The days of sitting at home all day while home schooling your children is a thing of the past. With so many businesses opening up specifically for home schoolers, sports and extra-curricular activities, plus the general frantic pace of life, well, there are a lot more mobile home schooler's than there used to be.
The phrase "school in the car" is a popular one heard in most home school households. Before the invention of some high tech gadgets, our kids could be found in the back seat of the car with a lap desk or clip board doing worksheets or reading a book. But now, driving around town with the family running errands is a great place to pop in a CD on almost any subject from geography facts to math facts. With the invention of the portable DVD player, many families can simply play an educational movie that deals with a topic they are studying so that no time is lost while on the road.
Some great resources for days that you need to be mobile and need to be doing school work but want something beyond worksheets include: Story of the World for history, Geography Songs on CD, and simple math facts on CD. There is also a CD that teaches grammar to music. For older students, they can listen to their Apologia science curriculum on MP3 audio CD's including General Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, the Human Body and Physics.
Of course, you can still take your textbooks and reading books along with you everywhere as well. The thing is, do not limit yourself to only being able to teach in your home. Life takes us out of the house sometimes. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that you are under no time constraints; if you want to do your teaching at night or on a Saturday, you can! But if you are trying to maintain a standard school day but have things to do, don't be afraid to take it with you! In the long run, you will have a child who is capable of learning anywhere and that comes in handy later in their college years.
One of the main reasons that families decide to home school is because they do not like the rigidness of the public schools. Having the opportunity to home school on the go is just another way to show our flexibility in home schooling. Embrace it. Utilize it. These same ideas and principles can be applied for long road trips and vacations - particularly if you do not want to clutter up the back seats with books, papers and pencils. The ease of popping in a disc, be it video or audio, can still guarantee an educational lesson learned.
Now pack up that car and go!
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