Mrs. Makepeace’s class is back in session!
After 18 months of homeschooling Kalyra on our road trip around Australia, I didn’t think I’d be taking on the responsibility of teaching my kids while traveling again. But, here we are, and this time, Savannah is joining my school.
We left the establishment in October last year, and I’ve been homeschooling on the road since. Last time we did distance education. This time I’m taking care of it myself!
Class is in!
In this post, I’ll share with you:
Why were homeschooling on the road this time instead of doing distance education
Homeschool registration complications
How I’m approaching homeschooling on the road
Covering homeschooling curriculum on the road
Homeschooling Resources
Our homeschool routine
Final Thoughts
Free ebook: Life Learning for kids
Distance education or homeschooling
Lessons in an old train at Undarra, Queensland
When we traveled around Australia, we chose distance education. We couldn’t homeschool on the road technically because we didn’t have a “home base”.
I was not long coming off retirement from a 15-year teaching experience. I dreaded the idea of having to prepare units of work and lessons and ensuring I was on par with curriculum outcomes.
Plus, I knew I just wouldn’t have the time. We were dealing with a growing business as well as finding our feet with such an epic and new full-time journey as a family.
Distance Education while traveling had its good and bad points, but it was quite time-consuming, irrelevant at times and restrictive. But, I did like it in a lot of ways as well.
I share more tips for distance education here.
Why I chose to homeschool on the road?
Again, this time I couldn’t register the girls for homeschooling in Australia so the only option was distance education again.
But, when I looked into it, it was going to cost at least $1500 per child because we were traveling internationally (including international postage – whole lotta hassle there too!).
I couldn’t justify paying that much money, especially since I am a qualified teacher and confident and capable enough of teaching my own kids while traveling. AND distance education involves too much unnecessary work.
There as also the problem of us kind of lingering between two worlds for the next few years – do we settle in Australia or the US eventually? Therefore which system do I want to stay connected too?
If you are considering homeschooling your child on the road, take into consideration:
Your children’s needs, level, and learning ability
How your child learns
Your travel style
Your ability to take on homeschooling. Can you be diligent, committed and patient?
Your style – do you need structure or help or can you freewheel?
The travel experiences and what your kids can gain from it and how can you take advantage of these opportunities for growth and learning
What is the future of your child’s schooling? Will they return to traditional school or will you be a forever homeschooler?
What are the laws, regulations, and conditions around homeschooling in your state or country?
Registering for homeschooling
When we left Burleigh, we didn’t realise we’d still be in Australia in 2017! Thanks, visa delays. So I took Kalyra out of school without registering her in another one. There haven’t been any police knocking on my door so far for truanting.
I was worried about the girls spending the next few years in No Man’s Land, not being registered in the system somewhere.
What would happen if they returned back to Australia and they asked where they’d been schooling of the past three years? What if they didn’t let them back into school?
What if the same happened and she tried to register in the US, and the last school records were of her in grade three and so they put her back in grade three?
I asked a couple of family travel Facebook groups for help (this one is great). They provided lots of useful tips and information about homeschooling regulations which helped me feel at ease.
I also spoke to Kalyra’s school principal. He assured me that if we came back to Australia, the schools are required by law to take the kids regardless of where they have been previously. If we’ve been residents of another country, then it won’t matter at all. It’s not something they’ll actually chase up.
But, he emphasized to me several times the importance of keeping them up to grade level and check off the curriculum objectives, so they don’t fall behind. I assured him I’d take care of it.
Helpful resource for homeschooling in Australia
What about registering them for homeschooling in the USA?
I will register them as homeschoolers when we get to the US. From my research, registering for homeschooling in the USA could be an easy process. Each state has different rules and regulations when it comes to registering for homeschooling. Ensure you do your due diligence as there may be documentation requirements.
North Carolina is where we will probably end up living, so I’m considering registering there to keep it neat and tidy. I have learned that Florida and Texas are the best and easiest states to register for homeschooling. They are the less rigid and strict, so that may be the best option considering our nomadic lifestyle.
It does mean we have to set up a domicile in either of those states, which seems relatively easy to do.
Texas and Florida are also best for car registration, and with Orlando, you can get local prices for the theme parks if you have a domicile there. So this is also an attractive option. I’m going to do a little more research before I decide.
