Max and Edie have been semi-obsessed with Australia lately. They ask to watch YouTube videos about the Great Barrier Reef, the Outback, Sydney, Australia’s beaches and—randomly—the unique spiders found here! (Just check out peacock spiders and you’ll understand why.)

So my kids and I have been exploring Australia from home. I’m excited to share our ideas on Australia virtual travel for you and your family to try!

(If you want even more ideas to explore other places from the safety of your home, check out my book, Virtual Travel Activities for Kids!)

Write a poem about Australia

Edie, my second grader, and I did this project together. (Maxine, who’s in kindergarten, was less than interested.)

We started by watching a few videos about Australia. Edie picked a few that caught her eye.

Then we brainstormed a list of words relating to Australia, based on what we learned. Edie suggested words and phrases like big sky, island, beach, Outback, stars, ancient rock art and more. Then she came up with some sentences about traveling there, like “I will get to see lots of animals and take pictures with my camera.”

Next, we matched words that rhyme, like didgeridoo and Kakadu. 

Then we began to build descriptive stanzas of a poem around these. Full disclosure, I helped more with this part. 

Edie was so proud of the poem we created!

I want to Go to Australia

by Edie + Catherine

From big wide sky and waterfalls
To red desert rocks and white sands,
This continent has so much to see
Within the diverse island.

Listen for the unique sound 
Of the famous digeridoo.
Then look for creatures found only here:
Wombat, peacock spider and emu.

I will get to see lots of animals—
Platypus, dolphin, kangaroo.
We can visit Aboriginal sites
Like sacred Kata Tjutu and Uluru.

Filled with clown fish, coral, sharks
And sea turtles: The Great Barrier Reef
Is beautiful but in danger,
A wonder beyond belief.

I want to go to Australia!

Uluru & Kata Tjura National Park, Australia. Photo by Ondrej Machart on Unsplash

Create your own pictographs like those in Kakadu National Park

One of the first videos we watched during our virtual travels to Australia included a short clip about Aboriginal rock paintings. That sparked the girls’ curiosity so we explored more.

We first watched a short video about Aboriginal rock art so we could learn about this tradition dating back 40,000 years in Australia.

We learned about the Dreamtime and how the rock paintings of Australia depict stories. This initial step—education and context—is important. I want us all to learn about and appreciate the culture this art comes from, rather than appropriate it without understanding any of its history.

Next, I cut the bottom off paper grocery sacks so they made long, flat rectangles to represent stone walls. Edie and Max used brown, red, peach and black crayons to mimic the colors of the rock paintings in Kakadu National Park in Australia.

Maxine drew a kangaroo (with a joey in its pouch!), a lizard and a mammoth. Yes, I know mammoths didn’t live in Australia, but who was I to correct her?

We then crumpled the paper to make it look bumpy like a rock wall. Using tacks, I hung the paper bags on the wall.

Maxine and Edie then used a magnifying glass to discover and study the cave art!

I can’t wait to visit the most impressive examples of Aboriginal rock art in person. In the meantime, we’ll continue to explore our own petroglyphs, just as an archaeologist would.

“Photoshop” your kids into Australia pictures

When we do virtual travel from home, my kids love to see themselves in the destinations where our imaginations travel. That’s why I “photoshop” their picture into a scene from the country we virtually visit. I wrote a step-by-step tutorial on replacing backgrounds in your photos. It explains how to do it in a few easy steps without special software or any tech skills.

Here, Maxine and Edie are swimming in the crystal clear waters of Green Island. This island is off the coast of Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef.

Edie and Max also wanted to see koalas so we “visited” a eucalyptus grove. Maxine researched koalas for a homeschool preschool project and has fallen in love with these adorable critters. Look closely and you’ll see her mama and baby koala toy. (This is the koala stuffie Maxine bought with her own money she’d saved up—affiliate link.)

My kids are beyond goofy when it comes to posing for pictures. This is what they do when I say “Ok, pose!”

And when we eventually visit Australia in person, we’ll definitely explore the Outback. In the meantime, as we travel from home, Maxine and Edie rode their scooters in the gorgeous red desert.

Recreate dot art

When I think of traditional art in Australia, I imagine dot art—the detailed and intricate Aboriginal style of painting. That’s why we wanted to make our own versions of dot painting.

First, we watched this video about Aboriginal dot painting.

We learned that these paintings communicate stories, and that symbols often represent ideas, places or things. 

Edie also remembered that a group would typically paint only one type of animal. She decided our family group would paint turtles. 

