Roadschooling

I’m relatively new to the homeschool world. To be honest, it wasn’t even on my radar because it wasn’t anything I really wanted to do. I loved school as a child and I love teachers! They are some of the best, most talented, creative, and patient people I know, and I wouldn’t think to use those words to describe myself! I had friends who “felt called” to homeschool their kids and I personally couldn’t identify with that type of urge. Teaching my boys at home was a role I stepped into out of necessity during Covid. It was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done as a parent, but the kids flourished. And because of how much they expanded and grew and thrived; because of how their stresses diminished and their curiosity blossomed, we just kept going.

I initially chose to go with an Online Independent School as a registered Homeschooler in BC because it was important for me to have some sort of guideline or reference as to what I should be doing. What I soon realized is that learning was less about me doing the “right things” and all about the kids; their personal interests, learning styles, and individual needs. Each of the boys ended up getting a multitude of supports that they would have never had access to in public school. Those supports made a huge difference in their accessibility to learning, in meeting their needs, and assisting me in celebrating their strengths.

As we thought about homeschooling for the third year, we started dreaming about taking school on the road and visiting National Parks and Monuments through the Westcoast and Midwest of Canada and the United States. What if we just spent a year chasing the topics the kids were interested in, experiencing them in real life? If this was going to be our last year of homeschooling, then we wanted to go out with a bang.

We knew school would look different, and so decided to take an eclectic approach of traditional learning mixed with unschooling mixed with a LOT of field trips!

So let’s break it down, for my three school-aged kids and my preschooler – what exactly do we do?

• Unit Studies and Book Study through Gather ‘Round Homeschool
• Math
• Funschooling Journals
• Reading
• Field Trips
• American Sign Language
• Physical Education
• Science focus unit on Energy (TGATB)
• Junior Ranger Workbooks
• All About Reading (Asher)

While on the road we also participate in / use;

• Occupational Therapy
• Speech Therapy
• Expressive Art Classes
• Counseling
• Dyslexia Games
• Sensory play
• Board Games
• TTRS (Touch Type Read Spell)
• Hearbuilder
• Reading Eggs / Math Seeds
• Teach your Monster to Read / Teach your Monster Math
• The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Prep (Julian)
• Prodigy
• Epic
• Photography
• Coding with Scratch and Code.org

I still wanted to make sure the boys were tracking along with the BC Core Curriculum and Competencies so that when they do return to school they are familiar with the same concepts covered had they been in a brick-and-mortar classroom. So our general big ideas and goals for each grade are still formulated for this. It gets harder in the upper-level grades, this year for example both Elias and Lane did a woodworking elective with their Grandfather during the summer as we knew we would have trouble covering that subject while on the road. Luckily for them, it didn’t feel like summer school, but a super fun way to bond with Grandad and try out a variety of new machinery (he has a CNC machine!) while making cool projects like an Owl House, Bird Feeders, Signs, a Picnic table for our chickens and Fairy Houses for the back forest. Learning how to plan, design, and implement the building process meets the BC Curriculum goals, but also helps with learning valuable life skills which I love.

A closer look at some of our Homeschooling Choices:

Gather ‘Round Homeschool

Gather ‘Round Homeschool is a unit study approach that lets me teach all the kids at one time, they simply do the work at their own level! This has worked well for us as I am also able to bridge levels according to the kid’s abilities and understanding as sometimes these two things don’t match up. One of my children’s strengths is to link concepts and see relationships between subject matter and this comprehension far exceeds his ability to write about it. While his brain operates a grade ahead, his writing level is a few grades behind due to Dysgraphia. Doing unit studies allows him access to information that challenges him while completing a work level that accommodates him. Using other modifications such as voice-to-text, testing through conversation, giving extended time to complete assignments, and scribing when needed also help bridge those gaps.

There are a lot of good unit study choices out there. Last year we really enjoyed engaging with some by Campfire Curriculums (Volcanoes and Pirates for the win!) and by The Good and the Beautiful. This year we are keeping it simple by sticking with a few by Gather Round (and one by TGATB) and going in-depth with those. Gather Round covers everything but math, although we have added some extra Language Arts in the past. This year we will supplement by adding a Paragraph writing course to help ready Elias for writing essays in high school and an in-depth book study with an accompanying writing track. The units that we chose to do with Gather Round this year are;

• North America
• National Parks
• Canadian Government
• Dinosaurs
• Underground to Canada Book Study

We chose these units based primarily on our road trip adventure. It just made sense to study the continent of North America and the National Parks* within, while actually exploring those places! Many of the parks we are going to have fossils and we will be visiting specific Paleontology dig sites along the way as well because fossils, gemstones, dinosaurs, and the whole idea of digging for buried treasure is something that excites my kids, so of course, we had to pick Dinosaurs!

To make sure we are meeting our Big Ideas and competencies for BC, we are also studying the Canadian Government this year. Again, it makes sense to study the Government of the country we are traveling in and learning about so it was a no-brainer to tie this in. Elections BC also has a Democracy in a box Educational Activity Kit which teaches about the history of voting rights, past and present voting issues, and electoral districts, complete with a mock election setup for the kids. This kit is free, and we were able to order it and pack it to bring along to do side by side with our Canadian Government Unit.

