Over the summer I took a class, which was the basis for our article Family Travel to Build Emotional Intelligence. We then published the Top 10 Cheap and Easy Family Trips to Build Learning Through Experiences. Through actually doing these one day trips some meaningful experiences are sure to be had.

I learned in class that the things that end up as our long term memories are the things that are meaningful and seem to make the most sense to us. Since “seeing is believing” and experiencing something for yourself is very meaningful for children and adults alike, it is hard to beat the hands on experiences that come with travel.

Here are some activities I want to do with my boys to build their overall Emotional Intelligence. Again as readers I hope you can find these ideas easy enough to do in your own home to strengthen your family bond and learn more about each other:

1. Have a pay it forward day and have each family member think of one good deed to do for someone else and do it that day!
2. Make artwork or cards for elderly neighbors or relatives and mail them.
3. Have the family each write five (5) interesting questions on small slips of paper and place in a basket. Draw one each night and have really different dinner conversation as you discuss each answer the question.
4. Have a family art night. Buy each family member a canvas that they can decorate as they please to represent themselves as individuals. Pop popcorn and make milkshakes to snack on while making awesome art. Hang all of the finished art together to represent your family as a whole.
5. Have children go through their old toys and pick three (3) items each to donate to children in need. Drop off the items together.
6. On New Years Eve make a list of activities you would like to do together and things you would like to accomplish together as a family in the next year.
7. Pick a volunteer project to help with as a family.
8. Host a neighborhood potluck.
9. Have family traditions that are weekly such as a weekly movie night, board game night, or movie night. Let your children come up with the traditions.
10. Make time to have dates with each of your kids, one on one, so they don’t have to always share attention. Make sure to make regular dates with just your spouse as well. Everyone needs to feel special!

I hope my thoughts on Emotional Intelligence and travel strike a chord with you as well. Most of all, I hope they awaken your inner learner to experience some family travel. Happy memory making!

Do any of you have favorite one day family trips or family bonding ideas to add to these lists? Please comment on what your family enjoys doing to learn together. These were pretty standard ideas so I would love to hear more creative places and things to do for my family to do together!

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Over the summer I took a class, which was the basis for our article Family Travel to Build Emotional Intelligence. I learned that significant emotional events help not only to teach us but to form the sort of people we will become.

As a result, here are some ideas I plan on trying to do with our boys (and some we have already done that I would love to do again). These are one day activities that any family on any kind of budget could do.

1. Visit a local hiking spot and take a nature hike, allowing children to fill a bag with found items or photograph them. At home sort the items or pictures into interesting categories and/or label them. Older children can write their own labels. Sorting based on categories your child comes up with on their own is a great way to promote higher order thinking.
2. Go somewhere where you can feed animals (local fish hatcheries, duck ponds, zoos, and farms are great for this). Allow children to feed animals that are okayed by staff for feeding. Get out library books about the same animals when you come home and or draw the animals.
3. Visit an old fashioned town or history museum to see history in action. Be sure to have your child ask questions of the rein actors. It is super fun to try and get the actors to leave character when asked twenty first century type questions (be sure to ask some questions to gain insight into historical facts as well).
4. Visit a factory; food factories are the best. It is very interesting to children to see where their favorite foods and candies are made.
5. Pick fruit at a local orchard. Many children think fruit comes from a grocery store. Make some sort of fun recipe or smoothie with the goods when you arrive at home.
6. Go to a sports hall of fame or museum. Children love sports, but they often do not know the origins of their favorite games. Many of these ideas on this list of ten including this one support multiple intelligences. They can apply to learners with a variety of learning preferences, not just active learners or visual learners alone.
7. Go to a high school or cheap local theater play. Many favorite movies and children’s books are made into wonderful live theatrical performances. Kids need to see plays for the experience that cannot be matched by just movies and television.
8. Go to a restaurant that serves food from another country. We love taking our children to a favorite Vietnamese restaurant and trying new foods. We also like that the owners are Vietnamese and enjoy talking to our family each time we visit about their food and culture.
9. Take your child on grocery or hardware store for errands and have them calculate the bill as you shop. Older children could plan and coupon clip and budget for the trip prior to going, young toddlers could label food and colors.
10. Take children to a cooking class or art class as a family. Nothing shows children that learning is fun more than being a lifelong learner yourself!

I hope my thoughts on Learning through Experiences and travel strike a chord with you as well. Most of all, I hope they awaken your inner learner to experience some family travel. Happy memory making!

Do any of you have favorite one day family trips or family bonding ideas to add to these lists? Please comment on what your family enjoys doing to learn together. These were pretty standard ideas so I would love to hear more creative places and things to do for my family to do together!

Save Money, Travel More!

“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert

Over the summer I was studying and going back to school. It is against every fiber of my being to learn during these beautiful sunny days, as I am such a summer lover. Doesn’t it seem crazy to be cooped up inside when I could be swimming with my boys? But, alas I had to continue some of my education in order to meet some of my work aspirations, and so I found myself taking a class about emotional intelligence. As a reader of this travel blog, you may be wondering why I am choosing to write about this topic to you readers. I could not help myself. I found myself thinking so much about travel, while learning in class, that I knew the information could be the basis for a terrific article. Specifically, my thoughts wondered how travel can foster so much growth for all ages in both Emotional and Cognitive Intelligence.

I think the biggest standout I took away from the entire class is how the lessons supported all of our beliefs on how we teach our boys. If you have been a long time reader of this blog, you know that my husband and I take our children everywhere and absolutely love nothing more than traveling as a family. We hear a lot of advice that we should not spend the money or that taking such young children on vacation is pointless because they will never remember the trip.

This is counter intuitive advice according to the way the brain learns. The human brain makes the strongest connections (connections that tend to last the longest) when a person experiences something firsthand. So for example, when we take our children to a farm and they get to milk a cow and hear it moo and see that cow has a baby calf, in turn they are making vital brain connections that are longer lasting than the ones that were made when we showed them a picture of a cow and practiced saying moo. Sure, they may never remember where or when they saw a cow in a few months, but they will have more connection to animals when they learn about them in school and certainly more basis for vocabulary concerning animals because of this real and hands on experience.

On our most recent trip to Hawaii we knew taking the kids would be a massive amount of work…and luggage. We heard how crazy and brave we were to take them from everyone. Deep down we knew we were a little crazy too, but we wanted to mainly see if we COULD actually do it. By doing a long family vacation together we learned so much more about ourselves as parents. The boys learned a lot too.

My youngest son, Lan-Shark (1) learned new words, that he loved to dance and hula, and that he could really dig the sand (both literally and figuratively). My oldest son, Bug (3) learned to hold his breath and swim underwater, he learned up close and personal what sea turtles look like in their natural environment, and that he could safely try new things with his parents guidance without being too afraid (things like sliding down slides and seeing a dinosaur exhibit).

I realized upon returning home at the end of almost three weeks, that for my husband, this was the longest stretch of time he had ever been with the boys without having to work (a priceless souvenir). When we left Hawaii, all four of us left with so many new things learned and so many connections made that would have never been possible in our busy lives at home. It was worth every bit of planning…and luggage, that it took to take two kids under three all the way across the country and the ocean.

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