Here’s a great resource to help you know how to register for a domicile.
I also found that when it comes time to register the girl’s back into school in the US, they will have to take a placement test to ensure they are on grade level. So if I make sure I keep them on grade level and keep documentation of their work, we should be okay.
TestingMom.com is a brilliant resource for preparing these girls for the state grade level tests. More about that below.
How I am approaching homeschooling while traveling
The last thing I want is for my girls to return back to school and be behind. I don’t want to disadvantage them in that way and make things difficult for their teachers when they go back to school.
I have a lot of experience teaching grade four and five. Kalyra is in grade four, so I am quite in tune with the learning outcomes at this stage.
However, I will be keeping an eye on curriculum outcomes for both Australia and the US to ensure that I cover them in case we settle in either country.
I don’t want to do the full unschooling thing. I’m not saying unschooling is a wrong approach – I think it’s great. But, since homeschooling on the road is not going to be a lifetime thing for us, I feel keeping them up to grade level is important. We’ll be mixing a bit of unschooling and world schooling with homeschooling.
It’s taken me awhile to research, test the best homeschooling resources and to formulate a homeschooling plan. I’m happy with how it’s all working out and so are the girls. I’m glad I had the space before going to the US to figure it out and find the groove with it.
My top priorities and focuses for learning on the road:
Empower my children to be independent learners
Foster their imagination and creativity
Enable them to become problem solvers and confident decision makers
Instill a sense of wonder, awe, curiosity
Help them become healthy strong women
Help them to express themselves in a variety of forms
Understand the role of negative experiences and how to overcome challenges
Assist them to become kind and compassionate people with a high-level skill in listening
Develop higher order thinking skills
Master the basic skills that help us survive and thrive
Our travel and life experiences will check off most of the above boxes. This reduces the amount of time to teach formalized lessons they really have no interest in.
I want them to be engaged, active learners in relevant, real-to-life experiences. You know that’s how you absorb lessons and grow best yourself.
What are our higher order thinking skills?
Bloom’s Taxonomy gives a framework for teaching thinking and is kinda the Bible that helps teachers plan lessons. Bloom’s aim was to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analysing and evaluating, rather than just teaching students to remember facts (rote learning).
Learning was divided into three domains of educational activity:
Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge)
Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude or self)
Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills)
All three domains are essential for developing a well-rounded person – someone who thrives in life. Travel and life experiences more than covers each of the three areas. Schooling focuses more on the cognitive domain.
The abilities and skills in the cognitive domain listed below start from the simple to the more complex. It’s generally accepted that you master each behavior before moving onto the next, but I don’t see it as always being so linear.
Blooms Taxonomy – the levels of thinking
Knowledge – recall of data or information.
Comprehension – understanding what you are learning.
Application – use a concept in a new situation.
Analysis – breaking down concepts into parts and determining how they relate and to better understand it.
Synthesis – building or creation/ combining ideas to form a new whole.
Evaluation – making judgements about the value of ideas or materials.
As you can see the higher order thinking skills help children learn how to solve problems, think for themselves, find connections and relevance, create and be able to reframe, refine, and evaluate.
You can read more here on Bloom’s Taxonomy and how you can apply it to learning.
Travel and higher order thinking skills
As a teacher, I know how to draw out and develop those higher order thinking skills in general conversations and through the experiences we have. My girls aren’t even aware their sneaky Mumma is creating one teachable moment after the other.
If your child can read and write, do basic maths skills, know how to learn for themselves, AND have these higher order thinking skills, you don’t have to worry too much about their future.
If they miss social studies and science lessons while you are on the road, they will pick up those concepts super quick when you return, and when it is relevant to them, if at all.
With the way we travel, we often partner with tourism boards. This means we probably do more activities and tours than the average traveler. (Trust me that sounds more glamorous to you than me as it means we’re often way busier than most travellers and have a lot more work to do. )
Learning about stars at the Cosmos Centre in Charleville, Outback Queensland
I love it because these tours take in social, cultural studies and science concepts. A visit to the Charleville observatory, where we observed the stars, looked at the sun, stared at Jupiter and saw her many moons, taught my girls more about the Universe than possibly a whole unit of work at school!
