Vacation Trip Research

When planning trips for our summer vacation, I get my kids involved in the research and planning of the trip.  Whether they are extended vacations or a simple day trip, I have the kids use the internet, books and maps to help plan the trip.  For example, for our trip to DC in August, I have encouraged my 5th grader to read various travel guides to help decide on the sites he would like to see while we are there.  He also used maps of the city to determine which sites we could visit in the same day and determined the best method to get to that location.  For our recent trip to New Hampshire, my son used the internet tool MapQuest to obtain directions to our vacation destination, then mapped them on on our road atlas.  We also calculated the milage for the trip and estimate our time of arrival based on the speed we would be travelling.  Not only are they using reading, math and map skills, but they are more excited about our trips because they have been involved in the planning.