School Away From School: 4 Tips for Educating on the Road

Heya friends!

Something I truly love is traveling with my little tribe. My husband teases me for my obsessive-compulsive packing methods, but let's be honest--if you don't want to end up buying 500+ things that you forgot and if you want to get to enjoy every opportunity that presents itself along the way and have the right shoes for the right activity...that takes some planning! And if you, like me, don't want to be swimming in junk in the car and unable to find the stuff you KNOW YOU PUT SOMEWHERE, that takes organization. Ahem. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

I wanted to share with you my top tips for having school away from home. 

It's hard enough to maintain a rhythm of structured education when you have all your equipment and your set up; what about when you have no "place," less than you usual "stuff," and umpteen million more distractions than usual? 

I give you, School Away from School!

Tip #1: Redeem time in the car.

All that time in the car, with the bickering and the snacking and the boredom...oh, your kids don't do that? Ok, just me then. 

No, seriously. I could dedicate a whole post just to "Van School," but I'll keep it short here.

With my three littles, we've learned what subjects we can reasonably accomplish in the car, and what subjects simply need more space (or stability). I recommend practicing this BEFORE a big trip (like say, on your way to somewhere just a little further out than usual local errands). We drive about an hour out every other week or so to stock up on some essentials, and we've used that time to perfect our "van school." I know that we can do grammar, math, history, and Bible in the car. Instead of me going over their answers later like I do at home, we all talk through answers together and they get a big kick out of this occasional "grading themselves" exercise. 

I also love seeing how the older two step up in these situations to tutor their sister and each other. I don't usually condone older kids teaching younger kids (too much of the blind-leading-the-blind!) but my oldest has occasionally done a reading lesson with my youngest when we're doing van school, and I can hear the whole lesson and it's not only a fun time for her, but it also boosted my oldest's confidence in his reading, being able to show such knowledgeability to his sister. 

Seriously, the days we do the five-hour trip to my grandad's house with the kids is great--I know we'll get a full and good school day in every time, and they have done it enough times now that they crank out their school in time to get a little nap in before we reach grandpa's house!

Other car lessons include listening to books on tape or educational songs (we love our Schiller Math Songs). Don't forget to seize teachable moments and opportunities...which brings me to my next point.

Tip #2: Seize Roadside Learning Opportunities.

There are awesome learning opportunities literally lying by the side of the road everywhere you go! 

When I was being homeschooled, my parents kept four or five books in the car at all times (and used them ALL THE TIME). These included a Spanish/English dictionary, a tree identifying book and a bird Identifying book, a "Roadside Geology," book, and a Bible. We would translate Spanish names of things and get insight for why a place was named what it was; we talked about the birds and trees we saw; we found all kinds of fascinating rock formations and discovered everything from alabaster mountain peaks to semiprecious gems to fossilized seashells; and we applied scripture to real-life situations (including the inevitable car-bickering). My parents would often pass the books back to us and make US do the looking-up of the thing, which eventually made us very comfortable with this method of research. I try to do this as well, though I'm not as consistent with it as my parents were! (Also, I cheat and use my phone to look stuff up...which is great for getting the info on the go, but I need to improve in teaching them how to use books to look up info--work in progress!)

For longer trips, we always get the AAA book for each state we go through and there are fun historical little blurbs about EVERY TOWN YOU GO THROUGH (these books are free at the AAA store if you are an AAA member). I also encourage my guys to look at maps and see where we are, where we're going, and look for interesting things along the way--and this also stems the flow of "are we there yet" questions, as the child is encouraged to calculate time and distance for themselves using the maps! (Even though we almost always use a GPS...this is still a useful skill, and it helps discover destinations off the beaten track.)

For younger kids, the Dollar Store has great "roadside bingo" dry-erase games that I have found help everyone be a little more tuned-in to their surroundings instead of getting too immersed in their in-car entertainment. I also encourage our kids to take pictures, either with my phone or with their own little cameras or Kindles. Let kids see that the world is full of interesting things, and that history, geology, science, math, language...it's all happening everywhere you look!

 Tip #3: Utilize Expertise and Interactive Learning Opportunities.

Are you going to a national park? Encourage kids to ask questions and talk to rangers! Are you sitting next to an old cowboy in the diner? Let you kids start a conversation and ask questions about something they saw in town. Do you run into a local fisherman as you stop to see a historical bridge? Talk to him! I remember one time my dad engaged an elderly fella in conversation when we were wandering around in the Green River Lake area of south-central Kentucky, and it turned out he had a farm nearby that had been in the family over a hundred and fifty years, and was able to show us a private cemetery on his land where his great grandpa was buried who had been a child during the civil war. This old guy had heard stories from his great-grandad as a young child about the civil war, and he was able to share some of those with us! He also showed us a bald eagle nest, told hilarious stories about mishaps for the Army Core of Engineers dam that was nearby, and a plethora of other local information we would have never found in any book. All because my dad was willing to stop and chat--we ended up spending the day following up on the cool things he alerted us to in the surrounding area (and some of those finds became some of our favorite haunts when we later lived in that area!)

Maybe you're visiting grandparents--that's expertise you can tap into, too! My mother-in-law is amazing about bringing fun educational books and activities for the kids, and teaching them new games that always include math, sequencing, or other skills--and the kids don't even realize they are learning anything. If grandparents or others are interested in reading with your kids, I'm all for encouraging that--connecting learning and stories to relationships and special experiences (trips!) will link those stories forever to that visit and those relationships.

 Tip #4: Life Skills is part of Education, too.

I do try and keep up with at least a minimal framework of formal education as we travel, but don't forget--teaching your kids how to be good travelers, thoughtful guests, and aware of their surroundings is every bit as worthwhile as learning past-tense verbs or pounding in multiplication facts. Field trips, special focus days, and unstructured learning are incredibly powerful tools--don't be afraid to use them!

It's easy to let the unique and limited opportunities of travel pass you by because of an obsessive adherence to schedule and structure. The key here is to dig into opportunities--don't let your kids just coast and let the trip happen! This is when they get to practice that life-long learning stuff we always talk about--and seeing you do it is one of the best ways for them to learn how!

Happy Travels!