Gather Round produced a book study of “Underground to Canada” which we felt tied in with the history in some of the areas we will be traveling through and I love having a good read-aloud so that made sense as well.

*I don’t have a link for National Parks as it hasn’t been released yet, but coming soon!

Math

My kids use a few different Math Programs. For the last two years, Elias and Lane have used Math Mammoth. Math Mammoth is a mastery approach rather than circular and you can work at the curriculum either by grade level or by topic. We paired MM with Bridge the Gap Math whenever we needed to go back and relearn missed or misunderstood concepts for my struggling mathematician. I cannot say enough good things about BTGM, it truly is an asset for any learner struggling to keep up and learn the “need to know” mathematics.

Last year, Asher used a combination of The Good and the Beautiful math, Prodigy, and Funschooling math. This year, both Asher and Lane are doing Math Mammoth and supplementing it with playing Prodigy for fun. This works well when one is not able to sit down and do worksheet math but is happy to play a video game!

Elias is doing a combination of Math Mammoth and Christian Light Education Math. We are slowly switching over curriculums to see if the latter might be a better fit for how he learns. He also plays Prodigy on occasion, especially if his brothers need help beating a “boss” he likes to log in and join them.

Julian likes to play “Teach your Monster Math” (by Teach your Monster to Read) and “Math Seeds” (by Reading Eggs). He is learning a lot of math organically by counting and doing simple addition and subtraction by playing card and board games.

Funschooling

I came across Funschooling Journals last year when I was looking for a curriculum that would fit Asher’s abilities, needs, and passions. I needed something that would challenge different areas of his brain while allowing for interest-driven studies and was applicable to a non-reader, non-writer. He and I both loved Funschooling Journals and he worked through about 5 of them last year. You can purchase them in book format or PDF. I’ve found the pdf’s to be more versatile as I can mix and match and print what I want, but the books are beautifully bound and a great size to pack along.

This year we have several Funschooling Journals on the go. I bought the PDFs of The Book of State Trees, The Book of State Birds and the Book of State Flowers and every time we pass a new state line I print out the pages for Elias and Lane. Learning how to research, find information and pull out relevant and interesting facts and write about them is one of the older boys learning goals for this year. I’m less interested in whether they know the state bird, tree and flower of Utah, but in their ability to find credible information and know what to do with it.

Elias is learning a lot about Photography this year so he is using the Camera Quest Funschool Journal as an accompaniment to this elective. Asher is using a mix of 12 Months in the Forest (seasons changing, time passing and calendar work combined with poetry – Lane actually had one of his poems published in this book!), Active Boys, and a Reading and Writing workbook. Julian is using Alphabet Funschooling and My First Math workbook. All of the boys use Dyslexia Games which are art and logic puzzles that help create new brain connections for literacy and writing.

Board / Card Games

Gameschooling is a unique way of using games for learning and Education. When you have reluctant learners or learners with disabilities, sometimes learning via traditional methods isn’t the best way. We brought a variety of games with us on the road that went along with either our traveling journey or our learning goals. Ticket to Ride, Jnr Ranger National Parks-opoly, and National Parks Get Wild are our bigger box games. We also brought several smaller card games such as; Cribbage, Monopoly Deal, Uno, Phase 10, Skip-Bo Jnr, Sushi Go, Travel Quirkle, and Go-Fish. As well, we use Picasso Pixel Cubes, Plus-Plus Tiles, lego, Play-Doh, Story Cubes, Tantric shapes, and Musical instruments (Julian LOVES his steel tongue drum) to enhance both our learning and playtime.

Junior Ranger

Every National Park and Monument we have been to thus far has had the Junior Ranger program. It’s aimed at kids aged 5-12, with a wide range of activities to challenge both the older and younger participants. I LOVE the Junior Ranger program! It’s an excellent way for the kids to really immerse themselves into the locations we are in and learn about the history, First Peoples, geology, geography, local fauna and flora, habitats, and more. These books have become an integral part of our homeschool curriculum and they function as companion studies for our field trips. Once the kids have filled out their Junior Ranger workbook, they are quizzed by the park Ranger to make sure they have understood the content before taking an oath vowing to protect and preserve natural places. Afterward, they are awarded a Junior Ranger Badge for that location. So far they are up to 11 badges and continue to collect!

To wrap it up…

There are so many good homeschool resources out there, and as I said in the very first paragraph – I’m relatively new to the Homeschooling world. I don’t always get it right and many times I feel frustrated and deal with a lot of self-doubt when it comes to teaching the boys. What I do know is this – creative learning sparks curiosity. If we can see, touch, experience, design or construct something – they will connect to it and remember it. All of this learning on the road, and these unique experiences are helping shape the boys into conscientious and interested humans whose worlds have been widened just that little bit more. In the last 7 weeks we have gone on 16 field trips to National and state Parks and Monument, and we are only just getting started!

That I get to do this with them, is such a privilege.