A WEALTH OF
CURRICULUM IDEAS IN
HUSON TRAVEL LETTERS

Homeschool curriculum ideas inform and entertain your child as excerpts from a sample HUSON TRAVEL LETTERS illustrate:

Anytown, USA
(Letters will come from many places throughout the 50 states.)

Dear Your Designated Name(s),
(The personalized salutation imparts a feeling of pride of ownership in the recipient.)

Have you ever been to the theater to see a play? In Abingdon, we visited the Barter Theater, begun during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Back then people often had to trade or “barter” for what they needed because jobs and money were scarce. Well, some unemployed New York actors came to the southwest Virginia mountains and began giving plays in exchange for chickens, pigs, flour or vegetables. The farmers got entertained and the actors got to eat! Pretty neat arrangement!
(A question draws the reader into the action and introduces an historic event, an economic concept and some geography.)

From Abingdon we drove up I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley looking up at mountains on each side. Then we switched over to the Skyline Drive where we rode along the tops of the mountains looking down into valleys on each side. That was more exciting!
(Contrast and comparison of geographic features evoke a normal child-like reaction.)

Would you believe we saw 15 deer? We kept count of the ones we saw as we drove along. Deer are protected from hunters in the George Washington National Forest, so they are fairly tame. You can’t get close enough to touch them, but we got close enough to take good pictures!
(Children’s natural attraction to animals introduces the idea of natural resource conservation and wildlife management.)

We were surprised to find Thomas Jefferson’s bed was very short – because he was very tall. But, guess what? He liked to sleep sitting up, propped against a lot of pillows! Do you think you would get much sleep that way? If you look at a nickel you will see a picture of Jefferson on one side and his home, Monticello, on the other.
(Interesting trivia brings an historical figure to life and a suggested physical activity reinforces the interest.)

The distance colonial riders could travel in one day by horse, we can travel in just one hour by car. That was how long it took us to get from Richmond, capitol of the state of Virginia, to Willliamsburg, capitol of the colony of Virginia. (This paragraph introduces the concept of historical changes in our government.)

In Yorktown we saw a real 18th-century sunken shipwreck! Engineers have built a cofferdam around the entire ship and special filters cleanse the muddy river water inside so you can actually see the ship – one of 20 or so scuttled by Cornwallis before he surrendered to George Washington ending the Revolutionary War.
(The excitement of a real shipwreck bears the seeds of discussions about the science of restoration, ecology and history.)

At Newport News’ Mariner’s Museum we saw some of the world’s smallest ships, so tiny that the man who spent years making them used dentist drills to do the carving! These authentic models are suspended in large glass cases with magnifying glasses placed so you can see the incredible detail. If you have ever tried to make a model car, plane or boat, you could appreciate how much time and patience it took to create this fleet “from scratch.”
(A museum visit, personalized with reference to a popular hobby, reinforces a sense of appreciation for work well done.)

But you know what really caught our eye and imagination? Mount Trashmore! Once a garbage dump and landfill, it has been covered with dirt, planted with grass and flowers and made into a wonderful park for skateboarding, biking, climbing, and even swimming. There is nothing trashy about it now! Wouldn’t it be nice to transform more garbage dumps into something pretty and useful?
(A familiar object -- a playground -- is used to illustrate one solution to an ecological concern.)

In our next letter we’ll tell you about the Eastern Shore and some famous wild ponies.
(The ending whets their appetite for the next letter while alluding to a well-know piece of children’s literature.)

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