We did a country box exchange with a family who lives
in Singapore. The kids were SO excited by all of the
goodies. We rushed to the map to locate Singapore,
then tried playing the kids games, looked through the
brochures and postcards.
We've done this with several families, but we
were "burned" by a family in Ireland who exchanged
addresses, but never sent anyone in our exchange
group a reciprical package. Seems a shame and you
wonder about people's hearts in such a case (and never
any follow up emails). But for us it's still been a joy
getting to share bits of our area of the world and to be
able to glimpse at others home cultures.
We also just loved the exchange we did with a wonderful
family living in China. In return we sent coins, pieces of
aboriginal fabric, post cards, small aboriginal art-decorated
animals, brochures and things like that. The kids were
involved every step of the way and got a lot out of it!
that is such a fantastic idea.
ReplyDeletehow do you get in contact with the families? i would love to do this with my children.
Likewise, if you don't have anything from the US, I'd be more than glad to swap with you... we're new to the homeschool (in particular Montessori) scene, so we'd love to swap with just about anyone for our continent boxes.
ReplyDeleteMy DS (3) has been studying Australia, and we're planning on visiting a local attraction/zoo that's about Australia in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for the consideration.
I participated in a yahoo group called 'continent swap,' I think. Someone would ask if anyone wanted to form a group and then from the responses would get three or four other members from different continents to join. Some people simply exchanged post cards, others did small objects, brochures and things like that as our group did.
ReplyDeleteI might be interested in swapping with people again and even have some things gathered. The thing is, though, that we'll be moving out of Australia and while I could send things, I don't really want to receive anything til "later" in six months when we're (hopefully?!!) settled in a new country (US or elsewhere). I could blather on, but perhaps you could email me at the home school den (at)yahoo (d-0-t) com no spaces and include the "the" and we could talk about it!
I was looking at your Geography lessons here. I would love to havey you come over and link your geography lessons up at my Meme.
ReplyDeletehttp://whisperswhispering.blogspot.com/2010/03/geographyhistory-10.html
I am also doing a cultural exchange right now and one of the countries that I am exchanging with is from Singapore. I am a little worried about getting "burned" as well because I did a US postcard exchange and I sent out more postcards then I received :( I am hoping that doesn't happen here since shipping is much more expensive on packages than postcards!
ReplyDelete