Roadschooling, Two Months Later

Susanne is your driver for this post.

Sam began his fourth grade year seven weeks ago while we were parked in San Angelo, Texas. We were armed with several carefully-selected textbooks, a giant stack of notebook paper, and a perfectly-constructed scheduling grid that had our days laid out by the hours and minutes. Here's a flashback:

We followed the grid for maybe three days. It was a good approach in theory, but in practice, we needed a more fluid strategy. 

Almost two months later, we've adjusted. I'd say that we're close to center in the structured schooling-unschooling spectrum, and that's right where we need to be. Reading, writing, and mathematics are non-negotiable: we feel he needs a strong foundation in those skills and, based on his personality, benefits from a more structured approach in those areas. But he also needs freedom to explore what interests him, and that's where "unschooling" comes into the picture.

The more structured part of our homeschooling day takes place in the morning and includes the following:

1. Reading or writing (30+ minutes): I let Sam decide whether he'd prefer to start the day by reading or writing. He usually picks reading (I'm trying to figure out how to get him to write more without pressuring him so much that he despises the task). In the past few weeks, he's read the entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, a few Humphrey the Hamster books, and an I Survived novel. We're in the process of identifying another series that he'll truly enjoy. The Warriors by Erin Hunter is a strong contender.

2. Math (20-30 minutes): We're using Life of Fred for our math curriculum. Sam typically completes one chapter per day. The chapters are short, the writing is funny, and the problem sets are refreshingly brief. Each problem set comes with an answer key. It's up to him to check his answers when he's done. If he identifies any discrepancies, we discuss them and review that material. 

We reached a milestone yesterday when Sam wrapped up Life of Fred: Farming. Although closing the cover on a textbook is kind of an arbitrary way to measure progress, the fact that he completed it indicates to me that we're getting somewhere with homeschooling. We're moving forward.

3. Grammar (10-15 minutes, 3 times a week): To be honest, Sam detests grammar, but we're forging ahead anyway because I think establishing a strong foundation at this age is important. We're using using Scholastic's Success with Grammar for Grade 4. I figure that he can tolerate 10-15 minutes of verbs, nouns, subjects, predicates, adjectives, and prepositions a few times a week.

Then there's the less structured part of the day, which includes some of the following:

1. Field trips: Over the last few weeks, we've visited an aquarium, a bug exhibit and butterfly garden, several national monuments, a nature center, a natural history museum, a UFO museum (unsurprisingly, that was in Roswell, New Mexico), a cat cafe (yes, a cafe full of cats), a trampoline gym, and the plaza in Santa Fe. Of course, he also spent a week on an organic farm, and he often joins us when we run errands to the grocery store or Walmart. We use field trips in part for location-based learning and in part just to get out of the RV. 

As a kid, I remember going on field trips and having to fill in worksheets along the way. We don't do that. One, I'm too lazy to print out a bunch of papers and then cart them with us. Two, it's important for kids to immerse themselves in the experience and absorb whatever they can, from their own perspective. Some of their observations will have immediate relevance, whereas others will become more important later (perhaps much later). We view learning as a long-term endeavor that doesn't always require identifiable short-term outcomes. 

2. Video games: This makes us sound like slacker homeschool parents, but it's true. He plays video games, and often. Sam's current favorites are Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program. Minecraft encourages creativity and the development of spatial reasoning, whereas Kerbal Space Program - a rocket simulation game - integrates principles of astronomy, math, physics, and engineering. Both require problem solving skills, patience, and persistence. I was skeptical, but when your kid comes to the dinner table and starts talking about angles required to bring and keep a rocket in orbit around the moon, you start thinking that maybe video games aren't so bad after all.

3. Educational programming: Sam loves Cosmos, NOVA, and National Geographic. He's also a devotee of cooking shows (to the point where he took notes on Alton Brown's coffee recipe and can now produce the perfect morning brew). We let him watch as much as he wants; he polices his screen time pretty well.

4. Pursuit of big ideas: Like most kids, Sam is a creative thinker with big ideas. He wants to start a blog... create and sell art... own his own business... curate a coin collection... become a comic strip artist... write a series of children's books. We encourage him to explore these brainstorms because doing so requires him to think critically, problem solve, and apply his reading, writing, and math skills. Plus, we want him to know that he's capable of doing what he sets out to do. It's up to him to decide what he wants to do, how to do it, and what he needs. We're just here to help.

