How To "CarSchool"

After a summer full of mostly staying at home, we were finally able to finalize plans to go on a road trip across the country this month!  We are driving to the East Coast to visit family, and we will be spending almost a week in the car by the time it's all said and done.  Because of my husband's work, we are actually not able to take a long trip during the summer months, so our vacations typically need to fall during the school year.  Rather than taking the weeks off school and cutting into our summer break, we made a plan to do schoolwork in the car.  "Carschooling", if you will.  If we are going to be spending 8-10 hour days in the car, we may as well get some homeschool hours in while we are just sitting there!

Making A Plan

I already wrote about how I am using a notebook planning system this school year, and this is the method I am using on the road to keep our school on track.  Before our trip, I mapped out all the days we will be driving, and then tried to set reasonable expectations for each day in to-do list form.  The difference between this and my normal planning is that I am going to be the keeper of the notebook, since most of our car school subjects will be done all together.  I made a list of resources I want to use on our trip, and for each car day I included "all together" lessons, and a few individual learning activities as well.  Here are some of the things I'm bringing:

Masterbooks States Unit Study

Since we will be driving through so many states, I figured this would be a great time to learn some United States geography and state history!  We are going to try this resource from Master Books, which came with a free student workbook when I purchased the PDF.  I'm going to print off the work pages for all the states that we will be driving through, and we'll learn about each one as we go!

Audiobooks

I'm loading up my phone with audiobooks that I would like to listen to on the road, and I am hoping we will get through at least one or two audiobooks. I specifically downloaded some titles from the two companies below, which have some really solid and rich historical books on audio!  Both narrators read the text in an engaging way, and I'm really looking forward to listening to these books with the kids.

Uncle Rick's Audiobooks - I remembered seeing this website at a homeschool conference, and was pleasantly surprised to see that you can sign up for a 30 day free trial and get two free audiobooks!  There is a wide selection of historical books, character stories, and Bible resources for kids.  I chose "With Wind And Tide" (sea adventures, since we'll be going near the ocean), and "America First Vol. One" (great stories from American history).

Jim Hodges Audiobooks - I remembered this audiobook company at the homeschool conference as well, and was pleased to see another opportunity for a free audiobook!  The freebie I got was "Under Drake's Flag: A Tale Of The Spanish Main".  Though this particular novel does not fit with our history studies for the year, I did a little research and found some other titles from Jim Hodges Audiobooks that I am excited to dive into with the kids!  

All-Together Subjects

Though I could bring several of our all together subjects, the main one I will bring for our car schooling is our history curricula.  Both our history texts (Our Star-Spangled Story and Taking Africa For Jesus) are easily done in the car, with just a couple workbook pages that I can easily bring along.  I also have an excessive collection of read-alouds that I will be bringing, including various picture books that relate to our destinations, The Horse and His Boy, The Trolley Car Family, Pilgrim's Progress For Young Readers, and African Pearls: A Story Of Faith In Uganda (which was published by a friend of mine, and which I'll be writing more about later...there may be a giveaway coming!).

Language Arts and Math Workbooks (and Apps)

Math is the one subject that I am hesitant to leave behind for two weeks in the middle of the school year.  I want my kids to keep practicing their math facts, and not to lose their momentum with math.  Though our main math curriculum (Rightstart) is too bulky to take on our trip, I have found some math coloring workbooks, math drill workbooks, multiplication fact apps, and flashcards that we'll bring to review each day that we are on the road.

For language arts, we will be leaving the writing and reading curricula behind (too bulky), but the kids Masterbooks Language Lessons For A Living Education books have pages that are easy to tear out.  I will bring enough work pages to last the duration of our trip, and it won't add alot of extra weight!

Handicrafts

I've decided that lanyards 100% count as handicrafts.  You know, those plastic-cord weaved keychains that we made when we were kids?  Was that just me?  I rediscovered them recently, taught my kids how to make them, and they've been weaving up a storm.  This is a great activity to keep hands busy while we read in the car.  Here's a post with some lanyard tutorials.

Getting Organized

Once I decide what to bring with us, the next step is to keep it all organized without loading our car down with too much bulk.  As I mentioned, I am able to print off worksheets for most of the subjects, or tear work pages out of our curricula.  Certain textbooks I will bring, but some of my resources are also in digital format (such as PDF's and audiobooks), and won't take up any space.  The main thing I need to do is keep track of the kids' individual workbook pages and remember what I want to do each day.

My daily plan will be kept in our scheduling notebook for the week.  For the kids' individual work, I bought them each a plain folder with the tabs inside for holding loose papers.  I am going to hole-punch all their loose papers, and make an individual, custom "workbook" for each of them to use on vacation!  I'll use sticky notes to separate the work pages into sections that they have to complete each day.  I think this will keep everything in one place, and I'll be able to look through their work without alot of mess or a huge homeschool book bag to tote around.

Planning For Field Trips

Since we'll be driving through some pretty interesting areas and exploring a state we don't get to visit often, I am excited to take my kids to all the local historical sites!  The husband and I are mapping out a plan for the things we would like to see (or that we can reasonably see) on our trip.  Once we have our completed list, I'll bookmark websites and interesting resources that relate to those places.  We will be reading about some of the related historical events as we drive, and then I will use field trip journals for the kids to record what they saw and learned after each stop.  I hope this will be a fun way for them to look back on our trip in the future!

One Last Note

One thing I am trying to remember is not to get so rigid in our driving and schooling schedule that we miss interesting stops along the way!  Sometimes those impromptu stops are full of interesting tidbits.  Once I stopped along the side of the road in my own state on a whim, and read a plaque on a monument honoring one of our governors who stood against the Japanese internment camps during World War 2.  I had no idea!  Our summer waterfall hike was another random, side-of-the-road destination that we spotted, and it ended up being so memorable!  On our trip to New Mexico, we took an hour detour to see the Manhattan Project site in Las Alamos, and it was a great learning experience.  Those opportunities to stretch our legs, learn something, and make a new memory are things I don't want to miss.

I am really excited to report back on how my system for car-schooling works out, and what things I will do differently if we ever take such a long road trip during the school year again!  I'll update this post and share on Instagram how it went - if it goes terribly, you can look for a future post about how we'll do better next time!