In 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit “remote schooling” did not go well for us, so we decided to homeschool “just until things went back to normal.” Well, it turned out homeschooling worked really well for us. No one in our household (except daddy) is a morning person. Getting the kids up, ready, and on the bus by 6:45am was generally a nightmare, every, single, morning. Homeschooling gave us the freedom to work when we were best and to meet each girl where they were. Karolena experienced a hypoxic brain injury at birth and has resulting behavioral and academic struggles. Homeschooling allowed me to realize just how far through the cracks of the public school system she was falling, and customize the curriculum to help her catch up. Kamryn on the other hand taught herself to read at 3 when she got tired of asking everyone to read what was in her Minecraft inventory. By 5 she was reading at a fourth grade level. Here again, homeschooling had the advantage of challenging her with appropriate curriculum. It worked for us and we decided to continue regardless of COVID.
The 2020-2021 school year had other neighborhood friends homeschooling as well and we combined classes to make things more interesting. However, when they went back to public school for 2021-2022, it was just us sitting around the kitchen table. I grew up in a family of road trip warriors and always planned to take my kids to see the country as well. Over the years, Keith’s vacations became fewer and more far between (he works too hard bless his heart) and when there was time off, he didn’t really want to spend it driving across country to see the worlds biggest ball of twine and sleep outdoors. It didn’t take too many days of us doing lessons around the kitchen table before it dawned on me… we don’t actually have to homeschool at “home.” we can be anywhere. We can learn about geology at the rim of the grand canyon, watch biology at work in the ecosystems where it lives, and understand the impact of history from the battlefields where it happened. Thus an idea was born, and in 2022 we set out on our first 3 month roadschooling expedition of the west!
Not all those who wander are lost.