Everyone learns differently, so what works well for our family may not work as well for others. If you're a homeschooling/roadschooling parent, what approach works for you and your kids? What do your kids enjoy, and where do they struggle?

How long do we stay in one spot?

Susanne is your driver for this post!

Another question people frequently ask us: How long do we stay in one spot before moving on?

Generally, we try to move no more often than every two or three weeks. The reasons for this are multifold:

• We don't want to burn out. Moving from one site to another - even if it's just an hour or two away or simply across town - is exhausting. It means cleaning out the tanks, unhooking all of the hoses and pipes, straightening up the interior and securing any breakables, pulling in the slideout, getting the cat situated, sometimes backing out of tricky parking spots, and planning our route. That might not sound like that much... and it isn't, if we don't do it too often. But if we were to do all that every few days, we'd be totally exhausted. It might be a good way to vacation for a couple of weeks, but it's not a good way to live over the long haul.

Clark the Freelander, just relaxing in camp

• Gas is expensive. Our Coachmen Freelander has a fuel efficiency of about 9 miles per gallon and a total fuel capacity of 57 gallons. Let's say gas costs $2.80 a gallon. If we were to fill the entire tank (which, granted, we never do), that's almost $160. Thus, driving long distances on a regular basis just isn't practical for us.

• We need time to work as well as play. We certainly go out and see the sights, but we're a working class family with a kid in grade school. That means that more often than not, we spend our days working and homeschooling. Much of our week is dedicated to these tasks, and we couldn't do them properly if we were constantly on the move. For us, it would be too overwhelming.

Office space

• At the same time, we strive to immerse ourselves in the local community. By staying several weeks in one spot, we give ourselves a chance to see the sights, eat local specialties, find good running and hiking trails, and tailor our homeschooling activities to what's available in the area. We've been in Albuquerque since the end of August, and we've become quite familiar with the layout of the city (always a comforting feeling) and the location of area parks and recreation opportunities. Sam and I have made field trips to the local aquarium, the BUGarium, a trampoline gym, a cat cafe (yup, you read that right!), Petroglyph National Monument, and some area volcanoes. We've even identified a favorite Thai place.

Working

Aquarium

Petroglyph National Monument

Volcano hike

Cat cafe! Such a happy place.

What about you? How often do you and your team move from place to place? What's your idea of an ideal amount of time to stay in one spot?

Nomadic McDowells: A (Current) Day in the Life

Susanne is your driver for this post.

People often ask us what it's like to RV full time. Many seem to think that we explore national parks by day and roast s'mores over the campfire by night. That rosy image reflects our reality about 0.01% of the time.

In truth, living in an RV is a lot like living in a house, except that the RV moves and we have to go to a Laundromat if we want clean clothes.

To clarify what the RV lifestyle is like for us at this particular time, I thought I'd provide you with a day in the life glimpse of our lives on a regular weekday. It varies, of course. Sometimes we do take the entire day to see a national park. But more often than not, this is what it looks like:

6:30 AM: Nobody is up... except our feisty orange feline. Biscuit has arisen, and she's raring to go. Biscuit greets every new day with the frantic conviction that her humans will never wake up; her gut reaction is to meow and attack our feet until someone responds. Trent usually gets up first, soothes the cat, freshens up her food, eats breakfast, cracks open his laptop, and gets some work done while Sam and I are still asleep.

7:30 AM: If it's a running day for me, I go out for a run somewhere close to the RV. 

9 AM: Sam is usually up by now and watches some TV to help him ease into his day (current favorite shows: Cosmos, Fixer Upper, and Good Eats). I take a shower (hot, if we've remembered to turn on the hot water heater), make coffee (one of my favorite daily rituals), and prepare breakfast for myself and Sam.

10 AM: Trent "goes to work" - that is, he leaves the RV to find a quiet spot in the campground rec center or office. If we're at a site with full hookups, he'll check the tank levels and empty the gray and black tanks on his way out.