On our recent visit to Flinders Ranges National Park, we went on several tours with local indigenous guides. Because of the immediacy and relevance, they were more open to questioning, listening, understanding and thinking about how it was relevant to their lives.
I have a gazillion examples of how travel has empowered my children in so many different ways.
You can read more in the following posts:
Does travel negatively affect a child’s education
OMG. You mean you’re taking your kids out of school
Is it ok to take kids out of school to go travel
4 ways family travel benefits kids
Homeschool curriculum on the road
There are a ton of resources online to help you find the right homeschool curriculum. You can buy curriculum in a box, or gather resources and do it yourself. We’re doing a mixture.
My focus won’t be on social, cultural or science curriculum – unless I feel there is a gaping hole somewhere that they’ll need to know upon re-entry, then I will incorporate lessons. A quick trip to a hands-on science museum somewhere will sort that out.
I can always make some of their reading lessons involve texts that talk about these concepts. Kalyra did one today learning about grasslands, forests, and deserts. Stuff she already knows from visiting the Outback, spending time in the Daintree Discovery Rainforest and the Australian savannah.
Physical Education
We’ll be moving a LOT! Kayaking, hiking, biking, skiing, surfing and stand up paddle boarding.
Kalyra and Savannah watch dancing shows and teach themselves how to dance. Kalyra has perfected cartwheels and backflips by practicing one after the other – completely self-taught. I was worried at one stage that there was something wrong with her as she couldn’t walk five paces without cartwheeling. I’m sure there will be other sports and physical activities we’ll do along the way as well.
Plus our membership with TestingMom gives us access to GoNoodle which has a lot of great videos with dancing and other physical activity instruction.
Cosmic Kids Yoga is also a BRILLIANT free resource for kids.
Art and music
Savannah rockin out at the musical fence in Winton
Art and music is about creation and self-expression, so it’s important to foster, especially if they have an interest and talent in it. The problem is, is I don’t hold many skills in either. But, in this internet savvy world of us, it won’t be hard to find a few YouTube instructional videos.
My focus is on helping them learn how to learn. YouTube is a brilliant way to do that.
My Mum bought Kalyra a lovely drawing art book for Christmas – that will be coming with us and will be part of our lessons – sketching our different experiences.
Once we get to the US, I intend to purchase one of these art kits for them each.
We may buy a guitar or something for them if they are interested in that. Kalyra did violin lessons in school, so I’m more than happy for her to pick that up again while we’re traveling.
Savannah has expressed an interest before in busking on the street to earn money so the guitar just may help her entrepreneurial spirit.
Travel planning and budgeting
Family travel tip -> Go snorkeling on Boracay Island in the Philippines
The girls are already helping us to plan the Hawaii leg of our journey. We research online using Pinterest and Google to find exciting activities and experiences.
I want to incorporate real life activities where they take control of budgeting and spending money.
Kalyra was excited recently to buy a doughnut with her friend, to which I explained was to come out of her own money. She saw the price of it, quickly changed her mind realising it was a poor value spend.
I nearly did a cartwheel. If only she transferred that thinking when it was time for me to buy her doughnuts!!
Kalyra really wants to stay tat the Disney Resort in Hawaii. I requested that she research how much it would cost. She gasped when she saw the price, but went straight to justifying it with a long list of all the complimentary activities and facilities that came with the price. She decided that we’d spend three days at the end of our time there in Hawaii and do nothing but hang at the resort to make the most out of our money.
I told her she better start working on manifesting it!
I want the girls to develop a greater awareness of money. So many problems in life are a result of not understanding how money works and our relationship with it. Schools do a terrible job of helping children understand this. It’s one of the most important topics to master.
English and Literacy
The greatest gift you can give your child is a love of reading and a high proficiency in it. I offer plenty of tips in my free Life Learning eBook on how to help children read.
It’s important that your kids can, not only read the printed words but to understand what they have read and to engage with it.
One thing I loved about teaching in the US is that I learned so many amazing strategies for teaching reading. The instructional programs we used were brilliant, I can now transfer that to the girls, which also ensures I’m keeping up with US-based learning for when they go to school there.
You can see the resources I’ll be using below for reading and literacy. It will be a daily activity in some form.
