Hello all, I was wondering if any of your kids attend an online school or do you order a curriculum and do it yourself? We will be traveling in the future and I am still trying to figure out the best way to educate my kids. We will be living and travelling on a boat, so I am also concerned that if they do online schooling and we travel somewhere that has dodgy internet access we'll be in trouble, but on the other hand I feel like the online school might be easier for me to keep all 5 them on track.
That's something you'll have to figure out, Galaxy. I'm just a paper sort of person, so no matter where I was, I'd be doing it on paper. I'm not an "out of the box" kinda thinker. I don't really have that much trouble keeping track of where 5 kids are and what they need to do next, because it's what I'm used to, keeping track in a spiral notebook. I grid each page off into a column for each kid, with a row for each subject... Then check each thing off as it's done, if it's a grade, I put it in red and circle it. If it didn't get done, I put a corner to corner slant mark across the box... Not that tough. Whatever you choose, though, that's going to work for you. AND DO KEEP US POSTED FROM TIME TO TIME!!! Looking forward to some "travelogue"!
I like to have a hard copy of everything and I like using real books not ebooks. I allow some subjects online, but for the most part they do everything hands on and in books. I have no suggestions for you other than if internet could be a problem it might not be worth the worry and hassle.
Galaxy, I think I responded to one of your earlier posts -- we've done a lot of traveling as a family (it's why we got involved in homeschooling). We've pretty much stuck with the same type of curriculum since the beginning. We utilize many online resources, but one thing I've learned is to avoid relying heavily on them. For example, I no longer use an online grade book. I loved it, and the kids loved it, but if the website or our isp went down, it could be chaotic. The lifestyle our family has, I really try to avoid unexpected interruptions like that (for my own sanity, if no one else's!). Another solution I came up with:most (not all) of our books (lit & other subjects) we own in electronic format. We all prefer to read from hard copy (a "real" book), so we do so when we can. But sometimes we don't have a hard copy, or I don't have time to print one, or someone has misplaced the copy, or we're going to be on the road for a couple weeks and I'm trying to minimize the amount of books we carry. I got an SD card for each child and load it with his books. I can put the SD card into an eReader or a netbook or a computer. If a book is online, I try to set up a webpage (for myself) with links to where the book can be read (sometimes I'll add links to math or spelling games - it REALLY depends on how much time I have!). If we're in a library, I can just set up my son up on the correct web page, and he can just read and work on his skills. I do use a hard copy planner/gradebook (but I keep a file in the cloud with grades). I understand your concerns about staying on track. I have goals for each year for each child; planning things out this way helps me to help them stay on track. Now, DH & I are very, very seriously considering full-time travel. At this point, I think most of what we've adapted will translate pretty seamlessly. The thing is, you will probably have to experiment. You just have to make your best estimate, and then adapt if you need to.
With online school, I would think the school supplies would take up less room because there aren't any text books, which would be nice if you are living on a boat, to save room. I am a completely 100% independent homeschooler, so we do all of our classes on paper, or with the math CDs. I love being 100% in charge of what my kids learn and how and when they learn a topic. I don't agree with some of the things they teach in PS, and also don't agree with some things that they don't teach any longer. If you have books and paper, you can take those anywhere even to places that don't have internet access. I love being able to take our school work to the park or to grandma's house or in the car or whatever.
I order and do it myself. Still, in the end, you will have to teach your children in the fashion that they learn best. Sometimes we tend to want to teach in a way that will be easier, or work for us, but if our children can't learn a certain way, we are defeated and so are they.
The first thing I would figure out is if during your travels you will fall under different state/national laws for home schooling. We had to go to my home state of GA for around 3 months when my mom was ill one year. Well if you are there for more than 30 days you fall under their homeschooling laws. The same applied to leaving my home state. So while I was legally homeschooling in my home state with very lax laws, in my mom's state with much stricter laws and required attendance we were not legally homeschooling. We did switch to online school the following year as I never know when we will have to make extended trips. This way we are legally schooling and I don't have to change anything if we stay for longer than a month. I would look into if travelling between states will change the status of your legally homeschooling.
A thought: We originally looked into charter (home)schools, but had to give up the idea because we were going to be required to do school according to the same calendar as our local district. Since our entire motivation (at the time) was to homeschool to accommodate the interruptions of travel, we simply couldn't do that. We don't use an online school, but my friends who do have to follow a certain calendar and/or schedule. Again, I think it's something that would create conflict for our family. Now, it's been a long time since I did research, but I believe there are online school programs out there that are flexible. But I think it's something important to check on. And Openminded is right about the laws in different states applying to you if you stay for a specified length of time. Good point.
Thanks for the reply Sandra. I guess the tough part for us will be that we will begin the homeschool when we begin the travel, so I will probably have to figure out a bunch of stuff all at once. I'm going to need a teacher myself to teach me the homeschooling
Online schools can be a curse or a blessing depending on the school and then the teachers...that part is very much like brick and mortar with the luck of the draw. We have been pretty lucky with ours and had good teachers. We do have a school calendar that we follow and have to put in attendance, but as long as we are on target with progress it does not matter where we are schooling and all. I just need to be home when the books come for the year since they only ship to our home address. This works for us to go home and visit my family for extended periods. However, if I was travelling a lot...I would not want to do our curriculum with our charter.
I ordered online worksheets on beestar. DD uses it every summer. It's variety of subjects Math, Science, Social Studies, ELA etc and also according to children skill level. Exercises are short and challenging, so she's more willing to do the work. Lisa
