impressions.

• • Museum Redesign. If you have a child who always has a better idea, challenge them with a redesign question. As you discuss the best of the museums you saw, ask your child to propose a new museum. How would they change the physical layout, the exhibit types, the artifacts and their presentation, and the types of interactions between museum-goers and the exhibits?

• • Local Flavor. Whether your child is a foodie or not, the joy of discovering a great local food experience can create a forever memory, and how cool is it if your child found it first? Challenge your child to research “best local restaurants” within a certain price range, going beyond reviews and ratings sites, which often show results based on advertising dollars. Challenge them to find reputable food bloggers and other sites that can attest to the dining experience and why it’s the best of local experiences. Sites such as TripAdvisor also compile a range of reviews from the average tourist that may be a good launching pad for your child to then dig deeper through food blogs and reviews by local periodicals.

• • See It, Sketch It! While you’re on the go, you may encounter some intriguing architecture, and you may have a child with a photographic eye. Why not have your child learn a bit more? Have them create an architect’s sketchbook (see page 3 of this free online lesson from Duke TIP) and then do a site visit (see page 4). If your family has never tried an architectural walking tour of a city, check with the local tourists’ bureau to learn about options. Many cities and towns have incredibly well-informed locals who provide both free and fee-based tours that will shed a whole new light on a place you’re visiting. You might also have the added goal of trying to find the oldest and youngest pieces of architecture in the region.  

• • Resident Expert. Whether you or the whole family plans a trip, it’s a great way to share ownership when you ask a child to become “resident expert” on some aspect of the destination. Discuss what search terms are best and what sites sound most reputable. Ask them to research via available devices as you travel and to share the coolest facts they’ve found before arrival. Or, if your child loves print, scour the library or bookstore before launch and stock up!

• • Arts Moment. Besides the art museum in an area, there might be opportunities to try local crafts and forms of artistic expression such as sculpture, dance, painting, or singing. If your child is particularly gifted in the arts, ask at the museum, tourist bureau, or Chamber of Commerce about opportunities to dig into the arts. For a more intensive experience, consider the VAWAA (Vacation with an Artist) experience, described here at Travel and Leisure.

• • The Celebratory Poem. Every good trip deserves an ode: a lyric poem that addresses a particular person or topic and that uses a formal tone. Challenge your child to write the family memories into an Ode to Our Trip! Whether it’s long on meter and rhyme, musical or prose, this can be a fun “souvenir” to commemorate the travel experience.
• The Scrapbook. What about keeping a visual record of your trip? Have your child be in charge of collecting images along the way and creating a digital scrapbook. Many of the apps have an option to print out a book or keepsake. PopSugar Moms recommends several apps here.