Parents are asked not to lend the packs to others or to take them if they know they will not be used or take them on vacation with them. Another 30 second-grade backpacks were issued midyear. Response has been extremely positive from both children and parents, and their journals indicate that families spend anywhere from one to three hours on the activities. Parents have made suggestions for improvements and recorded hints for other families in the journals. There have been some damages and losses reported, and some expenses have been recovered.
Damages are primarily to videotapes, which have been broken or cracked.
Team members regularly visit participating students for feedback and to inspect journals for comments and responses. Follow-up phone calls are used whenever a question cannot be addressed in a journal or when part of the unit has been forgotten at home. We hope that the Backpack Explorer Activity Program will meet several grant goals. By sending educational materials into the home, we expect that children will be able to extend their learning time without extending their school day, adding from one to three hours of learning time over the weekend. The strands that were selected are those that are considered key in any number of content areas.