Loree’ Pettit is a wife and homeschooling mother to 3 children. Loree’ developed a love of geography and history as child traveling throughout the United States and Europe with her family. In 2001, she translated that interest into a geography based unit study for her own children. That unit study went into publication the following year as Galloping the Globe, Cantering the Country, and Eat Your Way through the USA followed two years later. Come and “meet” Loree’ at the Heart of the Matter Online Conference. She will encourage and inspire you with her two talks titled Learning and Having Fun with Your Children and Give Your Child the World: Integrating Travel Into the Homeschool.

Where is your favorite place to visit?
Domestically, we love Washington, DC and Plymouth, MA. They are both just so rich in history. (And there is a little lunch counter in Plymouth right across from Plymouth Rock that has the best clams I have ever eaten!)

In February, we traveled overseas for the first time as a family when we were given the opportunity to go to Germany and Austria. All of us fell in love with Salzburg, Austria! Originally, we were only going to spend one day in Salzburg, but there was so much that we still wanted to see that we spent two extra nights.

You wrote Galloping the Globe based on geography unit studies for your children. What was the most difficult location to get your children interested in?
Back in 2001 when I wrote GtG, we spent the least amount of time on South American countries. The boys simply were not interested at the time. Fast forward a few years and we were doing units that I wrote using the biographies written by Geoff and Janet Benge and published by YWAM. We spent two months learning about a few South American countries while studying the biographies of Nate Saint and Jim Elliot. The boys loved it! This summer we will be doing our traditional Olympic study. Every Olympics the boys each choose a country to learn about and cheer for during the games. This year Aaron has chosen Brazil as the country that he wants to learn more about. So don’t get discouraged if your child isn’t interested when you first introduce a location. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but at some point down the road, they might just surprise you.

Eat Your Way through the USA sounds so yummy! What made you decide to write about food and traveling?
Cooking has always been a lot of fun for me. I love to cook! From the very first unit study we ever did, bringing foods from geographic locations and historic time periods has always been a part of the adventure. When we travel or go to an ethnic festival, I don’t want food that I can get at home; I want authentic foods from that culture.

I love the phrase that my publisher, Cindy Wiggers of Geography Matters, coined. It’s taste buds on learning!

You will be talking about “Learning and Having Fun with Your Children”. What’s your fondest memory of learning and having fun with your children?
Oh, my! There are so many. Curling up on the couch with a child snuggled up on either side for read aloud time are the warmest memories. Travel and field trips to see and touch what we’ve been learning are definite highlights. But one of my fondest memories would have to be the day my younger son grasped the concept of time and seasons.

Learning about seasons was the first unit that I planned myself. The boys were in kindergarten and first grade so it wasn’t going to be a long unit, only a week. That Monday was the last day of winter so we learned about winter and made a big deal about it being the last day of winter. Tuesday was the first day of spring. We learned about what makes spring special and made a big deal about it being the first day of spring. Wednesday we learned about summer. Nothing was ever said about it being summer. Thursday morning Aaron, who was 5 at the time, asked, “Are we still doing summer today?” I said, “No, today we get to learn about fall.” Aaron threw his hands out and exclaimed, “What! Only one day of summer? We didn’t get to go swimmin’ or nothin’!” I grabbed that teachable moment and pulled out a calendar to show him that we would have plenty of time to go swimming.

Another fond memory is the evening that we did a hands on project to replicate digestion. I’m the squeamish one so we waited until after supper to do this project so that my husband could be there to help. Without going into a lot of detail, just imagine pulverized banana, crackers, & lemon juice being squeezed through a pantyhose leg. Surprisingly, I was fine; it was Ralph and the boys that were about to puke. None of us will ever forget how digestion works!

How would you integrate travel into homeschooling on a budget?
With gas at over $4 a gallon and prices on everything else rising, traveling cheap is a bigger challenge today than it was a year ago. A large part of the workshop, Give Your Child the World, covers ways that our family saves money when we travel and ways that we save money to go on our trips.

Traveling with children can be a chore! Any tips?
Travel games and toys that are only played with while traveling help keep younger ones entertained. Books on CD can keep the whole family engrossed for hours.