Developed in partnership with Education Services Australia

There are lots of literacy and numeracy skills needed when you’re travelling – whether it’s to the local park, the Parkes Observatory, or Paris.

Even if you're not going anywhere soon, you can put literacy and numeracy on your child's itinerary by encouraging them to:

• use maps to find out about the local area, places that they go to, and where they are in relation to each other
  
  Is nanna's house in the south or the east?
  
  Where is the market in relation to the hospital?
• use maps, atlases and travel books to research different travel destinations
  
  Where would you like to travel?
  
  How could you go there?
  
  How long would the trip take?
  
  Would you need a passport?
• use a map to estimate the distance between different locations
  
  What parts of the map give information about distance?
  
  How can you check if your estimate is accurate?
• research a country they’d like to visit one day
  
  What’s the population? The climate? The local language? The flag?
• use timetables to plan a trip using public transport
  
  How long will the trip take?
  
  When do you need to leave?
  
  How much will it cost?
• if your family has a car, work out the average fuel consumption, find out the current price of fuel then calculate the cost of different trips (including any parking costs or road tolls).
  
  Would it be cheaper for us to drive to the movies, or catch the bus? How long would each trip take?