Food for thought: Are you smarter than a 4th grader?
There are approximately 10 million fourth graders in the US. Probably all of them are learning about their home state this year in school. Here in New Hampshire, my kids learned about the unsung hero of the American Revolution, General John Stark, who gave us our motto, “Live Free or Die; Death is not the worst of evils.” Stark happens to be one of my two most beloved historical figures, so I took my kids over to Manchester to see General Stark’s home and the statue to him in the local park. It’s an absolutely perfect example of a tour that should be made. There is next to nothing at these locations to explain the history of the people and places that shaped our state and country. How great would it be to have a tour that complemented what my child was learning in the classroom. It would be great to be able to share a fun day exploring these sites with my kids and learning at the same time. Those kind of experiences create wonderful memories and give so much more meaning to the history the kids are supposed to remember. They’re also the kind of experiences that parents are willing to spend money on!
So here’s some food for thought. Get a hold of the 4th grade history curriculum at your local school and see what they’re learning. Pick some local sites that played an essential role in the state’s history and put together several tours that reinforce the curriculum. I would even consider creating a short quiz that you can attach to your tour as a PDF document (you can do this in the main tour info tab on the tour editor). Add some augmented reality images of famous people and you’ll have the students begging to take the tour! (see the example of Abraham Lincoln below)
Once you have your tour published – contact the local papers and have them do a story about it! Even better – get to know the teacher and see if he/she would mention the tour in the school notes that go home to parents. Now you have a built in audience that gets refreshed every year.