Sam and I get started with homeschooling. His daily tasks always include reading, writing, grammar, and math, though we don't spend much time on any one thing. That's the benefit of homeschooling: he can work on each task at his own pace, and if/when he gets tired, we move on.

While Sam tackles schoolwork, I blog (either for Nomadic McDowells or my running blog), update our social media accounts, communicate with my Beachbody clients, and facilitate my online geology class. 

Noonish: Sam wraps up his work. I make lunch for both of us. Nothing fancy. Sam's into smorgasbords these days, so he likes some combination of fruit, yogurt, crackers, and cheese. I typically have a salad or heat up leftovers from the night before. Trent usually comes back to the RV to make one of his special wraps: flour tortilla, peanut butter, and spinach. Mmmmm.

1 PM: On about half the days, Sam and I (and Trent, if he's not too swamped with work) go on a field trip to a park, the local library, or an area attraction (for instance, we went to the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the UFO Museum while here in Roswell, NM).

On other days, Sam comes up with a project and works on that while I get my own work done. His projects are almost always self-directed. So far he's set up a website, developed his own art business, read history books, painted, and started a coin collection.

Afternoons can get tricky because Trent and I always have work to do, whether that's for the companies we freelance for or blogging/social media. On one hand, we don't want to spend our entire nomadic existence on our computers, but the fact of the matter is that we aren't independently wealthy. The bills have to get paid.

4 PM: I start eyeing the beer in the fridge. Sam reads or plays a video game. Biscuit naps in preparation for another night of terrorizing her humans.

5 PM: We make dinner. We have a toaster oven and an InstantPot, and for the most part, these two appliances allow us to make anything we want. The InstantPot is nice because a) it's fast and b) we can program it and walk away.

6 PM: Dinner! We squeeze around our little RV table. It can get tight, especially if we've let clutter accumulate. We do eat outside sometimes, but between the heat and the bugs this summer, that hasn't been as appealing as it sounds. We anticipate dining in the great outdoors more as we get into fall.

7 PM to bedtime: If we're at a regular old, nothing-special-here site, we do what many other people do in the evenings: clean up, play with the cat, take walks, watch Netflix, text with friends, read, veg out. At our current location, we're basically situated in a large (but nicely maintained and landscaped) parking lot next to a busy road, so there's no huge incentive to commune with nature. If we're at a national park or some other particularly beautiful place, we'll spend more time outside.

So that's about it! Does anything surprise you? Anything you're still wondering about? For our fellow travelers/nomads, how does this compare to your daily schedule?

Reflecting on the First Week of Homeschooling

Susanne is the driver for this post.

Sam started fourth grade on Wednesday, August 3. This was entirely his decision: I'd initially planned on beginning somewhere around August 15, though I hadn't nailed down dates or made any definite plans (to say that I'm not the most organized person you'll ever meet is an understatement). But Sam was ready to get started, and so we did.

One of the great things about homeschooling is that I can tailor my teaching approach to his specific needs, interests, and preferences. For example, Sam is someone who loves routines but who also needs some room to let his creativity take charge. When we sat down together to develop a schedule, this is what we came up with:

Every day will include practice in reading, writing, grammar, and math as well as physical education (and by "physical education," I mean running around outside or taking a walk). We'll spend anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes on each of these subjects depending on how we're feeling and how much time Sam needs on a particular topic. 

I feel strongly about the reading/writing/reflection activity that will start each day. This activity will give Sam a chance to ease into his lessons, read about a variety of topics (on Thursday it was cyanobacteria; on Friday it was Harry Potter), use his writing skills, and practice his handwriting. It will give me a chance to get creative with prompts and find ways to help him synthesize information from previous days.

To build some flexibility into the schedule, we divided the days not into Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/etc., but days where we spend a significant amount of time on history (A days), business (B days), arts and crafts (C days), and science (D days). This past Thursday was a D day: Sam wanted to learn more about bacteria and early life on Earth. On Friday he wanted to study marketing and advertising strategies that he can apply to his online business, so that was a B day. At this point, I'm going to let him pick what he wants to focus on. If that means doing science three days in a row, that's fine with me. I'll just track what we do on a daily basis so that we can balance it out with other topics later on down the road.

