Lesson Overview:

In this lesson, students use what they have learned about atlases, geography, and travel writing to create an imaginary holiday itinerary.  Using places nominated by their classmates, they will build some crazy and exciting holiday plans!  This is the final lesson in the unit and should be a celebration of learning while assessing the students’ abilities to use an atlas, recognize features of an area, and promote those features to a reader or audience.

Lesson Plan:

Suggested Grades:

4 and above

Objective:

Working independently and using what they have learned in this unit about geography, students will plan a journey that takes them from a beginning point to three different destinations and back home again.  (AASL 2.3.1, “Connect learning to the real world.”)

Suggested Time:

50-55 minutes

Success Criteria:

Using destination suggestions from their classmates, students will work independently to create an imaginary holiday itinerary, including recommended sites to visit.

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduction:

Remind the students that in this unit they have learned to use an atlas, have looked at some of the most stunning sites on the planet (Beautiful World Game), have created an accordion travel book (“Panorama Pops”), and have written a brochure to promote the school.  Explain that today, they will use all their skills – atlas skills, writing, and destination promotion – to tie the unit together.  Today, they will plan an imaginary holiday!

2. Main:

To begin, each student needs three pieces of scrap paper and a pencil.  Ask them to use an atlas, if needed, and to write the following on each of the pieces of paper:

Scrap Paper #1:  Name of their country’s capital city.  (Example: Moscow, Russia)

Scrap Paper #2:  Name of another national capital city on the same continent.  (Example: Lisbon, Portugal – Russia and Portugal are on the same continent.)

Scrap Paper #3:  Name of a capital city on a different continent.  (Ex:  Suva, Fiji, which is in the continent of Australia/Oceania.)

Have each student fold all slips of paper in half and deposit them in the jar/hat/basket.  Toss the papers well.

Pass out the student assignment sheets (see attached).  After the students write their names and the date, have them write the city in which your school is located as the starting point for their imaginary journeys.  My students would write, “Dubai, United Arab Emirates.”  Make sure that they have a city and country, or, where appropriate, city, state, and country.

Next, have each child draw one slip of paper out of the hat.  They should write the name of that place under “Destination #1, Place.”  After everyone has drawn one place, have them draw their second and third destinations and write those on their assignment as well.  Their itineraries are now set.

To complete the assignment, the student needs to write a few words about the location.  For example, if the student draws “Stockholm, Sweden”, they could write, “the capital city of Sweden, a country in northern Europe”.  Another possible response could be, “A country in northern Europe bordering Norway, Finland, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea”.  Make sure that they mention the continent, region, or proximity of neighboring countries or bodies of water.  Basically, they need to use the atlas to provide a geographic description.

Under “Sites to Visit”, ask the student to list two places visitors might be drawn to.  They should get this information by talking to their classmates, using the atlas, using World Book’s Compare Places tool (or whatever digital resources your school subscribes to).  They could also use country books or travel books.  For example, if a student is working on Ireland, he could mention the Cliffs of Moher or Blarney Castle.  This is not a big research effort – the kids only need to find two attractions or sites for each of the locations.

For “Notes”, ask the students to write a few words about the way they would recommend traveling from site to site.  If the sites are very far apart, aircraft might be necessary.  However, a few of them might have different ideas.  Would they sail, hike, take a train or a hot air balloon?  How about a submarine?  How many ways can they think of to get from destination to destination?

3. Conclusion:

Ask the children if any of them would like to share their imaginary holiday journeys.  They will likely be excited to tell about where they are headed and what they plan to see.  Collect the work and submit it to the teacher for the student’s portfolio.

Resources:

1. Small slips of scrap paper for nominating three destinations.
2. Hat, jar, or basket to collect all the nominations.  (Each student will contribute three destination ideas.)
3. Student Assignment Sheet (see attached.)
4. Pencils, colored pencils.

Notes:

This lesson is designed to be a summative experience for the unit.  If you wish, film the students presenting or telling about their travel itineraries.  This would make a great addition to a digital portfolio.  If you do not have the option of a digital portfolio, place the student assignment from today’s lesson in a paper portfolio of work.

The lesson can easily be adapted for destinations within one country or destinations within one state or region.  I’ve purposely omitted the words “Country” or “State” so that you can simply tailor the lesson to the geography that works best for your students.

Recommended books for this lesson: 

A collection of atlases, preferably National Geographic Kids’ Atlas.

Key Terms:

Travel Journalism, Holidays, Vacations, Sight Seeing, Travel, Geography

 

Student Handout, A Holiday Getaway

Lesson Overview:

In this lesson, we build on last week’s idea of creating a piece of work that highlights the students’ understanding of new places.  However, instead of creating an artistic piece of work, students will combine their efforts to create a written piece.  Using travel guide books and local travel brochures as samples, students will write a travel guide to their school convincing others to come, visit, and perhaps even stay!  Students will be journalists for a day as their ideas about their own learning spaces coalesce into publication-worthy travel brochures.

Lesson Plan:

Suggested Grades:

4 and above

Objective:

Working in small groups, students will create a travel brochure highlighting the features, services, and people of their school.  (AASL 2.16: “Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.”)

