On the Road

 I haven't written a blog post for quite some time. Things have been a little chaotic in our family. My husband and I each have a parent who is terminally ill, one of whom is currently in hospice care. Joy and I have spent many recent days in hospitals, rehab facilities, and at home (away from our home) with ailing grandparents.

Homeschooling is great for situations like this. Joy hasn't missed a day of school! We've had school in the car, in the hospital, and various other locations.

But we also have to adapt our usual lessons for the road. The pictures on the left show some of the many activities that just wouldn't work on a road trip!  Too many pieces, too much stuff to tote, or too messy.

One thing we did to make away-from-home school easier is purchase an iPad. We had talked about it before, but it really seemed to make sense in this situation. And it was a great decision!

 There are soooo many excellent educational apps available, mostly for free. And it was also a wonderful car-time occupier; Joy could listen to music, play games, or read books. I will share some of our favorite educational apps in another post some day soon.

 There are certainly some activities from our normal routine that travel well: Sluggy, the sight word puppet made most of the trips; Tell Tale, the storytelling game, was a hit, even in the car; and our number sense bracelets were easy to carry. We also use some Kumon workbooks occasionally. First, because Joy needs to have experience with written skill activities, and second, because she likes them! Yes, really. So those came along in the car.

I tried to purchase another workbook on one trip, but all I could find were "test prep" workbooks. For KINDERGARTEN??? Really!? It's another sign of just how test-crazy our educational system is right now. The Kumon workbooks are totally different; their sole goal is learning. They are set up for kids to learn a small bit of new information, use it repetitively so they internalize it, and then add another bit of new information. I definitely wouldn't use only Kumon (or any other type of) workbooks, but they are the best I've found.

 So, we've continued school and learning, even in the midst of much traveling and a bit of chaos. Joy seems to be doing okay, even though two of her grandparents are failing. I think being able to help take care of her grandmother has helped her process the upcoming loss.

I'm not sure what the near future holds for either of these dear parents/grandparents. We will continue to serve in any way we can (that is appropriate for an almost-6-yr-old), so their may be more road trip school days for us in the future! I'm so glad that we are able to teach/learn this way.