DIY Little Passports: Jamaica

To learn and grow from places around the world, we started a homemade project, the World Explorers Club. This month takes us to Jamaica in June! Not gonna lie, putting this package together was a serious challenge—I almost gave up, furiously working on it until the very last day of the month.

L kept asking if her package came every day the last couple of weeks… so sad it took so long to finish. Although I had already bought the souvenir it didn’t seem like enough and I wanted to include something meaningful.

Also, how to navigate many of the “non-kid-appropriate” stuff Jamaica is known for (aka a long history of slavery, piracy and prostitution, rum and weed, the economic divide…)? We concentrated on kid-friendly spots like Luminous Lagoon and Dolphin Cove, the concept of “out of many, one people”, Jamaican world-famous food, and of course Bob Marley.

First challenge: our library has poor or outdated resources for Jamaica, so I requested 2 books for special order (Anya Goes to Jamaica, and J is for Jamaica) but it takes time to receive if it’s approved, and I was on my last day! No actual music from Bob Marley…

There were many good books that I couldn’t check out because they were not available until the following month (especially Island Born)! What I came home with were books that threw all the islands of the Caribbean together without breaking them down individually, so I couldn’t get to know Jamaica at all. When Jamaica was mentioned, it was a footnote to glorifying the British pirates who besieged it—not how I wanted to teach my kid about respecting this country.

Even the books I thought would be straightforward about pirates were confusing and poorly written. I didn’t include the Caribbean cookbook for kids because after reading the recipes and looking at the photos, they were not at all like the delicious food or flavors of actual Jamaica—I liked a video from the Travel Channel better… too bad I couldn’t include it in a physical kit. After filtering through all the books I was left with one or two, and decided to find more, get broader with the actual books, and do my own research on travel blogs and the internet to tie it together!

In this Package

• Letter
• Hand-drawn sticker for Passport
• Friendship Bracelet Kit in Jamaican colors
• Tortuga Caribbean Coconut Rum Cake
• Small Dodge Ball with Jamaican flag, instructions for Dandy Shandy yard game

Additional Resources:

• ​Library books. Jamaica (from the perspective of a child living there). Young, Gifted and Black (includes pages on Mary Seacole and Usain Bolt). Lonely Planet The Cities Book (includes a page about Kingston, Jamaica’s capital). Books about Dolphins. Who Was Bob Marley?, Blackbeard and the Pirates of the Caribbean, Flat Stanley and the Lost Treasure, Glow: Animals with their own night-lights (mentions glowing beaches full of microscopic organisms present in Jamaica).
• Cool Runnings video based on the true story of the first Jamaican bobsled team.

Other Jamaican Activity Ideas

I got some amazing ideas from my teacher-husband about activities and souvenirs that I totally wanted to do and didn’t have the time in one night to complete.

1. ​Make a map of Jamaica, and coordinating flash cards with pictures and descriptions of some of the attractions/tourist spots, and she’d have to match them or mark them on the map.
2. Print/make Jamaican Patois flashcards with Patois phrases on the front, and the English phrase on the back and we’d play a game to guess and remember the phrases. (I actually did this, but didn’t have time to have them printed on nice cardstock and laminated! Practicing Patois made my proper-English grammar/spelling/writing/pronunciation hurt sometimes haha! It was super fun, though!)
3. Dolphin-related souvenir

Receiving the Mail

June’s package was SUPER late–it arrived July 1st. To explain this delay, I had help from my husband. We created 2 separate packages. The one containing the dodgeball (it was too big to fit in the other package) was left on our front step. The other package was planted in the mailbox and she had to pick it up. The outside looked beaten up, dirty, crinkled and folded like it had been on a long journey. A “Return to Sender” note was crossed out, and a “Resend to this address —>” note overwrote it. Our little explorer totally bought into the idea that they had to resend her package and that’s why it was late (never mind that there was only one stamp!). I drew a circle with wavy lines over it with a date on the dodgeball one haha!

Things Mentioned in the Letter

Cost Breakdown

• Stamp & Sticker: Included from initial kit
• Cake: $3.99
• Dodgeball: $8
• Friendship bracelet materials: FREE, already had
• Library resources: FREE

Total Cost of this Month: $11.99

How It’s Going

The first book she opened and finished reading was Glow! Her brothers helped her with some of the other picture books. This girl wasted no time getting outdoors so we could play Dandy Shandy using her new dodge ball. She also watched a couple of YouTube videos on the easiest knots for friendship bracelets, then made several styles in her new colors. I asked her which lucky friend would get the other bracelet, and she couldn’t decide so she has been wearing them everywhere she goes. We’ve listened to reggae and Bob Marley on my Pandora, and I even found a reggae radio station here in Utah?! She found out the Caribbean rum cake had half a percent of alcohol in it, and didn’t want it after her first couple of bites, so I got to taste it! The coconut was yummy!!

Check out all the other places we’ve explored in this DIY Little Passports project here!