Suggested Time:

50-55 minutes

Success Criteria:

Students will work in small groups to create a travel brochure for their school.  Highlighting areas, services, people, and programs that they feel are noteworthy, students will use their persuasive writing skills to highlight the school’s most attractive features.

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduction:

Remind the students that in the last lesson they looked briefly at travel guide books.  As a review, travel guide books usually draw the reader’s attention to:

• Sights and attractions
• Famous architecture including bridges, fountains, skyscrapers, churches, or monuments
• Shopping venues
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Parks
• Entertainment or leisure venues

Today, explain to the students that they won’t be creating a piece of art for a book, but a piece of writing, just like those who write travel books.  Today, the students become travel journalists!

However, schools don’t have restaurants, and schools don’t have hotels!  Ask the students what a travel brochure for a school might include.  Possible responses:

• Sports facilities
• Musical instruments, concert hall, rehearsal rooms
• Playgrounds!! (Everyone’s favorite)
• Murals and distinctive artwork
• Gardens or school greenhouse
• Nurse or counselor offices
• Secretary and principal offices
• Cafeteria or kitchens
• Favorite teachers or staff
• Technology center and libraries

Scribe this list where children can see it.

2. Main:

Ask each student to choose ONE area of the school from the list about which to write.  It is important that not everyone write on the same topic!  Organize the activity so that no more than three children write on the same section of the school.  This way, you can later assemble their work into a brochure promoting the school, and there will be enough variety to keep it interesting.

If the students do not know how to compose a short paragraph, teach them the structure of a paragraph so that they can write one that has:

1. An introductory sentence.  (Example:  GWA has an awesome library!)
2. At least three distinct pieces of evidence to support the claim in the introduction.  (Example: In the library, you can choose from hundreds of comics.  There are art books for those who want to learn to draw and cookbooks for kids who like to make dinner at home.  Also, you can do your own book scanning at the student check-out station!)
3. A conclusion.  (Example: The library is one of the best parts of our school. Stop by soon!)

Completed Sample Paragraph:

GWA has an awesome library!  In the library, you can choose from hundreds of comics.  There are art books for those who want to learn to draw and cookbooks for kids who like to make dinner at home.  Also, you can do your own book scanning at the student check-out station!  The library is one of the best parts of our school.  Stop by soon!

Once the children have completed their paragraphs, if there is time, give them equipment and send them off to take pictures of the people or places they have just written about.  This way, when the work is published, it can be published with photos.

3. Conclusion:

Bring the students back together.  Have a few of them share what they have written with the class.  Explain that, before the next lesson, you will group their work into collections to make school-themed travel brochures.

Resources:

1. A collection of travel guide books or country books, whichever you can easily pull from your collection.
2. A collection of travel brochures, preferably local, which will show the students that it is easy to highlight places without having to write an entire book. The local tourist information office or visitor’s center should be able to supply you with these, or you might be able to download them from the web.  Samples might include:

• Theme Parks
• County, State, or National Parks
• Public Libraries
• Farmer’s Markets
• Walking Tours, Culinary Tours, Trolley Tours
• Landmarks, Historical Sites
• Special Events Such as Winter Wonderland or Autumn Corn Maze

3. Blank paper, lined paper.
4. Pencils, pens. (No erasers!!!)

Notes:

I have designed this lesson around the idea of writing a travel brochure for your school.  However, you could adapt it for younger students to write about their classroom.  A classroom’s brochure content might feature the reading corner or classroom library, hand washing station, cubbies, art area, dress-up or play areas, working spaces including tables and chairs, teacher and assistant spaces, media and technology.  The concept works equally well for a classroom as it does for a school.

The project could also be adapted for a group of children that wanted to focus just on the sports program and facilities, or just on the art program and facilities.  Encourage the children to follow their interests as long as there is enough varied content to support the travel brochure idea.

Because you typically only have one period, do not look for a finished product.  Expect the kids to complete a draft which, if you or the teacher choose, could be refined into a finished product.  The emphasis here should be on the content, recording ideas that would promote the school to someone who knows nothing about it.  Content, not product!  You’ll need to collaborate with the classroom teacher on this.  Quite often, I find that teachers want to continue with the writing projects I start.  Sometimes they design their own writing tasks to get the children to reflect on or explain the work we do.  So, be sure to talk to your teachers to make sure that the writing component of this project is well integrated.

Finally, if your kids have done a lot of writing lately, this lesson could also be adapted to be a travel documentary (video) instead of a travel brochure.  Using technology, especially Adobe Spark, children could photograph their favorite areas of the school and then record a simple script to go with the photos.

In my experience, children can talk forever, but when asked to write, many of them grind to a halt.  Encourage them to “talk on paper” (aka write).  For students with learning differences, use a recording device so that their ideas can be captured through speech.  But, this is the only writing lesson in the unit, so I would try to stick with writing if possible.

Recommended books for this lesson: 

A collection of travel guides from your library collection or public library. They are usually available in these series:  Let’s Go, Lonely Planet, Insight Guides, Rough Guides, DK Eyewitness Travel, DK Top 10, Marco Polo, Rick Steves, and Fodor’s.  (Use the same ones you used in the last lesson.)

Key Terms:

Travel Journalism, Persuasive Writing, Sight Seeing, Brochures