This year has been a crazy one for sure! As many parents face this school year with uncertainty or even frustration, some families are embarking on a new journey (literally): combining homeschooling with the RV life. We like to call it road-schooling.

How Do You Homeschool?

That’s a huge question, and one that’s a little too difficult to answer in one blog post! However, each state varies in its guidelines for homeschooling, so it’s important to establish right away exactly what you intend to do.

If you plan to do virtual learning at home (or in your new or used RV), through your local school district, you can fairly simply stay enrolled and follow your school’s guidelines.

If you plan to fully disenroll your kids from the school system, you will need to do an internet search on “homeschooling in my state” for the guidelines that keep you in compliance.

You can homeschool using a package curriculum, online learning, or the curriculum your state’s schools recommend. The market for online classes has definitely increased exponentially this year, so if you feel nervous about tackling certain subjects, don’t worry! There are countless resources available. Since WiFi is available virtually everywhere, your kids can stay connected to their online classes easily.

Hit the Road and Learn Along the Way

True story: when I was 15, my mom made me take the ACT while on vacation. It was one of the worst days of my life! While that’s not an educational tactic I would recommend, the great thing about seeing the world around you as an educational environment is that learning is never limited. Road-schooling is a perfect way to learn about the ties between history, geography, science, social studies, and more.

For example, start with the National Parks. Whether you go to Yellowstone, the Badlands, the Grand Canyon, or dozens upon dozens of other federal parks, you’ll be immersed in the realization that history always connects to science and geography. Studying different habitats and the wildlife who live in them will be a rich experience of its own!

Other stops – such as San Francisco, Albuquerque, and Chicago, will give you opportunities to immerse yourself in rich cultural history. And the Midwest is filled with learning opportunities about the farmers who help run our nation’s agriculture.

Be Flexible with Your Time

When you think about it, there aren’t actually 8 straight hours of intense, focused learning packed into a school day. There is some instruction time, and some application time. However, the size of classrooms are one factor in drawing out the length of time both instruction and application take.

You might be surprised to discover that a child between kindergarten and third grade might complete a day’s worth of school in under an hour! Or that fourth through seventh graders could easily be done before lunch. This kind of flexibility allows you to hit the books early in the day and head out in the afternoon for sight seeing, exploring, and integrated learning with the world around you.

Travel gives people rich opportunities and experiences that they wouldn’t trade for anything. Many people who find themselves frustrated by a busy life end up regretting that they didn’t travel more. Why not give your kids the experience of a lifetime during this time when our world has flipped completely upside down? Don’t just read about the oceans, canyons, and forests. Go explore them!

When you give the gift of travel and opt to road-school in your RV, you offer rich education that will fill their memories for years to come. We’d love to help you pick out the perfect new or used RV for your road-schooling adventures, so contact us today.