Home Schooling in Your Motorhome
By Rooster Boisseau
At first glance the terms “hitting the road” and “hitting the
books” might appear mutually exclusive. But if you home school
your children and have access to a motor home, read on.
Your one room school house on wheels.
One of major concerns of parents who decide to home school
their children is that their child is not exposed to the wide
array of mental stimuli encountered by children who
participate in a more conventional education. Children who go
to public and even private schools are exposed to many
different cultures, personalities and diverse beliefs.
However, children schooled in the home sometimes are not
exposed to a wide variety of other children. Co-operative home
schooling, which brings a number of families together to share
the work in educating their children, helps somewhat but home
schooled children still, may not experience the plethora of
mental stimuli experienced by their more traditionally
schooled counterparts. One way to ensure that your child has
access to these stimuli is to pack up your motor home and hit
the road.
Math Class
As you head down the highway in your one room school house on
wheels, opportunities for teaching abound. In addition to the
regular daily lesson plan, you can incorporate trip specific
lessons into the daily work. For example, the math lesson
begins when you stop at the neighborhood filling station to
top off your tank. Consult the owners’ manual of your motor
home and find out the capacity in gallons of your fuel tank.
If age and grade appropriate have your young student convert
this measurement from gallons to liters. For younger children,
a fun activity is to let them watch the pump through the RV
window and count the gallons or even tenths of gallons that
pour into your motor homes fuel tank. Of course with the
current price of gasoline, this activity will be much more fun
for them than for you.
Once you’ve filled your tank, get out the map and sit with
your student to study your route. Consult your motor home’s
manual again and find how many miles per gallon you can expect
to get. Help your young student compose a formula to find how
far down the planned route you’ll be able to travel before
your motor home requires fuel again. You can help your child
use the map to help navigate as you travel along. Plan a side
trip at the spur of the moment. Ask your child to tell you how
this side trip will affect your timetable and fuel bill?
History Lessons.
Plan your trip so that you follow an historical route. Follow
the Trail of Tears, maybe the Oregon Trail. Travel the dusty
path the cowboys rode in cattle drives from Texas to Dodge
City, Kansas. If you’ve got the time, follow the route of
Lewis and Clark or, explore the vast expanse of the Louisiana
Purchase. What ever path you choose to follow, make sure you
have plenty of supplemental materials for your young student
to study. Many motor home parks have high speed internet
available to their campers. At the end of each day, have your
child connect to the Internet and gather information about the
history of the places you’ve visited.
Social Studies
Take a trip through Appalachia. Venture some distance from the
Interstate into the heart of some small town. Stop at a small
store or local diner. Observe the people who live and work
there. Listen to their accents or, eavesdrop on a
conversation. There is no better way to discover how other
people live than to explore these microcosms of America. You
might even want to contact local parents who also home school
their children and arrange a visit to learn more about each
other and compare home school curriculums.
Other Destinations
Many home schooling co-operatives hold events at various motor
home parks to compare and refine home school curriculums and
provide new experiences for their home schooled students. An
Internet search for these home school meet ups will yield many
entertaining and informative events. If you choose to make one
of these trips, be prepared to have a good time and be sure to
bring your favorite covered dish.
Exercises such as these are entertaining and exciting to your
child and if properly presented, your young student may not
even realize he is in school. But remember, as entertaining,
exciting and educational as these road exercises are, they are
not a replacement for the well planned curriculum and lesson
plans available to parents home schooling their children.
Article Submitted by Rooster B.
Rooster privately runs several News and Blog sites related to
Homeschool Education. Interested in the latest Home School
curriculum visit his site at
http://www.homeschoolzine.com
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