Because we're on the road and visiting so many interesting places, field trips will be an important part of the curriculum. We celebrated the first day of school with a field trip to various sites in San Angelo: the playground, the library, a sandwich shop, and the San Angelo Nature Center, where Sam got to meet and pet a snake named Bubbles, an opossum named Marie, and several other animals native to this area.

All in all, the first week (well, half week) went really well, and I'm excited to see what next week will bring. Spending more time with Sam and watching him get excited about what he's learning is definitely a major benefit to becoming a homeschooling (roadschooling) family.

Homeschool planning (or lack thereof)

Susanne is your driver for this post.

One thing I'm (supposed to be) doing right now is making homeschool/roadschool plans for Sam's fourth grade year. I have a general idea of what I want him to do, especially with respect to math, reading, and writing; however, I know that all of this will be much more effective if we ask our very independent learner what HE wants to do, and how.

So this morning I asked Sam to compose a list of ten activities, topics, etc. he wants to do or cover in roadschool starting this fall. Here's the list:

1. Read history books more thoroughly. [He's almost done with Book 4 of Story of the World and wants to explore certain topics in greater detail.]

2. Do activities about the subjects we learn about.

3. Go on fun field trips to museums. [He loves museums.]

4. Go to places based on what we read.

5. Learn how to use Excel. 

6. Learn how to market a business.

7. Art classes - for YOU! Ha! [Thanks, Sammo!]

8. Learn how to use line graphs.

9. Learn how to divide to make a percentage.

10. Learn how to use pie graphs.

If anyone has resources/suggestions based on Sam's list, please reply and let us know!

Scenes from Texas

We're in Texas now! AND we're Texans! With Texas plates and Texas driver's licenses! (However, a Texan friend tells me - and I believe her, because she seemed very serious about it - that we are  not actually residents until we make our chili without beans and have our photos taken amongst blue bonnets, some sort of flower that Texans apparently really love.) 

Yesterday we established our residency all in one day. It involved a lot of filling out of forms and writing of checks, but it got done and now we're Texans. Or fake Texans. Fexans. That sounds more honest. Trent is going to write a blog post very soon detailing how one obtains Texas residency. You know. Just in case you want to follow in our RV tracks.

As he'll describe, the first step to establishing a Texas residency is obtaining a legit Texas address. You could go whole hog and buy or rent a place, OR you could be cheap like us and get an address through the Escapees RV Club. 

 

That's right: you can get a mailing address that the DMV and tax offices will recognize and honor even though everyone involved knows that you're not a real live Texan. They will even welcome you to the state and do an Oscar-worthy job of acting like they want you here (I don't think that has ever happened to me at the DMV before now).

Escapees also has a campground, and that's where we're currently parked. Despite the heat (shockingly, it's hot), Clark is perfectly comfortable beneath a nice little stand of trees.

 

It's not a swanky RV park, but it's got everything we need and the management is super professional. They've clearly been doing this a while and know what RVers want, like laundry machines and shade.

 

To celebrate our Fexan status, Sam and I drove down to Houston today to visit the children's museum. Can I just say that Houston + heat + lots of children = a really loud museum experience? But that was fine. Sam enjoyed it, clearly:

 

 

 

A coup for us: the museum honored the ASTC reciprocal membership we have through the Kentucky Science Center, so the visit was free! (Parking was not.)

Roadschooling: Our current plans

A couple of people have asked us about our plans for homeschooling (or roadschooling) Sam while we're on the road. Although we recognize that our approach will evolve, our current strategy is to use a combination of child-led discovery and a more traditional approach.

Looking cool in Trent's old army jacket

Sam loves to read and enjoys history, so we selected the highly-rated Story of the World series to cover the social studies bases this year. He's already about 1/3 of the way through the first book and has trouble putting it down to go to bed.

For math, we picked the Life of Fred series. Trent's sister has homeschooled her kids for years; her whole family loves Life of Fred. It's not a typical math workbook. It consists of funny stories in which Fred has to use math to solve various challenges and problems. I think this may be a bit of an adjustment for him; he's used to more traditional math workbooks. But we'll give it a try and see how it goes.

