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Hey guys, I’m back! I’m here to tell you about our amazing traveling circus! Er- I meant to say traveling homeschool! (And how you can do it too!)
It has been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything because we’ve been out of town. It was a planned trip but I didn’t want to advertise our absence on the internet, if you know what I mean.
My husband had to go out of town for work so I took the opportunity to visit a friend of mine and her family who live in Birmingham, Alabama. A trip like the one we just got back from would not be possible if my children were in public school! The Ron Paul Curriculum gives us the flexibility to do on-the-go schooling.
Even when we slow down, we never stall out!
Of course, when staying with friends things can get a little hectic, which means that we didn’t always do as much “school” as we would do at home. I’ve mentioned this before, but the RPC Reading and Math video-based lessons act as a safety line through our homeschool.
It’s sort of like the belaying rope used by rock climbers. Even if we fall off the edge of the homeschooling cliff, so to speak, we won’t fall too far, because we’re still attached to that safety rope.
We may not have done a lot of strict academics during our trip, but we still watched our videos and that kept us moving forward. I don’t think any of the videos for Reading 1 or Math 1 have even been as long as 20 minutes.
School doesn’t always mean curriculum
We did our best to make the most of our visit in terms of school. With our curriculum on the back-burner we leaned full-throttle into other homeschool activities. Maybe you are thinking, “So, your friend didn’t mind you coming to visit and subjecting her family to your homeschool?” It is more like she subjected my family to her homeschool! And we liked it! But wait! Her kids go to public school so how did that even work?
My friend is a member of an awesome gym (Life Time Fitness) with an indoor pool and classes for kids that include art, yoga, sports-skills, gymnastics and more. I got a short-term membership and believe me, we made good use of it!
Also, being in a new city we visited the McWane Science Center and the Birmingham Zoo. We even went to a few activities at the local library. There are many more things to do in Birmingham than we could have possibly done in the time we were there.
I’m using Birmingham as the example because, obviously, that’s where we were. However, there are interesting things to do and see just about anywhere if you’ll only do a little research to find them! The whole world is your homeschool, get out there in it.
Socialization
I don’t talk about homeschool and socialization very much because, quite frankly, I don’t think it is even an issue. However, I know that it is still something that concerns a lot of people. My children enjoy being around other kids, and during our trip they were able to spend a lot of time with my friend’s children. It is always nice to see my children spending time with kids other than their siblings.
One of my friend’s daughters is a few years older than any of my kids. She is old enough to think it is fun to play “teacher,” but also young enough that she remembers a lot of what she was learning in school when she was in kindergarten and first grade. It was awesome to see how much she enjoyed teaching my kids. She made “lesson plans” for them and they played “school” almost every day.
I think my kids learned just as much from that as they do from me. I’m sure they had a better attitude about it. Having an older friend who enjoyed teaching them was an unexpected bonus!
The Benefits of homeschooling
There are many benefits to homeschooling and it is not my intention to attempt to list them here. I do want to point out that if you confine yourself to the same rules that apply to brick and mortar schools then you are robbing yourself of many of those benefits, and for no reason!
Maybe you are better about it than I am, but sometimes I forget how flexible homeschooling really is, and I don’t take full advantage of it as often as I should.
If my children were in a traditional school it would be impossible for me to visit out-of-state friends during the school year. That would make long-distance friendships even more difficult to maintain than they already are! Our recent adventures in Birmingham were made possible by the Ron Paul Curriculum, and for that I am grateful!