Travel and Homeschool together

[Jyotsna]

We are planning on visiting two places this year far from our home. One is the Huntsville Space Center. Do you bother trying to tie information together in advance by studying space, aero-space, airplanes, and more, or do you just take your child to the place and let them create their own assumption or view from the actual visit?

I thought we could also study Alabama (and visit Helen Kellars birth place too) as we travel, or before.

This will be our third year of homeschooling, but first year to travel and homeschool at the same time. We are basically unschoolers, but the kids do daily maths and write in their journal daily. I thought I might get each child a disposable camera to take with them, a journal for the trip, and then at when we are home, they could get their photos developed and create a travel journal with their writings, drawings and photos. My kids are 9, 9 and 13.

Thanks!

[LilyGrace]

It depends for us. We are taking a trip this next week, but will just be taking a camera and notebook with us (along with a daily math sheet for practice). Sometimes I bring along a book we're reading aloud that takes place in the area, sometimes the trip is the end result of a lot of learning about a subject...

It really depends.

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

We do. For instance, we just got back from the beach. While we were there studied ocean, ocean life, careers linked to oceans, visited an aquarium, talked about local habitats, etc. It's 'school-lite' for us as we are typically done by 9:30 in the morning and do our language arts books as bedtime reading. It keeps the structure and gives them real-life exposure to what they are learning.

[Lillian J]

We traveled a lot, and we never made a study of it, but did read interesting books ahead of time. When we went to see the recreation of the Mayflower and the Plimouth Plantation, for instance, we had read a book called "Children Who Sailed on the Mayflower." So when we went, my son was able to go up to various colonists and ask them where he could find Johnny Billington, the boy who had endangered the Mayflower by playing with explosives. It was fascinating to see their stern reactions in character - comments to me like "I wouldn't let my child associate with the likes of Johhny Billington!" And we found the recreation of the Billington home and wondered how it had come to be in the ground rather than built above. To our question to a neighbor as to whether that had been done for insulation from weather, we got a snippy "Hmph! That Billington hovel would have been built more from laziness!," and then some insulting description of the Billingtons, a choleric lot...

But again, we never made a study of our travels - I really don't think it would have added to the experiences - but since a lot of the travels did spring from our reading or whatever, we went into them with the intention of seeing some of the things we were already familiar with. - Lillian

[momtokea]

We travel a lot, too. Last June we toured England and Scotland, the year before that we toured Italy, and the year before that we spent 6 weeks in Greece.

We don't take any school work with us, but we do take books. For a few months before we leave I read books covering the history and geography of the place we plan to visit. We do lots of reading, both fiction and nonfiction. We do not do any 'projects', so we have nothing on paper to show for it. I take a million pictures. I have tried to get the kids excited about keeping a travel journal but they haven't been into it so I let it go.

So basically the reading and the discussions is all we do and it's fun and stressless and we learn a lot.

In your case, I would definitely discuss space etc. before your visit and find some interesting books on the subject, perhaps watch a documentary or two. It would make it much more meaningful for the kids when they are actually there, and it wouldn't be a schooly type lesson.

Here is a website I use to find books to learn about the places we travel to:
www.travelforkids.com It has great book selections!

Have Fun!!

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by momtokea

So basically the reading and the discussions is all we do and it's fun and stressless and we learn a lot.

In your case, I would definitely discuss space etc. before your visit and find some interesting books on the subject, perhaps watch a documentary or two. It would make it much more meaningful for the kids when they are actually there, and it wouldn't be a schooly type lesson.

Yes! I think just exploring the subject as a matter of common interest ahead of time is a great way to approach it. That gives you all so much to talk about when the time comes and makes things come more alive. And it's really nice for a child to be able to own some of that exploration on his own.

Lillian

[babycarrier]

We just got back from a trip to the beach. I checked out books from the library before we went about boats and sharks and shells. I tucked a couple in our to go bag and rotated the books in the car seat. Now that we are back, my son is interested in researching tide schedules and types of crabs.

I think I'll always expose the kids to subjects and places before we travel and then follow what interests them while we are there. We also plan day trips (will be bigger and longer) as they get older from the books we read.