Schooling whilst on the road?

Question

I've long dreamed of hitting the road, caravan attached and kids in the back and exploring Australia.

One thing that holds me back is the kids education. I know that lots of people do the big trip. But how do they manage the kids education?

My kids are 9 and 8 at the moment.

I would love to hear from anyone who has done this before.

Answer 1

I have done that - schooled three kids while travelling around the world.

A few questions:

1. are you planning to be gone for a large part or a whole school year?

2.or are you planning to be gone only for a month or two?

If you plan to be gone for a year, then you can look into various homeschool curriculum. At 8 and 9, you want to cover the basics of math, reading, spelling, grammar fairly well. Then instead of a history/geography book, you can do on the road research (prepare by studying yourself a bit before you leave). This is more interesting, and because they will see, smell, touch, and feel what they are learning, they will learn better. The same with science. Check out some of David Susuki's books for kids that age. He has some great small books that you could base scince class off for a year or two.

The great thing is that with your kids so close, they can actually do most of their work together. You can do all history, science, geography together. You can do most math together, and just add a few extra harder problems for the older one. The same with spelling and reading.

Your goal is to cut down on books so you are not packing too much. Check out websites, too, like learningpages.com, and many others for activity pages. Have them write a daily trip journal - this will help their writing skills.

IF you just plan to be away for a few weeks to a month or two, what I have often found is that their school teacher will photocopy the workbook and text book papers that they would be doing at school. Book an appointment to qucikly go through what they would have been learning, and make sure you understand what is expected. Then add into this things like trip journals and learning about what you see. When you get back, they will have been caught up on the basics, and have learned some other things.

On the road, be flexible. On quiet days, we would do more work so we would be ahead for exciting days. Some days we liked math, so we did two or three lessons at once. Other days, we read more. Keep it fun as possible, but remind them that they are still reesponsible for doing theri school work, and if it is not done, then they will miss out on fun activities.

My kids loved it, and kept up with their studies. They also have a broader world view, and their teachers say how much they enjoy having my kid's views in discussions, because they have ideas and thoughts that other kids have not thought of yet.

It can be done. You just have to remember that you can do it, and that you are responsible for teaching, which can be done as you walk up a mountain, or drive down the road. By the campfire, you can talk about the three things that fires need, and how removing any one will cause it to go out. As you cook, you can talk about food groups.

Answer 2

One thing I would like to say at the outset is that there is a lot more to education than schooling, and I think your trip would be a marvelous education in and of itself. I'd also suggest that in some ways, the longer you leave it the harder it will get, so you might want to think about going pretty soon...

As the Mick said, be flexible, try to work the things your kids are doing & seeing into the curriculum to really get some relevancy happening, and get them trying to apply whatever they are studying into their lives.

Kids learn. And they can learn fast. If you just give them the opportunities they may astound you. But remember, there's a lot to life that you won't find in a classroom...

Answer 3

I'm a NZ teacher, and I've had a lot of dealings with our Correspondence School, Private Bag, Wellington NZ. A lot of yachties, expatriate workers in remote places, travellers and people in remote locations in NZ like sheep stations use the Correspondence School for their kids' education. They're very good indeed. As far as I know, non NZ citizens can use them. You'd have to pay though.