Family Hack

“Why do they call it homeschooling if we’re never home?”
— A favorite bumpersticker

I grew up (and was homeschooled) in a rural area, where it took an hour to get anywhere and an average of two hours to get the place you needed to go. My parents figured out in pretty short order that if we didn’t take advantage of our time in the car, I wasn’t going to have much in the way of formal education. Car time evolved into one of the most focused and structured part of my homeschooling life. In fact, I think one of my main motivations to get my driver’s license was to get away from algebra.

I’ll occasionally hear my homeschooling-parent friends lament a day of travel or errands as a day “lost” from homeschool. Of course, I find myself thinking “what are you talking about? That’s the best time to do schoolwork. Hey, the kids are strapped in; they can’t get away!” Of course, in all seriousness, homeschooling on the road does present challenges: reading and writing, probably the backbone of a lot of your school activities at home, are difficult, if not just impossible to accomplish in a moving vehicle; reading can cause carsickness, and writing with anything sharper than a crayon is probably a bad idea. But, if necessity is the mother of invention, these limitations should only inspire us to greater creativity. I’m firmly convinced that travel time is a great homeschool opportunity. Here are some good resources to jumpstart learning on the go.

Contain The Car Chaos:

You don’t really need any complicated gear in order to learn on the go. However, a few simple items that provide you with a work surface and/or containment for your educational paraphernalia can be very helpful.

Travel Tray
This handy travel tray straps around your child or their seat–easy to use in the car or on a plane. I especially like that it has a lip on the edge to keep things from rolling off.

Backseat Organizer Tote
Great for keeping things within your child’s reach, so you don’t need to keep retrieving when you’re supposed to be driving.

Portable Learning Tools and Games:

Personally, I’m not a big fan of electronic games and toys. Even the good ones are too easy to overdose on. Some of them can be quite handy though for letting a child study and play certain kinds of games, even when you aren’t available to participate. I’ve found that keeping a few electronic toys and games in the car is a good compromise; a time limit is built in and the novelty of having them in a limited space and time makes them all the more valuable for holding your child’s interest.

Math Wrap Ups
These are a wonderfully compact and portable, easy-to-use, self-correcting math practice tool. Available in different levels for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Geosafari Laptop
We’ve got the big “desk top” version of this, but now they make a laptop version that is much better for the car. Don’t let the name “Geosafari” fool you, they cover way more than just geography.

Math Whiz
A little gizmo for independent math practice.

Magnetic Sodoku
Good brain exercise. Check amazon.com for magnetic travel versions of your favorite games.

Audiobooks:

Car time is a wonderful time to share great music with your kids. Don’t overlook other audio resources though. Car time is also great for learning foreign languages, and listening to history and literature. Check your local library for children’s audiobooks; you can also rent or buy from sites like Booksfree.com
, RecordedBooks.com or download from iTunes, Audible.com or Simply Audiobooks .

As your child gets older, you can utilize audio courses from The Teaching Company or through RecordedBooks.com. These recordings give you access to lectures from great professors at colleges and universities around the country—in your car, whenever you want—and for a fraction of the price of tuition!

But, in the meantime, some of our favorite audio resources for elementary-age homeschoolers:

Story of the World Audiobook
A history series often utilized by classical homeschoolers, but a great read/listen for others as well. There are also supplemental activity/workbooks available.

Beethoven Lives Upstairs CD
A great way to expose your kids to great classical music, including interesting stories about the source. Check out others in the classical kids series.

Jim Weiss’s Shakespeare for Children CD
Seek out other cds by Jim Weiss: everything from Robin Hood to Greek Myths to bedtime stories.

Fun Spanish for Kids CD
We really enjoy these fun language-learning cds from Beth Manners. There are three cds available in both spanish and french.

Magic Tree House CDs
Kids love these time-travel adventures: good for beginning independent readers; also a great listen in the car.

Misc. Travel-Friendly Activities:

Geography Sticker Book
Even though more traditional pencil-on-paper workbooks will usually be left at home (don’t worry, your kids probably won’t complain…), there are a lot of great resources out there in the area of educational coloring books, stickerbooks, etc. Check out Dover Publications for hundreds of ideas in one spot!

Lyra Beeswax Crayons

We especially like block crayons for travel, since they don’t roll away!

String Games Around the World
Unless your kids start tying the strings around each other’s necks, this is a good, safe, game for the car (optimally, involving a lot of quiet concentration!). Check out other Klutz books for more travel-friendly games and craft projects.

Brain Quest for the Car
The Brain Quest cards seem to be made with travel in mind: they’re a great compact size and come in a variety of subjects and grade levels. Perfect for a family quiz game in the car.

Although we’ve only scratched the surface of travel-friendly education methods here, hopefully you’ve come away with some good ideas to try—whether you homeschool or not! There are a lot of other good ideas out there—please share yours in the comments.