Have you ever dreamed of traveling around the country, or even the world, homeschooling your kids? 

 Or have you ever wished you could show your kids the world around them hands-on, instead of experiencing it just through books and TV?

Well, for the last four years, that’s exactly what my friend Tonya Prater, from Live the Adventure, has been doing. 

In today’s podcast, Tonya generously shares with what’s like to travel and homeschool.

Tonya shares with us:

- How you can work educational opportunities into your travels, if you’re traveling full-time or just taking a family vacation

- Advice on how to get started as a traveling, homeschooling family

- Tips on how to stay safe and chose safe locations to stay and visit

- What it’s like to travel with a dog

- The pros and cons of living, working, and homeschooling while traveling

- How to stay connected with friends and family while you are on the road

- How to meet new families while traveling and where to find local educational sites to visit along the way

As a working, homeschooling mom, Tonya also shares how she balances working and homeschooling while living in a small camper (RV) with her family (which includes 3 teenagers and a dog), including where to find free interent access while on the road. 

We even touched on homeschooling laws, record keeping, and how to deal with criticism from strangers when they learn you homeschool.

Tonya is a wonderful resources to learn from and I hope you enjoy this interview with her. I certainly did.

To listen in, simply click the play button below. To download the recording to your computer, right click on download link below and choose ‘Save Target As’.

 

 Living, Working, and Homeschooling on the Road - Educational Family Travel [1:06:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Enjoy!

….Shannon

P.S. Tonya is the process of writing two ebooks. One on Frugal Family Travel, incorporating her tips and exeriences from the last 4 years on how we can frugally travel with our families, and the other on Homeschool Portfolios, which as you heard on the podcast, she has great experience with. If you are interested in learning more about these upcoming ebooks, be sure to follow Tonya over on her blog, or on her Facebook fan page.

P.S.S. For U.S.-based travel, here’s that link that Tonya and I discussed on how to learn what the homeschool laws are in each state

In part 1 of the bookshelf tour, you got to see my personal office bookselves, where my reference books, writing books, fiction, and many of the kids’ books are located. So, now I thought I’d give you a tour of the shelves that contain our homeschooling resources.

The challenge with this is that these don’t contain the many of the books and resources the kids are actively using right now, as those are in the kids’ schoolwork boxes or on their computer desks.

But it does give you a good overview of what resources I have on hand and how I keep this stuff contained and organized when it’s not in use.

Enjoy!
…Shannon

My 12 yo daughter is nearly done with Teaching Textbooks Math 7 (she’ll finish by Spring Break in March 2010) and my 10 yo son just started a few months ago.

So, when another homeschool mom asked me about Teaching Textbooks, as a possible homeschool math curriculum for her 9 yo son, I was happy to answer her questions.

One of these days I’ll write a full review, but in the meantime, if you are considering Teaching Textbooks as a possible homeschool math curriculum, I’ve pasted our Q&A here.  If you have additional questions about Teaching Textbooks, feel free to put them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Does your son like it?

Yes, my 10 yo son  likes it. All the lessons are fully explained in video format, and all the answers are fully explained step by step, so if he misses something he can click the solution button and see where he went wrong.

He does not like that each lesson is so long, i.e., has so many problems (20 problems, plus 5 practice problems per lesson). He’s used to a much shorter program, but he has adapted by doing a 1/2 lesson per day or a minimum of 2-3 lessons per week.

Any ideas about placement?

The Teaching Textbooks  has placement tests for each level, I highly recommend using them. Don’t go by what you think is the grade level; it’ll depend on what math program you’ve used in the past and where your son is currently at.  The placement test does a good job helping you position the student in the correct level. 

Also, you can look at the table of contents of each course to see what’s covered and see if your son is ready for that level of work. In my case, Teaching Textbooks Math 7 covers fractions, decimals, and some basic geometry, which is a good transition from our elementary math program, which is weak in these topics (in my opinion), before they are ready for Beginning Algebra.

Though I have to say because we moved from a mastery-based elementary math program to Teaching Textbooks (a spiral based program), there was lots of overlap in some areas and none in others.

I did placement tests with my son a couple times over two years because he was strong in some areas and not in others, and finally when he was ready, I just moved him into Teaching Textbooks Math 7, and that’s worked well.

From my perspective, it’s a big change for me, they basically don’t need me for math anymore (yes, I’m a little sad about that). My 12 yo daughter periodically will have a question when she gets a problem wrong and can’t figure out why (and doesn’t want to view the solution on the computer.)

But other than that…there’s no prep, no lesson planning, no teacher time at all. Just setting boundaries and saying “go do your math”. Which of course is a huge time saver.

Is it all on computer?

Depends on how you do it. It can be done completely on the computer, though you need a notebook or something to work the problems in.

The text book also contains all of the lesson materials (except the step-by-step walkthroughs & solutions, which are only on the CDs).

Because of some issues we were having with my kids, we now require the kids to do all the problems out of the book on paper.

So what my daughter does is watch the lesson on the computer (rather than read it), then does the problems out of the book (in a notebook, so the book stays nice for later resale and younger siblings), checks her answers after each problem in the answer booklet, and then inputs her answers into the computer for grading purposes.

