Roadschooling is fundamentally the same as homeschooling, only with the added bonus of seeing the entire country from the comfort of your home, visiting all of the major landmarks, and going on some of the most amazing field trips you can imagine! For example, this month we have been in Florida, and my kids have gone on an airboat tour of the Everglades and were able to pet live alligators, we've been in some incredible museums, been shelling on Sanibel Island, visited the Tampa Aquarium, explored the Tampa Zoo, seen dozens of historic homes and buildings, climbed the wall of a fort from the 1800's, and this past weekend we took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. Not to mention the adventures we went on last month, including touring the Alamo, The Natural Bridge Caverns, the city of Austin (the capital of our home state, Texas), etc. Then on to Louisiana, where we explored historic New Orleans and introduced the kids to Cajun food and culture, and even got to eat in a restaurant that once was a favorite of my favorite author, Tennessee Williams. Yes, I did have a minor fan-girl moment. ; )
Through our travel, our kids are gaining a sense of the world outside of our little Texas community, and are learning so much along the way.
Aside from field trips, I use a curriculum I have pieced together specifically geared to each kid's abilities and interests. This is our third year homeschooling, so I have learned which types of curriculums and learning styles work best for our family, and for me as a teacher. Our boys are in Kindergarten and Second grade this year. After doing tons of research, I decided on the following for our curriculum this year:
Abeka for Language Arts, Reading, Phonics, & Spelling.
Apologia for Animal Science
Horizons for Math and Penmanship
The Light & The Glory for US History
I've also added several other store-bought workbooks I pull from occasionally to supplement anything we may need extra practice on.
Our daughter is in preschool, so she occasionally colors a work sheet or practices her letters and numbers while the boys and I work on book work, but she generally sits quietly on my bed and watches an educational video or plays with her dolls during school time.
We start our day with Bible and a devotion at the breakfast table, followed by prayer and the pledge to the flag. Next we do "circle time", which isn't much of a circle since there are only three of us in it. But both of my boys are used to circle time from preschool, and insist on having it. During this time we discuss that day's weather, the weather patterns of the month, the calendar, days of the week, months of the year, etc.
After circle time, I generally sit Annie Jane down in the bedroom to watch her "school video" as she calls it, or on the kitchen floor with a sensory bin, then I get started on bookwork at the table with the boys. I'm still learning how to balance both of their work and needs for one-on-one teaching, so there are times when I have to send one of them to play for a minute while I focus my attention on teaching the other their subject at hand at the appropriate grade level.
We generally spread our school day out throughout the whole day. Most of the time I let the boys do their read-aloud time right before bed. And we usually take a long break during the middle of the day to spend time in the pool or riding bikes together to burn off some energy, then we pick back up in the evening after dinner. After trying for a year to force the whole school day to happen in the morning, like I was used to with "real school", even with the promise of the whole rest of the day off, I've learned that is not what works for us! A little work here and there throughout the day is how my oldest works best and happiest, and I prefer it as well. I don't necessarily recommend working this way, but I do recommend finding what works for your family, and doing that. If you aren't a morning person, don't start school until after lunch! If you hate staying up late, get all of your school work done early in the day! If neither of those options sounds like the right fit for you and your kids, make up your own option. Do half after breakfast and half after dinner. Whatever works! All I'm saying is please don't feel the pressure to have a public school schedule at home. You aren't teaching in a public school! You chose to school at home for a reason: freedom to do what works best for you and your children. Even if it seems crazy from the outside looking in, find what works for you. When we first started homeschooling, I would have told you that you had lost your mind if you suggested schooling all day long, all the way up to bed time. Fast forward three years and we don't think a thing of it! It's just how school flows most smoothly for us.
Another thing we have discovered lately that works wonderfully for us is having the boys do school work while we are on the road. Closed in the truck and bored out of their minds, they are suddenly a captive audience and are just happy to be given something to do. Haha! I'm also a HUGE fan of Time4Learning.com. On days when we go on a field trip and don't have time or energy to sit down and do bookwork, I'm able to pull up this incredible website, and my children have an entire years worth of grade-appropriate lessons at their finger tips, complete with quizzes and tests to make sure they are mastering the subjects. I can't say enough good things about Time4Learning.com. They provide lessons in History, Science, Math, Language Arts, etc., and provide printable reports for parents on your child's progress. So if you are a homeschool parent, looking for a great online curriculum or a supplement for your current curriculum, check out Time4Learning.com!
I'm sure I've left a lot of roadschooling questions unanswered, so if I've left anything out, hopefully I'll get around to it in another post down the road. But for now, I hope I've made the concept of roadschooling and how it works for our family a little more clear. God bless!
- M
No comments:
Post a Comment