Homeschooling While Traveling

Teach Your Children Through On-the-Road Experiences

Jun 30, 2006 Kelby Carr

The benefits of homeschooling are flexibility and the ability to take the classroom anywhere. Take advantage of real-life experiences of homeschooling while traveling.

There are many incredible and diverse ways to teach your homeschooled children while traveling, whether it's roaming the U.S. in an RV or wandering the cities of Europe. Here is just a sampling:

• Let them experience history - Yes, you can take your children to museums. Kids aren't always that enamored of them, however. Instead, look for more interesting and memorable ways to teach them about the past. Tour a famous author's birth home, visit the real-life setting that inspired and artist or take them to a war reenactment.
• Use attractions to teach - Don't just take your children to see the Eiffel Tower, but put it in context by explaining something fun (like how the French hated it initially). Want to teach your kids about finance? Take them to watch the floor of a stock exchange, or observe the exchange at a produce market. In fact, let them choose a snack to buy with their own money.
• Visit zoos - You can read thousands of books about elephants, and never understand their largesse, or see hundreds of movies about lions without grasping their awe-inspiring grace. Your child will not likely forget the names or significance of animals after a visit to a zoo.
• Don't automatically dismiss attractions - Sure, a water park, race car track or a theme park may seem devoid of learning experiences. But what a great chance to teach your child about things like velocity or speed, both concepts that are much harder to grasp in a classroom.
• Make them sports nuts - Watching or playing sports may seem like a mindless activity, but let them keep score as a way to hone their math skills. Encourage them to notice what plays each time uses to understand strategizing and planning.
• Observe architecture - This teaches children about so many things ranging from physics to history to art. Visit a city and play a game of finding various architectural details in the buildings, and discuss what they mean. Point out why a column is used, both to hold up a structure and as an aesthetic detail.
• Talk to them - No matter where you go, ask your children to say what they notice or what questions they have. The wonderful thing about travel is it stimulates the mind.
• Provide emotional education - Being exposed to various cultures and traditions is exceptionally beneficial to everyone, children and adults alike. Discuss how people talk or act differently. This is also a chance to teach them tolerance of the differences between everyone.
• Use maps to teach - Children can learn a lot by simply helping you plan out the route, or determine which way to turn when you're on the road. It is a wonderful way to teach them about geography, and about critical thinking and problem solving.

Related articles

RV Travel With Kids | 10 Reasons to Travel With Kids | Meeting Native Children | Save Gas on Road Trips | Afford a Dream Family Vacation

More on homeschooling while traveling

Deschooling on the Road | Crista's Homeschooling Travel Journal | A Homeschool Journey Across the U.S. | Learning Family's Travel Homeschool Adventures

The copyright of the article Homeschooling While Traveling in Family Travel is owned by Kelby Carr. Permission to republish Homeschooling While Traveling in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Take your homeschool classroom on the road.

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