This is one of the most common questions we get about traveling full-time – what about school for our kiddos?
This upcoming year Liam will be in the second grade and Hadley, although only turning 5 this August, will start Kindergarten.
We will homeschool both of them. I NEVER thought I’d homeschool my kids, but I’m finding myself really excited about homeschooling on the road – which is often called Roadschooling.
Jeremy, teacher by profession, has a Master’s in Education with 13 years of teaching experience. He’ll likely be leading the lessons each morning, while I fit in my work. I love reading chapter books with the kids and we currently spend every night reading (one of my favorite times with the kids) – and this will continue on the road.
We will continue to emphasize reading, math and science. With lots of history and social studies lessons based on the places we are visiting. We anticipate lots of learning opportunities on the road and are excited about the possibilities.
We will integrate technology when we feel it adds value including the use of iPads. Jeremy recently attended a training on some of the best iPad learning apps – and we’ll use these when it makes sense.
And we plan to take advantage of local libraries, local events and festivals, visitors centers, museums and Junior Ranger programs at the state parks. We anticipate there won’t be any shortage of learning opportunities – for us all!
It’s our initial plan to register them through our domicile state of Washington – and have all evaluations and testing done through Washington.
In the next month we hope to select an official homeschool curriculum.
Do you have favorite homeschool curriculum that you’d recommend? Leave a comment and let us know, we’d love to hear from you!
Jeremy recently attended a training on some of the best iPad learning apps – Can you share this list?
Jennifer – We’ll be sharing more about this as we try them out. Stay tuned.
What a wonderful opportunity! On the road homeschooling will provide so many opportunities for learning!
We really think so! Thanks for the encouragement.
Moving Beyond the Page would be a great choice. Literature based and available online.
Math U See might be good for math. 🙂
Thank you for the suggestion, Lorna!
I am so excited about your journey this next year as if it’s my own! Can’t wait to read about your adventures and see the pictures.
I’ve recently fallen in love with Sonlight curriculum. Also literature based, from the reviews I’ve read, it’s great! Hoping to start it with my kids this fall.
Prayers for safe travels!
Thanks for the well wishes. We are going with BookShark, which is an offshoot of Sonlight. Hear great things about both!
I would recommend Amblesideonline.org It’s very do-able to combine both kids, but you do need to read Charlotte Mason’s words to fully “get it”. Perfect for the road though–it includes nature study, excellent literature, music, fine arts–all very doable on the road. You can add in and subtract to suit yourself [you pick your own math and can use a science “curriculum” if desired]–there’s no homeschool police, lol. Then you will be free to really enjoy the rest Excellent stuff and no boring textbooks except for math. And at their age http://livingmath.net/ has GREAT suggestions. I will be following your site with interest.
Thanks for the tips!
What an awesome opportunity for your family! We have been using Sonlight for the past four years and love it. However, this year I started using The Complete Writer by Susan Wise Bauer instead of Sonlight’s writing. We use Math-U-See. It has been great for my struggling mathematician as well as the one who excels in math.
Hope you find what works for your family!
Thank you for the advice. We have purchased the BookShark curriculum, which is an offshoot of Sonlight. Heard great things about both.
We use Bookshark with our 7 & 4 year old boys. I highly recommend it! It is Sonlight’s version that is approved for charter & public schools. Our local district allows us to use public school dollars to pay for it 🙂 We just have to check in regularly with status reports so they can be sure we stay on track. We too are moving soon, and considering the “Roadschool” lifestyle, so this will travel easily for us. Then our check ins will become more “virtual”, which will be good learning for the kids too.
(Being from Olympia, have you heard of MP3? Meridian Parent Partnership Program. They are out of Bellingham, but serve all over Washington State. I’ve heard they do the same thing. Public school funds to buy your curriculum, with support & help available when you need it)
I love that Bookshark is unit study based. We were able to get the first grade pack & then use accelerated readers & math for our older son, yet order the kinder-level worksheets for the younger, but they could learn together. And we did ALL of our reading, history, maps & science lessons & experiments at the table (or on the bed, floor, couch, patio…) together! While reading Charlotte’s Web, we marked Harrisburg Pennsylvania on our map, learned about farming cultures in history & studied spiders for science – all in the same week!
I wish you luck in your new adventure!
Thanks for the advice. Our Bookshark curriculum came today. Very excited! I have not considered teaching our daughter (Kindergarten) with my son (2nd grade), but it makes sense. We ordered the full 2nd grade curriculum for our son, but only the math and handwriting for our daughter. Both will be doing Hooked On Phonics as well.
Thank you, and please keep letting us know what works for you!
My $0.02?
Unless your state requires you to have something in place…don’t sweat choosing a curriculum until after you are on the road for 6-8 weeks.
You are completely changing your world. Where you sleep. Where you shop. How your family interacts.
And..how you learn.
Let the trip inform the formalized homeschooling process and not the other way around.
By that I mean – don’t be looking at Yosemite out the window but “can’t go explore it yet because your workbooks aren’t filled in yet.”
The trip will provide nearly all of the “learning” you’ll need. Then just supplement where needed.
Don’t over think it. Don’t stress out over it.
As an experienced homeschool mama (11 yrs), I couldn’t have said this better myself.
Thanks for the tips – means a lot coming from families that are out there exploring! We listened to your families podcast very early on in our decision making process – it really helped.
What an awesome opportunity for the family. Enjoy the rest of the year on the road. Now I just need to get my wife to bite on the idea of homeschooling.