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Travelmates Revisited
By Diane McCarty
They're back — with new ideas and new accomplishments like exploring Japan, promoting literacy and exchanging journals with Native American families
Ever since my article "Travelmates: Geography for Kids (and Stuffed Pets)" appeared in Teaching K-8 in 1993, I've heard from hundreds of educators who have kicked off their own Travelmate project. At the school where I conducted the project for seven years, there are parents who say the Travelmate (and its returned contents) is one of the most treasured items their child possesses, even as he or she goes off to college.
Images from Diane's trip to Japan: Her Travelmate (left), the fish market (right) and Japanese children (below center).
How it started. For those of you who missed the original article, here's what Travelmates is about: It's an interdisciplinary unit that allows students to travel around the globe without leaving school. Each child in my class brought in a doll or stuffed animal to be his or her Travelmate. A dogtag with a class picture was placed around the Travelmate's neck. On one side of the dogtag was the child's name as well as the school's name, address and phone number; on the other side was an explanation of the project, and a request that the Travelmate be returned by April 15.
Each Travelmate wore a small backpack so it could carry photos and other artifacts contributed by the people it visited on its travels. We also put a journal in the backpack so that the Travelmate's adventures could be recorded. Before putting the journal in the backpack, we wrote an entry about us and our community.
Our Travelmate project was launched between Thanksgiving and Christmas break when families or friends might be traveling to other parts of the United States or even to another country. These travelers would often meet friends who could take the Travelmate with them to meet other friends who, in turn, would pass the Travelmate on to a new set of friends.
Off to Japan. When I left that school to become a principal at Kittrell Elementary, I never thought the project would follow me – albeit in a different form. I was preparing to visit Japan and I wanted the students at Kittrell to be part of my travel experience. Each grade level chose a way for me to connect with students in the schools I'd be visiting. The kindergarten teachers decided I should bring a Travelmate to Japan.
All the places Teddy and I visited in Japan resulted in great stories. The trip to the famous fish market in Tokyo was the students' favorite. Here's that day's journal entry:
Teddy and I woke up this morning at 4:00 a.m. so we could go to a HUGE Fish Market. I've never been anywhere like this!...In this market people inspect the fish and then bid on them (as in an auction) to purchase them...I felt an octopus and ate squid and seaweed for the first time. The bidding started at 5:30 a.m. Teddy and I were tired so we went back to our hotel room around 6:30 a.m. What an early morning adventure!
When Teddy came back home with me, the teachers read the journal entries with their students, showed them pictures and explained the artifacts Teddy had acquired on the trip. Then the Travelmate went home each night with a different student so the parents could participate.
East meets west: The author visits a Japanese elementary school.
A new twist. Recently, I began teaching at Wartburg College in Waverly, IA. A teacher I met there thought it would be wonderful if kindergarten students could participate in the Travelmate project to establish a literacy connection between children and their families.
Pre-service teachers at Wartburg created a Travelmate for each of the three kindergarten sections at Longfellow School in Waterloo, IA. The teachers and I discussed the purpose of the project and ways we could promote literacy through the journal entries. We then took a picture of each group of college students to create dogtags for the Travelmates. Once our set-up work was completed, off to Longfellow School the Travelmates went. Here's a journal entry one college group wrote:
Dear Kindergarten Friend,
Hello! My name is Pumpkin. I am being sent to you by Wartburg College students from Waverly, IA. They will be visiting your classroom sometime in November. These students want to get to know you better, so they are asking that you take me home with you for an evening. Ask a family member to help you write about our adventures while I am visiting your house. Tell us about yourself. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Tell us about your family. What do you like to do for fun? What is your favorite thing about school? What do you want to be when you grow up? What is your favorite color? If you want to draw me a picture of your family or something we did together, draw it on the back of your journal page. Please read me a bedtime story. It helps me fall asleep. Don't forget to write down what book you read to me.
Your friend, Pumpkin
When we visited the school later that semester, we found that even though the college students and kindergartners had never met in person, everyone was very comfortable because of the connection that had already been made through the Travelmates.
Even more uses. Still another role for the Travelmates had to do with a unit my colleague Mary Guenther, a third grade teacher, teaches on Native Americans. Mary wanted to use the journals to help students understand multiple perspectives on historical and current social issues. We decided to have students in a Native American school use a Travelmate to tell us about their lives while we did the same in Iowa. We would then exchange the Travelmates with their journals.
Chitimacha Tribal School in Jeanerette, LA was interested in the project, so the Travelmates were sent on their way. With the Travelmates went two new items: a camera with a camera log and a portable tape recorder. The latter was sent in case a Native American family preferred to give an oral history instead of a written journal entry.
The project is still in progress, so we have no idea how successful it will be. E-mail correspondence has started between the two schools, and Mary and I will enjoy discovering the results of this exchange sometime in the future. We hope it will allow students, teachers and parents to understand "others" in a new way. One never knows all the exciting things that can happen when a traveling stuffed animal is the "bear-er" of a journal with a story to tell.
Diane McCarty is a lecturer in education, Wartburg College, Waverly, IA.
November/December 2003, Vol.34, No.3