This technique is quite easy.

How to do dot painting: 

1. Draw an outline, or print out a silhouette, of an animal.
2. Dip a cotton swab in paint and press the tip of the swab onto the paper to make a dot. 
3. Continue making paint dots around the inside edge of the animal outline. 
4. Choose another color of paint. Start another line of dots inside the first line.
5. Continue painting dots until the silhouette is full.

Learn about Australian currency

One of my favorite things about traveling to another country is looking at the currency! I love taking in all the details, from the colors to the words to the entire design. 

We aren’t physically going to Australia (yet) but I wanted Max and Edie to see Australian money anyway. So I incorporated money play into our Australia virtual travel activities.

I printed out a custom Australia currency worksheet from Homeschool Math. (It’s free!) Edie had a hard time adding up the currency, since she’s not familiar with the different coins. We ended up just cutting out the money and playing store.

You can download the Australian Money Worksheet we used here.

You can also learn a lot about a country by looking closely at its currency. For example, the AU $5 banknote depicts a young Queen Elizabeth II. Why would Australia have the monarch of the United Kingdom on its currency?! This is an opportunity to explain the British Commonwealth and the UK’s former colonization of what is now Australia. 

Did you know: The Australian dollar replaced the Australian pound in 1966!

Go on an Australia scavenger hunt

Who doesn’t like scavenger hunts?! This twist on a virtual travel scavenger hunt incorporates things we learned about another country—in this case, Australia.

First, my kids picked and watched two videos about Australia. We talked about a few things we learned, what they liked most and what they found surprising.

Next, I gave them “clues” relating to Australia they had to then find. (Note: You can have your kids bring the item to you or take photos of the items with your phone. I recommend using pictures because there’s much less clean-up afterwards!)

For example, I said, “Find something the color of the water in the Great Barrier Reef.” Other clue ideas include something

• the color of eucalyptus leaves
• the shape of an emu’s eyes
• the color of the Sydney Opera House
• that is surrounded by water

My final clue: “Find something the shape of platypus teeth.” Edie scrunched up her face in thought for a moment. Then Maxine announced, “Platypuses don’t have teeth!” Hahaha, it was a trick clue!

Track Australian animals

Australia is home to some of the world’s most unique animals. Most marsupials (such as koalas, wombats and kangaroos) live on this island/continent. And nearly all of the world’s most venomous snakes live here too!

To start, we watched this video about Australian animals. Push play or find another video if you prefer.

Then tell your kids you’re going to create animal tracks. They can choose one animal (Maxine is semi-obsessed with koalas) or many (Edie never half-does anything).

Start by doing a google image search for that animals’ footprints or tracks. Your kids will use this as a resource.

Practice by drawing the tracks on a piece of paper. Meanwhile, cut a piece of craft foam paper into small pieces. Ours were about 2 inches x 1.5 inches.

Next, draw the footprint on the piece of foam with a ballpoint pen. Color it in. The color doesn’t matter so much as pressing down on the foam. An adult can help younger kids color the entire inside—it’ll stamp better that way.

Finally, press the piece of foam footprint-side-down onto a stamp pad. Lay the piece of foam ink-side down on a piece of paper and press it flat, being careful to not move it around (or else it will smudge). Carefully lift up the piece of foam. Now you have an animal footprint!

Chances are, you’ll be like us and want to go to Australia even more after your virtual travels. Whether you’re looking for homeschool ideas or activities to supplement your online learning, these travel from home projects will keep you and your kids exploring the world—even if you can’t leave home.

The post Australia virtual travel activities for kids: 7 homeschool lesson ideas appeared first on To & Fro Fam.

I’m pretty sure you already know the many benefits of raising global citizens: Kids who are globally minded have the communication skills, flexibility and appreciation of diversity they’ll require when they grow up.

Practicing these skills through fun activities will also lead to smoother trips once you can travel internationally again. The activities are also an excellent add-on for distance learning or homeschooling. You can incorporate them into other lessons or create a unit on global travel!

Finally, these virtual travel activities are just plain fun. If quarantine has used up all your ideas to entertain the kids, this post will give you some fresh activities to try!

And if you haven’t already, go ahead and download the free sample chapters of my book, Virtual Travel Activities for Kids. These chapters will give you a taste of what to expect in the book as well as fun activities you can use to virtually explore any country in the world.

This post contains affiliate links. Clicking through and buying nets me a small income at no extra cost to you. This helps me continue to bring you free family travel content here on the blog.