Independent reading
Reading every day is core to our homeschooling. Both girls love reading. They choose what they read although I encourage them to have a healthy balance of fiction and non-fiction.
Writing and spelling
The GREAT thing about having a love for reading (and a consistent habit of it) is that it naturally improves your spelling and writing. Kalyra’s ability to express herself in the written form is quite extraordinary.
Journal writing will be a critical part of our school work. Expressing yourself without any rules is of utmost priority.
Many many students I taught wouldn’t write because they were worried about spelling words wrong or not getting the conventions (as the teacher instructed) right. I hated this. It killed so many good writers and idea sharers. I just want kids to write.
Express yourself, however, you feel. Get in the flow and stay there.
I am considering purchasing this writing program for Kalyra once we get to the States for more formalized instruction. I love writing, but I hate teaching it.
Maths
Maths (how we say it in Australia) is of the biggest concern for me for our homeschooling while traveling. Kalyra is on grade level for it, but it’s important I keep these skills up. The ability to solve a problem, to think in different ways, and to quickly compute in your head are so so essential to thrive in life.
Schools race through curriculum outcomes (because they’re pressured with too many) and kids are moving up the grades without mental maths skills and strong basic foundations.
At the moment I am doing a lot of work with Kalyra on mental maths strategies. This will definitely be the core focus of our maths work. Once you master this, the other concepts built upon them can be learned so much easier.
The fun side of maths – space, position and shapes she’s mastering quite quickly and will be incorporated as we go.
Interest-based learning
There’s no better way to learn than through pursuing something you’re interested in. Quit wasting time on things that don’t matter!
YouTube is brilliant for interest-based learning. Kalyra was watching instructional videos recently from our friend Chrissy from Hair Romance on how to make certain hairstyles for her favorite American Girl Doll.
She’s also watching Life Hacks and tests them at home. Last night she experimented with a hack for keeping water cold all day long in your bottle! She’s most impressed with what she’s learning to make her life easier!!
I thought it would be really great to implement some lessons and units of work on her beloved Harry Potter stories which she loves helping her to engage with the text on a deeper level and foster those higher order thinking skills.
Wrong!
She felt like I was taking apart something she loved and putting into the box called school lessons. I quickly stopped and let her just read the books and love them.
The really really cool thing is she takes care of the learning from those books herself.
She
draws pictures of scenes and characters
writes lists of things she’s going to buy at Harry Potter World
ranks the characters in order of preference
dramatizes scenes from the book
defines all the strange works and logs the spells
investigates the lives of the actors who played the characters and where they are now
watches the behind the scenes of the movies online
Listens to interviews with the actors.
And of course, we’ll be visiting Harry Potter World in Orlando which will help bring the world of the book alive for her. We did do an impromptu lesson where I asked her to research Harry Potter World in Orlando and The Making of Harry Potter World in London to decide which one she thought would have been better.
She did a fantastic job of explaining to me the pros and cons of each, and which one she’d choose to go to and why. (Her original thought was Orlando, but after her research, she decided the studio tour in London would be better as you actually get to see the studios and how they made the movies.)
See what children can do when we leave them alone and let them follow their passions?
She has no idea how much she is actually learning by doing all of this. She’s created her own unit of work on the books. These are the literacy activities teachers will create to help students gain greater meaning from the text and develop those higher order thinking skills. You have no idea how many cartwheels I wanted to do over this.
Literacy based learning will mostly take this form for us as we travel. If I feel need to do anything more formalized, I will, but for now, let’s let her run with it and not box-squash it.
Creating Youtube videos
Both girls have their own YouTube channel, and we’re just getting their blogs up. They are set to private for now. I don’t want to feel that pressure of the public eye for now and be searching for self-worth validation by the number of views or likes they get. The girls don’t want them to be public either.
I want the girls to pursue this path. Purely because they have such a great talent and love for it. They help us create our own travel videos, but the stuff they do together when they play and make videos for fun is incredible.
They learn so much from it as well. I’m pretty impressed with what they do in regards to camera angles, reframing, and scripting. I help them to create titles and descriptions for each video.
