One of the many questions that have come up during our New England travel adventures is “how do you homeschool while traveling?” This is a brilliant question! It’s just one of the many questions from inquiring minds when you live an “outside of the box” type of lifestyle.
For those who are wondering how in the world kids get an education while traveling. This post is for you. 😉 Take into consideration that homeschool has many different ways about educating kids. The kids don’t have to sit down and hammer all of those facts until they’re blue in the face just to pass some standardized test. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Homeschool is more about actually educating your kids to truly learn things that they 1) need to know to be a well-rounded, educated adult and 2) survive in this world they’re living in. Homeschool is not about slamming facts around and having kids memorize it just to be the next best school in the world of education where the best scores aka kids who can memorize facts better wins. Nope. Homeschool goes beyond that.
So, do you really want to know?
You’re wondering how can our children be educated kids while living in such an outside of the box way?
Well, here’s your answer …
How do you Homeschool While Traveling?
Take Note: you do need to have a home base for homeschooling. This is because you have to abide by your state of residence guidelines. Every state seems to have various guidelines and standards for having parents educate their children, be certain you’re following them while you homeschool.
We’re traveling temporarily but wanted to make sure we didn’t miss a chance to continue our kids’ education during our travels. If you plan to literally live on the road forever, then you’ll have to handle homeschooling quite differently, and that I cannot advise you on.
Historical Landmarks & Nature Hikes
Imagine being able to teach your kids about the great history of our nation from the road? Looking up historical landmarks, neat locations, and hiking trails to enjoy together is a fabulous way to give hands-on learning for geography, history, science, and even math. Yes, I said it, math!
Our kids were able to learn about a bog recently, and even see how deep it goes. During this self-guided tour, we learned about plant life, what grows where and everything you’d expect to learn about nature in a hands-on nature trail walking experience.
Mathematics in the Kitchen
Since we’ve been able to stay in locations that have a microwave and sometimes a suite with a full-blown kitchen, the kids can still put their mathematic skills to use with cooking. I’ve always cooked and baked with the kids from a young age and while they’re not interested in baking with Mama as often, we get to teach them fractions, and other mathematic skills (as well as a little science when we mix up the wrong things, oops).
During our camping trips, the kids were able to learn how many sticks it takes to start a fire, how to get a fire going properly for cooking and measure out the space to fit three tents nicely. Again, more hands-on math homeschooling while traveling.
Use an Online Curriculum
Since you can get WiFi access just about anywhere these days, it’s not hard to use an online platform to get your homeschooling while traveling curriculum started or taken care of. While the boys can learn on the road, and we take the time to discuss new things, historical sights and other things that come up as a chance to educate the boys, we also know that they need to have extra education behind this.
That’s why we’re thinking about using VLACS (my oldest is a Senior on this platform) part-time as well as a website like Time4Learning to help give the boys an added layer of education so they can pass the homeschooling test they need to take every 6-12 months.
At the end of the day, trying to learn how to homeschool your kids isn’t hard. I mean, it isn’t for us. That’s because you’re talking to a Mama who read to her kids from the time they were in the womb to every night before bed as they got older. To this day we still discuss educational stuff like national and local news, politics, society, manners, and history together any time we get a chance.
We’ve simply raised the kids around that type of educational chit-chat style environment so homeschooling while traveling hasn’t really changed our family discussions and experiences much.
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