Go global at dinner

If your family is like mine, then dino nuggets and mac n cheese probably make a frequent appearance on your table. No matter how picky your kids are, introduce global flavors.

If your littles are used to the typical kid fare, they’re unlikely to dive into a delicious curry dish right off the bat. Instead, start with tastes of side dishes or different takes on foods they already like.

To be transparent, my kids still don’t eat much of what I do. But the simple exposure to the Moroccan lentil soup and huevos rancheros that I eat makes them more likely to try those tastes later on.

As you eat your delicious meal, talk a bit about the culture and geography where the dish originates. Does it include ingredients unique to that country or region? Is it a typical food or a special occasion dish? These conversations will help your kids learn about other cultures and also practice eating unfamiliar foods—which they’ll need to do when traveling internationally.

(Do you have picky eaters in your family, too? If you do, then I know you’ll get a lot out of my post on traveling with picky kiddos.)

Print a passport

I love using passports as a conversation starter with kids because they help make international travel feel more concrete. Young children don’t have an easy way to understand abstract concepts like borders or global politics. But give them something to hold—especially something with awesome stamps—and they get it.

You can even download my passport printable in the To & Fro Fam freebies section. That way, each of your kids can have their very own pretend passport.

Every time you virtually visit a country (e.g. with the hundreds of activities in my book, Virtual Travel Activities for Kids), draw a picture of something that represents the place. You can also print a picture of the country’s flag or design your own “stamp” using colors, symbols and destinations related to the country.

Your kids will have fun “collecting” countries!

Travel via your library

Especially during times when you’re not able to travel—whether that’s from budget limitations or a worldwide pandemic—books can open the world to kids.

If your family is interested in a particular place, search for books set in or about that country. We also love books about the nuts and bolts of travel (e.g. The Airport Book) and about many places and cultures (like Walk This World).

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey.” -Anna Quindlen

Many libraries will collect books you request for pickup, even if they’re not open for browsing. And read aloud videos on YouTube share books your family will love.

If you’re not sure where to start—or you want fresh ideas on what to read—find inspiration in my post on our favorite children’s books about travel.

Be a tourist in your hometown

I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that it’s easy to overlook the place where you live. But traveling around your town like a tourist can be a wonderful travel experience—and teach your kids some of the skills they need to become world travelers!

Start by researching, just as you would before an international trip. What kinds of things do visitors most enjoy about your town? What are the must-do activities? What have you always meant to do but never gotten around to?

Next, plan a day’s itinerary. This helps your kids practice planning and also understand that they can’t do absolutely everything. That helps them prioritize—an important skill when there are more things to do than time allows!

Then set out for your staycation trip. Really try to soak it in like a tourist who might not get another chance to visit.

For extra fun, buy post cards and send them to friends about your “vacation.” You can also take pictures and make a trip photo book, or do some of the other no-pressure vacation memory projects I recently wrote about.

A trip throughout your hometown may not feel nearly as exciting as an overseas vacation, but it will help teach your kids to be world travelers.

Bring out the atlas, globe and Google Earth

I have vivid memories of playing with my family’s globe when I was a little kid. We’d spin the globe, close our eyes, and stop the turn with a finger. Wherever the finger pointed, we’d pretend to go there.

Exploring the world from home—via an atlas or globe—is a terrific way for your family to do virtual travel.

Check out another country’s terrain, roads and cities in an atlas. Compare distances by measuring with a string between various countries on a globe. Zoom in and out of a location with Google Earth.

To develop their critical thinking skills, compare how each of these represents one country. Why are they visualized differently? What information does each convey? When would you use each?

Let your kids navigate

When we hike, we often pause at a fork in the trail. “Which way should we go?” I’ll ask my kids. Letting them pick signals we don’t always have a defined itinerary and helps them look at travel as an adventure.

You can do the same when exploring a city. Let your kids take point and see where they lead you!

After all, when your kids are world travelers, they’ll be in situations where you’re lost or don’t know which way to turn. They’ll need to be ok with uncertainty and with just taking a leap—or at least a step—into the unknown.

Find friends abroad

When I was little, I loved writing letters to pen pals. By the time I reached middle school, I corresponded with friends in Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand and Costa Rica.

Your kids can make friends across the world, too. They can go old-school and send letters or post cards. But technology makes finding global friends even easier! They can chat over WhatsApp or Marco Polo, email, or chat on a messenger app (with an adult’s supervision).