Kalyra has such a talent for drama. She’s very witty, does funny impersonations, and nails an American accent. She reminds me of Natalie Tran. I can definitely see a future in drama or film production for her. But, put her in front of a live audience and she completely clams up. I so wish she didn’t feel so insecure to not share as she’s brilliant.
Savannah is also thrilled to be creating her own YouTube videos as well and is so cute in how she speaks to her “Audience.” We had an impromptu lesson the other day on how to find the right lighting for filming.
Plus, sometimes we’re interviewed or filmed for TV. I can see how they have applied what they have observed in their own filming. #lifelearning
I want both of them to just create because they love it. When, and if, they’re ready to share it with the world, we’ll set it to public. I hope by then they’re strong and confident in their creation to not care about the metrics.
My challenge is to help them be comfortable expressing who they are without fear of being ridiculed or judged. I do not want them to allow others to turn off their light. Small steps. They’ve already spoken to me about haters, which we spoke about (we have a bit of experience with them) and I shared with them:
Haters are just signposts to help us stay true to ourselves and develop faith in who we are and what we offer. We never let haters stop us from shining our light and sharing our message. We use their hates as an opportunity to practice gratitude and express kindness.
Cooking
Savannah has a passion for cooking with me – rarely a passion for eating what we cook together. Kalyra has started to take on baking responsibilities and teach her sister. She’s nailing those higher order thinking skills as a result.
I can take care of teaching them the cooking myself, but I thought to make it a more engaging and fun learning experience to purchase the Kids Cook Real Food course. We love it!
Savannah loves watching the videos to learn about knife skills and spreading butter, and then she has her turn to practice. It’s a bit more of a systemised way to learn and ensures I don’t miss gaps. She’s very thorough in teaching the kids to master the necessary skills.
Homeschooling resources
There are a lot of free homeschooling resources online as well as paid. Free often means a lot more work on my behalf. So if I find a homeschooling resource that will save me time and help my children prosper, I’ll purchase it.
Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs is by far the most brilliant program for teaching kids to read. We used it in schools when I was a teacher, and I have purchased the learn to read kit for Savannah, and the online membership for Kalyra.
I am thrilled that they also offer maths instructions and at Kalyra’s level.
Reading Eggs helps me cover skill based learning. It’s engaging and fun, and they can easily independently work through the lessons and games.
Savannah has reading books and workbooks that align with each lesson. There are also bonus worksheets I can print off for further practice and flashcards for us to play games with.
We’ve only been using Reading Eggs for a few weeks with Savannah, and she read her first sentence the other day. There were a lot of cartwheels and cheers happening them.
The program comes with stickers and tracking charts to help kids see their progress and test how they are mastering concepts. They can earn eggs within the program, which they can spend in the store on clothes and accessories for their avatar and furniture for their rooms etc.
Kalyra has lessons on grammar, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension and applying specific reading skills. Both girls do this for about 30 minutes x 4 days a week.
Reading Eggs is the core program I use for Savannah in regards to reading and maths, with a few of the resources from TestingMom listed below. You can get a free 2-week trial here.
TestingMom
Testing Mom is my next go-to resource for homeschooling. The membership is fantastic value and worth it if you are homeschooling, or even if you want your children to have extra practice at home.
Testing Mom is designed by parents to help other parents and their kids aged Pre-K through the 8th grade develop a lifelong love of learning.
The site features fun skill-building games, challenging learning activities, and test prep materials for all 50 states making it very beneficial for schools where standardized testing (blah) is a huge part of the education system.
TestingMom gives you access to hundreds of standardized testing for practice (Australia and the US) and resources for those gifted learners. I use it the testing side to check in on my daughter’s progress to ensure I am keeping up with grade level. And I will continue to use it as a resource when the girls return to school, especially if testing is involved!
I mostly use Testing Mom for the access to the many online sites, lessons, videos, books, and games that you get access to as part of the membership. I use it for both Savannah and Kalyra and some of the core programs we use are:
Savannah: Hear Builder, Fun Tree, Reading Kingdom, GoNoodle
Kalyra: Reflex Maths, Mathletics, BrainPop, Spellodrome, CoreClicks, Wordly Wise, GoNoodle, ClayPiggy (financial literacy)
Testing Mom makes homeschooling on the road much easier for me and fun for the kids.
