Schooling Children While Travelling
Since our parent-teacher interviews the other day, I have been spending a bit of time planning some of our educational experiences for our children while we’re away. It’s bringing out the “wannabee” teacher in me. 
Some of you may remember that earlier in the year, I went in search of something appropriate for our children to record their journal of the trip in. This is what I ended up getting:
They’re a bit bulky than what I was first looking for but they are completely self contained, including spaces to store pencils and textas:
As you can see, I had fun purchasing packs of new textas along with these great pencil/eraser/sharpener sets (which incidentally I picked up from a clearance rack for 50c per pack - BARGAIN!).
I also purchased a pack of 100 plastic sleeves, some lined paper (without holes so it can slip inside the plastic sleeve neatly once written on and a ream of plain paper. Each folder has it’s own well-stocked supplies of the essentials:
Hopefully this will mean less fighting (one can only live in hope) and less items being lost (again, one can only live in hope LOL).
Being the stationery junkie that I am, I am having SO much fun putting these together and I hope that when we return they’ll become a well-loved memoire of our trip away.
My mind is going overboard with ideas for “educating the kids” while we’re away. Yesterday I even started to make up my own maths worksheets (told you I was a ” wannabee” teacher 
)
Here are a few of the ideas I have so far:
LITERACY
* Journals recording the trip
* Blogging
* Magic 100 Words (Trailer Boy)
* Literacy work from school (spelling etc) - I doubt we’ll do a lot though given Lleyton and Princess Singstar are already spelling way above their age and Trailer Boy isn’t likely to be up to spelling words yet.
NUMERACY (MATHS)
* Money and Budgetting - They’re all getting a weekly amount for treats, ice creams, souvenirs etc which they’ll have to make last the week, or do without. This should help Trailer Boy with learning the values of different notes/coins and the other 2 how much things cost. I’m also planning on using a weekly cash budget myself for food, treats, washing, spending money and take away so they’ll hopefully learn about making choices with where the money goes.
* Mathletics - where we can get internet access (may visit some libraries)
* Counting Cars - I’m in the process of setting up a series of worksheets for Trailer Boy which cover colour and counting as well as looking at concepts like less and more. Hopefully they’ll keep him occupied some of the time that we’re driving too.
* Fuel Consumption Project - I’m working on a project for Lleyton which records all our fuel information so he can look at average price paid for fuel, where highest and lowest prices were, what our fuel consumption is, how much it is costing us per km (on average) and so on. It should be quite interesting to look at those figures and have that record and anything to do with statistics and finance is right up his alley.
* Maths worksheets as provided by their teachers.
COMPUTING AND TECHNOLOGY
* Digital Photography - learning how to fully make use of their digital cameras as well as uploading images to the computer, resizing and uploading to the blog, possibly some editing as well.
* Blogging - writing posts, publishing, approving comments, responding to comments etc. Considering whether I’ll put together a basic HTML course for Lleyton as well.
PE
* Tennis - to help with Lleyton’s tennis progress, we’re planning on as much tennis as we can while we’re away. Many caravan parks have tennis courts which helps.
* Swimming - taking advantage of the warmer weather in Northern Queensland and the fact that most caravan parks have swimming pools.
* Bushwalking/Hiking
SCIENCE/SOSE
* Various zoos
* Great Barrier Reef (and considering taking them to Reef Teach before we see the Great Barrier Reef to enhance the learning experience)
* Seeing various farms and different farming techniques (including a visit to the Australian Cotton Centre and a Sugar Mill)
* Daintree Rainforest
* Astronomy
* Pretty much everything we do will probably come under SOSE in some form or another.
OTHER
* Cooking and general life skills
* Family bonding
* Making friendships with children they meet as we travel
* Setting up and packing up skills, team work
* I have a new game for Trailer Boys Leapster which is Batman maths. I’m planning to purchase a Brain Training game for the others for their DS’s so they’ll all have an educational game to play in the car.
There are so many learning opportunities in a trip like this but it’s fun to actually start writing them down and seeing how they relate to various subject areas.
Similar Posts:
- New Character Introductions
- Parent Teacher Interviews
- 35 Today
- Budget Planning For Our “Big Trip”
- AWOL
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I’m so jealous!
I love planning, and journaling, and buying stationery. LOVE. IT!
When our kids were about the same age as yours we went on a big trip to QLD and I had a HUGE time making up activity folders for them to take on the way. I included maps so they could see where we were and answer their own “are we there yets”, information on all the theme parks (of course!), colouring pages, word searches, all stuff I was able to find on the internet.
Let me know if you need anything printed or copied. I want to join in the fun!
You are AWESOME!!!
I love all your ideas!
I think most of them come naturally when you’re on Holiday so it reminds me a little bit of unschooling.
I think it’s great to write things down and put them in educational categories. It gives me confidence that we are actually learning.
You have just won the super organised award!
Your kidlets should appreciate all your hard work and will probably keep those folders to show their kids one day…..when folders probably may not even exist!
I sure hope they have lots a fun with them…. are you going to show them before you leave or give as a surprise?
Sharon - I did that for Lleyton when we went to Darwin. He was 4 and a half and had daily maps I’d traced from another map which outlined our route so he could see how far along we were each day. I can’t quite do that for this trip because I don’t know where we’ll be stopping each night. But a map each is still a good idea. Might need to collect some more from RAA next time I’m near one. The find a words and stuff is a great idea too for times when they need something else to do. I’ll have to have a look around the net. If you know of any good websites, let me know. Thanks for the offer of help - look out or I might give you the whole job. LOL.
Dina - yeah, I think that’s what helped me too (realising the way the learning fits with what the schools are doing anyway). Almost makes me want to homeschool. In reality, my kids are too social to cope with homeschooling (not that I’m saying homeschooled kids aren’t social - it’s just that mine live for the opportunity to see their friends every single day).
Lynette - thanks.
Yeah, they’ve already had a fight over who will have which colour. Singstar Princess was with me when I bought them. Obviously hers is the pink one but the boys both want the blue one (and here I was thinking they’d fight over the red one LOL).
you have some brilliant ideas Lightening. The kids will enjoy your ‘home’ caravan schooling.
The stationery sets look awesome too. We are thinking of doing a trip when our little guys are 4-5.
Hi,
would love to chat am going around Australia at easter starting from brisbane
and have 3 kids ages 4,7 and 9.Have tried to source homeschooling info a mind
field out there!!Any tips?
Hi Tam. Sorry I’m not much help. Our kids stayed enrolled with their current school so I didn’t have to investigate specific homeschooling options.
Great reading. We are heading off for 5 months travelling with an 8 and 10 year old in 11 months time. I’ve been thinking along the same lines as you for ways to educate the children but you’ve expanded on it and given me even more ideas
thankyou