(I really like the book Same, Same but Different. It tells a story of two kids getting to know each other via letters. This children’s book is a terrific way to introduce the concept of pen pals to your littles.)

If your kids are interested, you can ask your friends or social media followers to connect you with another child. Or you can sign up with Interpals, where people go to connect and practice their language skills.

Learn about friends’ backgrounds

Most people have family roots from another place in the world. Some have long histories in the country where you live; others are recent immigrants.

Either way, encourage your kiddos to ask adult friends about their cultural heritage. Your kids will learn about other countries and how interconnected our world is.

Practice the language

The neuroplasticity of kids’ brains means that it’s way easier for them to learn a language than it is for you and me. That means now is the best time to practice another language!

For example, Max and Edie learn Mandarin in school, and Hubs and I have tried to learn alongside them. So when I ask Maxine how many pancakes she wants, I encourage her to answer in Mandarin. The everyday use helps us all practice—which will come in handy once we’re able to reschedule our trip to China and Taiwan.

Even if you don’t have any upcoming trips—or the budget to fly halfway across the world—learning a bit of another language helps your kids grow into global citizens.

And if you do travel abroad, the practice will pay off: It’ll help them orient a little better when they’re immersed in another culture.

Embrace different

I have a real sensitivity around my kids saying “yuck” about food; I have very strong feelings that belittling someone’s food can equal belittling their cultural heritage. So serve your kids food they might not like, and practice alternatives to “yuck.” In our house, I remind them to say, “I don’t care for that.”

That might seem like an insignificant switch, but it’s one step to teaching kids that different doesn’t equal bad.

Children need to learn cultural intelligence to thrive in the 21st century. Cultural intelligence allows us to interact, learn from and appreciate people with different cultural backgrounds.

So any time you hear them (or yourself!) saying that something is “weird” about another place, check yourselves. Come up with a different way to talk about it. Try:

• “I had never thought of doing it that way before.”
• “I wonder why we do this differently.”
• “That’s neat! I wonder if people in other places have even more ways of doing this.”

This one is my favorite:

• “Isn’t it cool that there are so many ways to do things! The world would be a pretty boring place if we were all the same.”

Teach them about their roots

No need to go in-depth with your 23 And Me results (unless your kids are a little older), but you can talk to your kids about where your family comes from. It’ll all be abstract to littles, but understanding that just about everyone comes from somewhere else will expand their idea of the world.

Once you’ve IDed where your ancestors come from, explore those places virtually. You might know the city, town or region where your ancestors came from—if so, check it out through Google maps, videos on YouTube or the websites of cultural attractions there.

Even if you know only the country, learn about what it’s like there today and what it was like during the time when your ancestors left.

The post Family virtual travel: Help your kids become world travelers from home appeared first on To & Fro Fam.

These “photoshopped” pictures are a huge hit: My kids love them, I wish I could turn this into a job, and friends are asking me to make them for their kids. I bet you’ll have a blast with replacing backgrounds of photos, too.

And these images make it easy to travel from home in a time we can’t explore like we want to.

Here’s the deal: You can do this digital wizardry with only a few clicks. You don’t need Photoshop or another expensive software. You don’t need any tech skills. Seriously: This takes about 2 minutes to do. And they’re so fun!

Without further delay, here’s your instructions to replace the background in photos in just a few simple steps.

10 steps to replace the background of photos

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go? You don’t need a passport, a plane ticket or an industrial-sized pack of disinfectant wipes to travel now. Simply follow these steps to “photoshop” your family into a scenic photo.

1. Take a photo

You can either use an existing digital photo or take a new one. This is easiest if the background is plain, but any background or photo will do. Upload the picture to your computer.

For extra fun, you can dress up like you’d need to if you were actually on vacation in your destination.

One final tip: If you’re using a photo of kids, take the photo from your kids’ eye level. If you take it from above, their feet and legs will look strangely small (because of foreshortening). When taken out of context and put into a photo that’s snapped straight-on, your kids’ legs will look weird.

2. Pick a photo of your destination

Next, choose a photo taken in the destination you’d want to visit. You can look online or search through your own photos. My favorite free source of gorgeous stock images is Unsplash.

Simply type the destination name into the search bar and find a photo you like. Download it to your computer.

Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq on Unsplash

I found this one of the Northern Lights in Iceland from Nicolas Leclerq.

3. Upload photo

Go to the free Photo Scissors website. Click the button that says “Upload Photo.” Select the image of you/your family.

It will automatically load to the next step.

