Homeschooling on the Go

Homeschooling on the Go

5 Days of Tips for Homeschool Parents -Day 3 

Our family has been faced with lots of different appointments and being on the go a lot lately.  I’ve had to adjust what I’ve been doing so we can do our homeschooling on the go and at home.  I’m not a hugely flexible person so this was a bit of a challenge for me.  I rose to the challenge though and I’m sharing some of my tips and tricks now!

Some fun things we’ve found to do to make homeschooling on the go easier are to invest in wipe off white boards for all the kids.  I initially thought of chalk boards, but the dust from the chalk would surely make me sneeze!  So small individual sized whiteboards with a small package of markers per row in the van is what we did.  Each child has their own board but each row in our 15 passenger van shares a package of markers.  Sometimes sharing markers may cause fights but I told the kids the alternative was one marker each.  They share fairly well now.

These whiteboards can be used for math facts.  We are working on skip counting with some of the kids and this is an awesome way to do it.  I try to have an older and a younger child in each of the rows in our van as well so the older child can help me check work.  Mostly it’s all verbal though.  

We also use our whiteboards for spelling word practice while we’re homeschooling on the go.  No one said you have to do all of your practice in books!  We’re saving the environment one workbook at a time.  .. . .well not really because we do still use our workbooks but this really is a great way to take our school with us.  

Other ways to take school with you are to have read aloud books on tape(CD) so you can listen to them as you go.  I’ve found that lots of curriculums also offer supplemental things on CD that you can listen to.  Our History curriculum that we are using(Story of the World) has their entire book on CD that you can listen to history while you drive!

 There are lots of fun ways to incorporate homeschooling on the go into your life.  If you are going to have to sit and wait for an appointment to start we love to take whatever book that child is reading with us.  They can silent read or read it aloud softly to me in the waiting areas.  Also this is a great time to work on those workbooks too!

We also love to do flashcards when we are homeschooling on the go.  I’ll make up flashcards, hole punch the corner and then you can hang them on a metal clasp or just use yarn to bind them together so the different batches stay together.  We then will have one child help the other with their cards and then reverse roles so that they can all have a chance at learning through flashcards.  I will warn you it can get loud doing this!  With 9 kids myself in our 15 passenger van there are four seats.  So we could have four different sets of flashcards going at once!  

Another fun thing to do when you’re homeschooling on the go is to read the signs going by.  Believe it or not this is great reading practice and can also do some comprehension as well.  Mainly this is for older kids and not those just learning to read considering the speed you’re passing those signs.

In the same vein as the above you can also do some counting practice on the go.  You can practice your skip counting or just practice recognizing the numbers on the signs you pass.  Those mile markers are great for practicing!  Especially if you’re working on decimal placement.

Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing some of the fun ways we keep homeschooling on the go and I’d love to hear your thoughts or fun things you do!

Don’t forget to check out the Main post linking us all up over on the TOS Blog.  You can also check out a few other blogs by clicking the links below.  I hope you enjoy this blog hop as much as we enjoy bringing it to you!  Don’t forget to keep up with my posts by reading them here.

 
Dawn @ Double O Farms
Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool
Debbie @ Debbie’s Homeschool Corner
Desiree @ Our Homeschool Notebook
Diana @ Busy Homeschool Days
Diana @ Homeschool Review
Elyse @ Oiralinde: Eternal Song
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Erin @ For Him and My Family
Jen @ Chestnut Grove Academy