Writing is a crucial skill, and I think the best way to learn how to write well is to just... do it. A lot. So he'll be journaling throughout our time on the road. He'll also be sending letters and postcards to his relatives. At times, I may help him edit his work and write a second draft, but mostly I just want him to have fun with it. I want him to see writing as a way to express his feelings, work through his experiences, and develop his ideas. We'll also be working on some basic grammar skills using a Scholastic Success grammar workbook.

Learning from Biscuit, our feline sage

We won't have a structured science curriculum. Trent and I are both scientists, and we both believe that scientific inquiry is something that all of us do naturally if given the opportunity and headspace. In our opinion, children are the best scientists in the world. They're keen observers. They ask tons of questions without fear of "sounding stupid," formulate creative and unbiased hypotheses, and treat the testing of those hypotheses as a form of play. At this point, we'd like the scientific learning to just unfold in a natural way. (He's also totally addicted to science programs like Cosmos, so when we can, we'll give him the opportunity to zone out with those shows.)

He's also a bit addicted to the iPad. Oh well.

Other than that, we're going to let Sam's interests and our journey guide his learning. If we're in Texas, for example, we'll learn a little about Texas history, climate, major cities, and social issues. If we're in the mountains, we'll talk about how mountains form, high elevation ecosystems, etc. We'll take advantage of local museums, parks, and concerts.

We also want to give Sam a chance to just be a kid - to ride around campgrounds on his bike, hang out with other kids, explore. Playing is such a crucial part of learning. Simply having this adventure with us will be a tremendous learning experience for him.

Those are the pie-in-the-sky plans. We'll see how it actually pans out. I think we're flexible enough to tailor our approach to Sam's specific learning style.

Planning and Preparing

Susanne is your driver for this post.

This past week has consisted of trying to meet our current obligations (work, hanging out with Sam, trying to stop the cat from going into meow meltdown mode in the middle of the night) while simultaneously preparing for our future RV lifestyle. Here's what we've been working on:

1. Setting up our mail forwarding service: We'll be using Escapees Mail Service in Livingston, TX. We're planning to become residents of Texas and want to have our mail service set up before then. The process should be relatively straightforward, but our post office lost our first application so we had to prepare a second one (a task that involved collecting numerous documents and meeting with a notary).

2. Learning how to properly clean our RV: I can't take any credit for this. Trent has been watching how-to videos produced by the RV Geeks to get the lowdown on RV DIY. He recently purchased a whole bunch of cleaning products for the exterior and interior and has been busy making Clark look his best. He also discovered an inexpensive desiccant (DampRid) that we placed in the RV to keep it dry during what is a very rainy season in southern Indiana.

3. Nailing down digital nomad jobs: Trent and I have both found flexible jobs that we can do remotely. I'll be working part time for an online college, and Trent will be working full time for a publisher. Given that both jobs are remote, we've spent the last few days wading through onboarding paperwork, obtaining more notarizations, and making even more trips to the post office.

4. Putting together a home school curriculum: My sister-in-law's kids are long-time homeschoolers, so I've been talking to her to develop ideas for how we want to organize Sam's 4th grade curriculum. For math, I've settled on Life of Fred: it looks fun, interesting, and relatable. I'm still trying to decide on grammar and social studies resources, so if you have any suggestions, let us know. Of course, much of the "curriculum" will consist of simply going out and experiencing life: visiting museums, listening to music, reading books, having adventures with other kids, problem-solving in the RV.

5. Figuring out how I'm going to exercise in the RV: I work out almost every day, and I love that part of my schedule. Because I'm kind of introverted, I prefer to work out at home rather than in a gym or outside around town. I've been using Beachbody at-home fitness programs since last summer; I like them so much, I became a Beachbody health and wellness coach. Now I'm trying to take note of how much space each workout requires and whether it will be RV-friendly or not. It looks like I'll be able to make it work, though I'll need to modify some of the routines.

6. Researching museum memberships: Related to item #4 above, I've been researching museum memberships that offer a reciprocal program. For science museums (which Sam loves), we think we'll participate in the ASTC Travel Passport Program. Another organization, the North American Reciprocal Museum Association, seems to have member art and history museums all across the U.S., so we may take part in that as well. We're open to suggestions!