4. Check the foreground

Photo Scissors will automatically select the foreground, aka the subject of the photo—in this case, the people you want to transport to a distant land! It automatically removes the background, leaving the selected part of the photo highlighted in green.

Generally, it does a good job of automatically selecting all—or nearly all—of the parts you want to keep in the photo.

Look at the image on the right to see if there are more parts of the picture you want to remove, or parts you want to add back in.

5. Remove unwanted parts

Select the eraser tool, which is immediately to the right of the green plus icon. This will remove unwanted parts of the photo.

Slide the black dot over the bar to get the size eraser you need. You may need to make it smaller than its default.

Then hold down a click and move your mouse to draw over the unwanted parts of the selected foreground. You can see it disappear from the background-less photo on the right.

For more detailed removal of unwanted photo parts, zoom into the image. Click the icon of the magnifying glass with a plus in it. Then click the icon with the four arrows. Click and drag to move the photo until you see the section you want to adjust.

6. Add in missing parts

Next, take a close look to see if the tool automatically took away parts of your photo you want to include. Click on the icon with the arrow in the green circle. Hold down a click and move your mouse to draw over the parts of the picture you do want. As you draw, you can see those sections get added back in on the right.

If you need to see more closely, follow the same instructions in step 5.

Hooray! Now you’re ready to replace the background of your photo!

7. Replace the background of the photo

On the far upper right of the screen, you’ll see icons with two squares. Up until this point, you’ve been using the icon with the dark square in front—the foreground setting. For the next step, click the icon beside that one. It has two squares with the dark one behind the light one.

Under “Background,” you’ll see a drop-down menu. Its default is “transparent.” But you don’t want to travel to nothingness! Click the dropdown menu and select “Image.” Then click the blue “Select Image” button and choose the image of your destination from your computer. It will pop up behind the people!

8. Adjust the background of the photo as needed

Chances are, your original image won’t perfectly fit into the background automatically.

(ACK, my kids’ legs have been chopped off!!!!)

To see exactly what you’re working with, click the icon of the microscope with the minus in it to zoom out. Drag the background until it’s in a good position relative to the foreground.

Note: If you want to drag the foreground—the people—simply select the icon with the dark square on top. Then you’ll be able to move the foreground.

9. Adjust the size of the photo

Your original image may look to big or too small relative to the background. You can easily shrink or expand it.

Click on the foreground icon (the one with the dark square on top). Click and hold one of the back dots at the corners of the rectangle surrounding the foreground image. Drag to make it smaller or bigger.

It’s ok if part of the foreground goes beyond the edge of the background image. It will be cropped out.

10. Save your “photoshopped” image

Once you have the image just how you want it, it’s time to save. Click the blue icon of the floppy disk in the top right corner of the screen. (Do you remember floppy disks? I sure do!)

Here you have two choices. You can either register and pay for a high-resolution file or do the free version. You only need the high-resolution image if you plan to print it. If you intend to use it digitally—sharing on social media, for example—the low resolution version is just fine!

Congrats—you replaced the background of a photo in just a few easy steps! I told you it wasn’t hard.

Travel from home

On a more serious note, I’ve been struggling with the quarantine. (Duh—I know we all are—but hear me out.) We have it good compared to so many people. Yet travel is my favorite thing to do. It lights me up inside, makes me feel like I’m filled with fizzy champagne inside. I’m happiest and most alive when I’m exploring an unfamiliar place, learning about another culture and seeing the world anew from my kids’ perspective.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that again.

Today looks drastically different than a few months ago. Back in January, I had trips planned to China, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Japan, Denver, San Diego, Bend, OR and more. Now my calendar is filled with scribbled-out plans.

Some days I’m really sad. I’m mourning everything that has changed, including my family’s love of travel. We don’t yet know how everything will shake out and when we’ll be able to return to nearby road trips, let alone international jaunts.

In response, I’ve been leaning into anything that makes us laugh and brings us joy. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see that we’ve been getting wacky on the regular. We’ve been doing all the activities I wrote about in my post on social distancing fun for kids.

Replacing the backgrounds on photos is one of those things that makes us giggle uncontrollably.

I’m guessing this easy activity will bring you joy, too. When you make your own, post them on social media and tag me (@toandfrofam) so I can see where you traveled!

Question: Where will you go first during your virtual travel from home? And where will you go first when we get to travel again for real?

The post How to replace background of photos for virtual travel (zero tech skills needed) appeared first on To & Fro Fam.