Beginning our Journey to Another Continent

We are not moving or actually going anywhere, but we can take a journey through a variety of activities. We are not Montessori but like to dabble a little bit in concepts like Work trays (Tot trays) and Continent Boxes.

I am always wanted to find new ways to spark learning an adventure in my children. I found out about Continent Boxes a few years ago but had no way of getting into a group since we are not a Montessori School or Family.

Great Continent Box ideas from Living Montessori Now!

A couple years ago my mom’s cousin went on a 3 week business trip and sent us a package of goodies from China plus 4 cd’s of pictures from Beijing, Shanghai, Thailand, and London. He included some currency, hotel brochures, and some little souvenirs. Boy what a treasure that was. My husband was sooo good about creating excitement and allowing each child to open one thing at a time. They had to try to guess what each things was before opening it. We cherish these items and realize we have never pursued finding more friends or relatives to collect world treasures for us.

Well, just recently I found out about Worldwide Culture Swappers! As much as I would like to jump right in and join  a group swap with four other families I thought starting off slow with a one family to one family swap would give us a chance to see if it really is for us without too much expense.

We are starting by swapping with a family in Australia and getting advice from a local family, Honey from Mondorfment. (Honey has hosted a Continent Swap before and has really great ideas to share. She will be blogging about them soon. I have also contacted a blogging friend, Neetu, from Singapore and she has agreed to swap with us in April. So we are off to a very good start!

I’m preparing our package by brainstorming, asking Honey tons of questions, asking our swap family what they would like and pinning like crazy!

Here are some suggestions from Chasing Cheerios:

– a letter from a child describing his/her life in his/her country…favorite foods, sports, activities, religious activities, daily schedule, school, vacations…anything that you or your child think would be interesting to a child in another country.

– Pics of your child in his home, etc. You don’t have to send close-up face pics if you are not comfortable doing so.

– Postcards, stamps, coins,

– craft, coloring sheets, small toys or games, small books

– cds of your child’s favorite music or books on cd

– recipes, pics of food specific to your region

– anything else that you think would be fun for a child to receive

 What would your child/family like to receive from another country? We would love to have your suggestions and ideas:)