This week our crew “traveled” to Puerto Rico for some virtual worldschooling … through the pages of Tiny Travelers’ newly released Puerto Rico Treasure Quest!

I received a complimentary copy of this book for review. However, all opinions are our family’s own.

Now, I technically don’t have “tinies” in my home anymore, but this adorable board book was versatile enough to captivate even all three of my kids (ages 8, 11, and 13).

The illustrations, rhyming text, and bite-size pieces of information are obviously well-suited towards younger readers, but appealing enough to serve as a perfect jumping off point for older kids, like mine, to dig deeper.

In fact, my 13-year old kept remarking with fascination on the facts found throughout the pages, which inspired further learning of this Caribbean island … interest-led learning at work!

Puerto Rico Treasure Quest is part of a series of fun, interactive books that takes kids on a journey throughout a specific country or territory. The search-and-find feature (which my kids, despite their older ages, still had a blast with!) invites readers to engage with the content, which gives them a taste of the people and culture.

My girls especially loved going back through the book to locate the Puerto Rican coqui frog at every site!

Not all of us have the ability to jet off to other countries (especially now with the current coronavirus situation). However, the Tiny Travelers series is a great way to still do some virtual worldschooling with your kids, all from the comfort of your home. Other countries you can currently “travel” to with these books are China and Mexico. Japan and India will be available very soon!

Below are some of the supplemental resources we used and activities we did, plus some other ideas, inspired by the Tiny Travelers Puerto Rico Treasure Quest:

Websites

Discover Puerto Rico: This website has more detailed information about the territory, as well as beautiful photographs of the same sites mentioned in the book. Note that this is a tourism website primarily geared towards adult readers, so I pre-screened the content and bookmarked specific pages that I wanted to show the kids.

YouTube Videos

This is a great video explaining and showing the bomba, the native music and dance of Puerto Rico.

Bioluminescent Bay at Vieques is the the brightest bay in the world! The kids were in awe of how the water illuminated with movement.

Hands-On Activities

• Color the Puerto Rican flag. Just do a Google search for a free coloring page printable; there are so many to choose from!

• Make a vejigante mask. We ended up not doing this particular craft due to time constraints this week, but I want to include it in this list in case your family would like to do it!

• Did you know that El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rainforest in the United States?! It is also home to the coqui frog, which is only found in Puerto Rico. They are named for the sound they make during their mating call: “co-kee”!

• If your crew is inspired to dive deeper into rainforest ecosystems, making a diorama is a fun, hands-on activity.

• Through the book, we learned that boxing is the most successful sport in the Olympics for Puerto Rico. We are members of a boxing gym and my son loves boxing, so it was particularly neat that we could share that connection with the culture! You may not necessarily have a boxing gym membership or have boxing equipment, but you can certainly incorporate some physical education into a Puerto Rican unit study and have fun trying some cardio kickboxing moves with your kids!

• Top off your tour of the Puerto Rican culture with a special shave ice treat – piragua!