My son watches the whole lesson and the problems on the computer, but works each problem on paper, checks the answer, reworks as necessary, and then enters the answer into the computer, and moves on to the next problem.

Different kids, different styles. But either way I require that they don’t move on to the next problem until they got the one they are working on right (no use doing the whole set wrong and then going back and fixing it…)

What about the testing/grading…is it on the computer as well?

There’s a quiz after each chapter, which is all dealt with on the computer (or in the textbook, see above). All the grading is done automatically for you on the computer and it keeps a record of it all for you. (nice)

Update: The high school level Teaching Textbook programs do not include the automated grading.

Is there a “lesson plan” or something that tells me how to get through it in a school year?

I’m not really sure. In Teaching Textbooks Math 7, there’s 118 lessons plus a quiz after each of the 18 chapters, so assuming 1 lesson a day for an 180 day school year, that’s pretty much how to get through it in a year.

You could look at the Table of Contents in the Teaching Textbook  you are looking at and see how it would break down. I set goals for the kids this way, based on where they are at, and how many weeks are left in the term, and how many lessons I think they can get through in a week and then term allowing for days off and slippage.

We’ve chosen not to try to complete it in a year. It’s taken my daughter at least a year and a half. There have been some chapters where she did a whole lesson a day, and others where a 1/2 of a lesson a day is fine.

But my style is to just let them go through it at whatever their pace is and not worry about what level they are in each year…just continuing on until they learn it. 

If you are working & homeschooling like I am, or are math challenged, or have a child who does best with visual or audio teaching methods, then Teaching Textbooks is a good, solid, and thorough math curriculum worth looking at further.

One of the ways we have eliminated battles over doing schoolwork is by clearly laying out expectations and having flexibility. When the kids know exactly what’s expected of them then I don’t have to spend time and energy on “motivating” or “getting” them to do their work.  And since Iwas asked about this recently, I thought I’d share a little about how our days are structured.

Basically we have three types of schoolwork days: Full schoolwork, Light Schoolwork, and No Schoolwork.  And the kids know exactly what is expected from them on each, so they can ask me “What type of day is it mom?” or I can just say “it’s a light schoolwork day”, they know immediately what to do.

A full schoolwork day is one where they work completely through their schedule. At the beginning of each term, I sit down and map out what I would like each child to work on that term, both in the form of what I want them to learn and what curriculum or tools they will be using. 

Then I sit down with my 12 yo and 10 yo individually, and we map out on a printout of our weekly schedule (broken into either 15 min or 30 min increments) how THEY would like their day to flow. I find things go a lot better if they have input and control over how their day flows, and it gives them an opportunity to tell me about what they think is working and not. 

I do require that they schedule math first in their day. I’ve just found that if they wait until later in the day, their focus on math just isn’t as good as it is if they tackle it first thing.

Other than that, as long as they meet my requirements for what they are working on, how often, and that it’s scheduled within our “school hours” then they have control and don’t give me any problems with how their day is flowing. Though sometimes they will suggest an alternative on a particular day to accomodate something special they are doing or if they don’t feel well.

Light schoolwork days are days when the schedule goes out the window. Rather than fight to get things in, then I’ll just call a light schoolwork day. It could be a day we have a lot of extra activities, or a family emergency, or someone is sick, or there’s something special going on, whatever. 

On light schoolwork days, the requirements are to do some math (it doesn’t have to be their math program), to do some reading (preferably at least an hour), and to write something (or do some copy work). That’s it. The rest of the day are theirs to work on special projects or play (usually outside in the backyard.)

No schoolwork days are what I call our “unschooling” days. While the kids don’t have any formal schoolwork on these days, they are not allowed to just goof off on the computer playing games or on the TV playing video games. So, on no schoolwork days they are usually out playing, exploring an interest of theirs, playing board or card games, and reading.

On no schoolwork days, I will allow educational videos or shows from Netflix; and doing research on the computer is allowed as well. 

It always amazes me how much they learn on the days where “no schoolwork” is required. The key is to recognize the value of the activities that they naturally do, following their own interests. And to give them the room and materials to explore.

This is a system that has worked really well for us. What types of school days do you have in your homeschool?

Last in our series on ensuring your homeschool can survive in a financial crisis, I shared three free literature-based curriculums. But, each of those assume that you have an internet connection available. And sometimes, that just isn’t possible.  So today we’re going to look at two inexpensive homeschool curriculums to have around either as your main curriculum or to use as your backup plan.

Both of these curricula are literature-based curriculum that use mostly public domain works (which are included) for the bulk of the curriculum. Both are on CD. And both use the 3R approach to learning, which means that they focus on Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (math), with History and Science covered via living books/literature.

The two curricula are Robinson Curriculum and Accelerated Achievement (also known as A²  A-squared).  During my search for a backup curriculum, I looked heavily at both of these. There a lot of similiarities, but there are differences as well. Personally I chose Robinson Curriculum, while a good friend of mine chose A².

 Being that I’ve chosen Robinson, I’m obviously biased about those differences, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide which might work best for your family and budget. 

 But I do recommend checking out both curriculums as low-cost (cheap) homeschool alternative that will still give your children a wonderful education.

Have experience with either Robinson Curriculum or A^2? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.