Add Humanities to Your Home School

If you’re looking for a list of rules to make your summer roadschool awesome, you’ve come to the wrong place! Our Roadschool Moms team wholeheartedly agrees that we generally steer clear of any set-in-stone, cookie-cutter parameters that could inhibit or stifle our roadschoolers enthusiasm to learn something new everyday. In this episode, Mary Beth and Kimberly use their radio time to talk about the ways they plan to keep their traveling homeschoolers on the learning adventure this summer. Click play to hear more.

1. One of our favorite summer traditions in the Road Trip Teacher rig, is our summer journals. This is something we’ve been doing for many years (even before we started living fulltime in an RV.) It is a simply constructed journal of paper (lined, colored, blank, or a combination) bound together to be used to document all the summer activities to come. Giving your student a few ideas is a great guide to help him get started such as

• write or illustrate the weather daily or in a weekly summary
• make a summer leap list at the beginning of the journal to talk about all the things you would like to accomplish during this season of sunshine
• use it as a daily diary of thoughts or inspirations
• make a photo scrapbook of sorts to document one picture daily or weekly that represents the time period

2. Take advantage of travel plans to delve into state history facts and information. This project is even more fun if you will be hitting different areas of the same state so that differences in  Again, by planning a notebook or binder for this state study, it gives your roadschooler a place to record state symbols, cut out the state song to play later if he is musically inclined, investigate the different areas in the way of topography, rivers and lakes, and the different terrain across the area. If your summer travel plans will take you to a specific region of the U.S., these state study guides can be grouped together to represent that as well. This is a wonderful record of time spent that will be referred to time and time again.

3. Sometimes, homeschool plans are so full of all the basics, it’s hard to consistently fit in the extra-curriculars. Summer is a perfect time to take advantage of music, art, or other areas of special interest:

• There are tons of music curriculum out there that allows a student to formally study the subject. One of our favorite ways to enjoy music curriculum is with Super Quiet Learning Time from SquiltMusic.com.   These are easy lessons with no planning involved that can be enjoyed by all ages under a tree during a picnic or anywhere you please! You might even find that one of your roadschoolers enjoys a particular composer and for that, this fun site has Squilt Spotlight studies.
• It’s no secret that Art + Outside = Super Summer Fun. There are so many different ways to enjoy art, sometimes it’s overwhelming to pick just one medium. So don’t! Try something new each week of the summer that you may or may not have tried before. A favorite from the Road Trip Teacher’s crew is chalk art pastel drawings.  The Roadschool 101 crew especially enjoyed the lessons from the American Landmarks tutorials.
• Have your kiddos shown an interest in a particular sport, activity, or musical instrument? Use YouTube videos and plan a chunk of time to further their interests. If you summer travel plans are really flexible, research an instructor or private tutor and block out a few weeks of lessons. This is something that will be a reward long after the instruction is over.

4.  No matter where in the world you are, summer and nature just go together. This is the perfect season to spotlight a nature study. Compiling a nature journal ahead of time so that details of the world around your roadschooler can be written down is an added bonus. Keeping a nature journal for three months so that what she sees and what she hears can be recorded will make her a better observer. As the leader of this trip with Mother Nature, drop in subtle reminders to look for the little things, pay extra special attention to what you hear at night when all is quiet, and note the weather for one place to another. Using a nature study to spotlight your summer roadschool is a great way to cultivate your learner’s senses and enjoy every ounce of what the season is all about.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.      Job 12:7-10

5.  No matter what the season or direction of your roadschool rig, reading is a great way to keep your learners moving in the right educational direction. Summer feels like freedom so this is a great time to let your readers sample all kinds of material. Download these free reading calendar pages from the Learning Shoppe over at Road Trip Teacher and post them in a central location. See who in your household can fill a month’s worth of reading activities.

6.  Take advantage of the summer holiday spotlight over Independence Day. Let the research begin before you arrive to your early July destination and see what the area you will be visiting has to offer in the way of history, activities, and firework celebrations. If July plans in your rig aren’t firm yet, check out these great July 4th destinations from Fulltime Families.

7.  If you entire summer is up in the air, make your summer roadschool a mystery trip! Last year, the Roadschool Moms shared you their Top 10 Summer Destinations. Use that as a guide to map out all the places your traveling tribe would love to see in the lush, green season of summer. How many can you mark off before the leaves fall later this year?

For information on how you can catch up with the Roadschool Moms duo this summer, check out their schedule for the 2016 season.

To listen to the Roadschool Moms’s plans for summer roadschool, tune into the May 1st episode of Roadschool Moms over at iTunes!

Roadschool Moms is a live, one-hour weekly broadcast dedicated to the needs and challenges facing today’s roadschool moms. Kimberly Travaglino, of Fulltime Families, and Mary Beth Goff, the Road Trip Teacher, team up every week to offer listeners a fresh take on homeschooling while traveling full time, working in current events and featuring a mix of expert guests.

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