You can start with 100 free practice questions on TestingMom.com
Kahn Academy
Kahn Academy is free and has fantastic instructional videos and practice questions for maths, science, arts and humanities. We use it mostly for breaking down difficult concepts in Math. Sometimes the girls just don’t want to listen to their Mumma!
Skill based workbooks
You can pick up skill based books from bookstores or Amazon. They’re great to have on hand for extra practice for your child’s grade levels.
Here’s what we have:
Targeting Handwriting – We use Book 4 for NSW for Kalyra. She enjoys handwriting, and I don’t want her to lose the fine art of it!
Signpost Maths Grade 4 – this helps me to keep learning on target with curriculum outcomes. If Kalyra needs more instruction with the concepts in this, I work through it with her or we use the instructional videos in Kahn Academy or BrainPOP to help. And then practice those skills in Mathletics or one of the other math resources via Testing Mom
Basic skills – I have Excel Basic Skills for 4th and 5th grade for English, maths, spelling, and vocab. You can pick up similar on Amazon. We do one unit a week, and it helps me to see what Kalyra needs more help with.
Sight Word Books – the Reading Eggs kit I purchased for Savannah more than covers me for her beginning reading work. I have a couple of other workbooks to use for sight words and vocabulary and reading comprehension.
Puzzle Books
Puzzles and quizzes are a fun and easy way to get kids to learn in a higher order thinking way.
Take advantage of the kids’ activity packs they get on tours or resorts. They are relevant, emphasize what they have learned and done on tour, helps them learn new vocabulary and apply the learning in a new way.
A couple of other books Kalyra likes:
Boredom Buster Book This is a great one to get them thinking creatively on those long journeys.
The Little Children’s travel activity book and the Travel Activity Book
Travel Books
I love anything from the Lonely Planet Kids range
Travel Journals If you are traveling around Australia, you cannot miss these amazing travel journals.
Leap and Hop Travel Guides is a series of travel books that invite curious children to discover and understand different cultures while playing, drawing, scrapbooking, doodling, collecting and observing. They’re cool. We have the one for New York, and Kalyra is itching to get there and use it. She’s already done some of the activities to prepare.
Helping kids find wonder in the everyday by Caroline Webster This is an excellent book with easy outdoor and indoor activities to inspire children. It can be incorporated into your travels.
Stickers and rewards
Kids will do anything for a sticker!!
I have a pile of stickers and rewards, which I give to the girls when they’ve done outstanding work, grasped a concept, or displayed important character traits like kindness and respect. They love them!
Stationary and tablets
Each girl has their own pencil case/organizer, similar to this. A set of coloured pencils, markers, lead pencils and gel pens.
Each also has a Samsung Tablet, a set of headphones, and a ProCase cover. Do not forget the cover!!!
We use these for the girls to film their vidoes, play games, watch movies and research – either school based learning or fun.
I have no problem with the girls watching movies or playing games on the tablet, especially on long road trips or flights. They have more than enough time pursuing other interests outside of the devices. We keep the balance in check.
Other homeschooling resources
Hip Homeschooling Blog I found Rebecca’s blog helpful for gaining information on the best way my kids learn and different resource and curriculum ideas.
HSLDA is a membership based site to assist homeschoolers through various legal aspects of homeschooling in the US. There’s lots of useful information on here.
Homeschooling Curriculum Lots of useful information on this site.
Teaching Textbooks is a useful program for maths instruction. I’m considering this for when we get to the US if what I have planned for math does not work.
Rosetta Stone for language learning, or just take classes in the local area while you are traveling! There is also a language program within TestingMom called Mango.
So you’re thinking about homeschooling by Lisa Welchel
The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffiths
Homeschool your child for free by LauraMeary Gold
World Travel Family has great information on homeschooling – they’ve been doing it for years
Our homeschooling on the road routine
Kalyra expressed her unhappiness at having to do school work the other day and how unfair it was because everyone was on school holidays. I explained that Mrs. Makepeace’s school was completely different now and here’s why:
1-2 hours a day versus six and we choose our holidays rather than be told when to have them.
So for now, while we are waiting around for our visas and not doing anything, we’re going to do as much work as we can so that next month, when we’re in Hawaii and want to go stand