People thought I was crazy when we announced we would be homeschooling our kids. All the questions and comments came flying at us…. How will they socialize? What will you do all day? You are failing your kids by not sending them to school, how will they ever go back and know how to make friends? And one of my favorites, doesn’t homeschooling make kids weird?
My kids are far from any of those things. They are sweet and kind to strangers and other kids. My girls are the first to ask if others want to play or ask other kids questions. They each have one sport they participate in and then we take them to other events to socialize. But the greatest thing my kids are learning about the world and the different people in it. We are lucky enough to live in Texas where homeschooling laws are more lenient than most states. (check out HSLDA.org for more information on your state laws) Our girls are traveling to so many places. In the past year, they have been to at least 10 states. Some we were driving through but as we homeschool, we learn about the states we are passing through. We have played in the snow in Colorado, played on the beaches in Florida, Bahamas, Mexico, and Texas, seen the foothills of Missouri and seen some not so pretty places. All that to say, I have learned quickly it takes time to prepare for travel and prepare homeschool materials to take with us.
This last trip we went on with my husband, I prepared a little differently than normal. For each child I prepared a binder with materials in each subject. On our travels, I like to review everything they have worked on in the last couple weeks. I do not like doing new material while traveling, except for learning about the states we are visiting. We play games, talk about what our favorite things to do or what we wish we could do if we ever come back, and we review all schoolwork. This is what I used for my child’s homeschooling needs while we traveled.
1. 1” binders
2. Sheet protectors
3. Tab dividers for each subject
4. Dry ease markers
5. Pencils
6. Crayons
7. Coloring pages
8. Review materials
For our review materials, I use 4 websites and each site has free resources but also paid resources. I usually download the free ones before I pay for the entire set of things to make sure they work well with my kids.
1. The Brilliant Homeschool (https://shoptherelaxedhomeschool.com/ ) – Morning work, Reading, Phonics, History, Science and Preschool materials.
2. My Nerdy Teacher (https://mynerdyteacher.com/ ). – Reading and Phonics
3. Superstar Worksheets ( https://superstarworksheets.com/ ) – We use this mainly for Math review, but they have lots of other great resources as well.
4. Teachers Pay Teachers (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ ) – You can sign up for a free account and download many wonderful items. I usually use this last if the other 3 sites do not have what I am looking for.
This method worked great for us. We used the sheet protectors on review pages so they could write on the sheet protector, then erase and try again. Pages we needed to keep, I whole punched them and placed them in the binder. To me, this made the process of keeping things neat and organized and in place. My kids loved working on pages and then just wiping it clean to try again.
The only issue I had with this method was my 5-year-old decided she would write on the hotel’s blanket. I noticed the writing after working with my 7-year-old on some math problems. So, keep a close eye on those little ones with the dry erase markers. Other than that tiny little mishap, this method worked well for us traveling.
Let me know any of your suggestions that have worked well in your travels! We love to try new things and see if it works better for us.
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