Homeschooling Progress

Each and every child has their own gifts and our youngest has a talent for writing. Only in 2nd grade, his cursive writing is far nicer than many adults. 

And some are just easier to teach than others ... E will do his school work anywhere.

For anyone interested, we use Abeka curriculum. They start kids writing in cursive from the beginning. Just like children have an easier time learning multiple languages when they are young, cursive is much easier when started early.

OK, I'm finally going to do it

The boys have been on me for too long about a tablet and now with the introduction of the totally cool new Kindle Fire with it's full color  7" screen and Wi-Fi, I've put my name on the waiting list for this gadget.


Yes, we do have a laptop and I'd said I would be content with that for our trip. But if you have tried holding a full size laptop while your driving down the road (in the passenger seat that is), getting out maps, passing out school work and having a little coffee all without harming the laptop, you totally understand where this desire is coming from.

Why not the iPad? Really, it's all about the money. An iPad would be nice, but really, with all the features of the new Kindle Fire I don't see enough of a difference to warrant the extra money.

I've been using the Kindle app on my iPhone for quite some time. It has been so fun to read some of the old books while we are traveling down the road. Really, I think Scott and I are the only one's really interested, but hey, if they get a few words in their ears here and there, why not.

Shhhh!
Here's the deal though ... they don't come out until mid November, so this will be one of the family Christmas presents. Now it's up to you to keep the secret. Or maybe add one to your Christmas list, tell me and we can keep secrets together.

What do you think - am I nuts? More than normal, I mean.

Homeschooling ... in 240 sq ft. and in new states

Most homeschoolers already know, school at home is legal in all 50 states, but boy oh boy, do the laws around the country have their differences.

School in North Carolina starts August 25. I heard it became almost a bit of competition for the schools, a few years back, to see who could start the earliest. When schools started posting the first day of school at the beginning of August, the state legislators got involved and said NO SIR. No school until Aug. 25th, and so here we were ... kids all around us were starting school while we were still planning on an early September start. 

We scrambled to get the rest of our books - even though technically, we still call ourselves residents of Washington state - we didn't want the boys to feel like they were behind their local peers. Knowing we would have slower days with traveling, it really was time to start up again. We ended up starting August 30th and the boys have settled in pretty well.

I say pretty well because, heck, they are boys after all. The boys feed off of each other. Anyone know what I mean? One starts making faces, the other starts making, well, we'll call it "noises" and then before you know it, competition starts, laughing and then crying. Holy Cow! School work? OK, those are the moments where God is working on my patience. Not that I thought starting school in 240 square feet would be easy. I'm just not sure I thought it would be as hard as it is at moments.


Time to get back on track. Back to school. Stop the silly noises. ARGH!!  Since I don't really have any pictures of me going crazy while the boys do their "boy" stuff, I did get one sweet little picture of E at the library doing some schoolwork. I think it's a nice little outing and gets them both used to other people making lots of noises around them while they work. :-) 


What is your biggest challenge the kids give you? You know, the ones where you know God must be teaching you about patience.

Planning for Life on the Road

While we have been closing down the farm and packing things up, we keep thinking of things that we will need to take care of a whole lot differently living life on the road. Little things like mail. No big deal, right? You go down to the mailbox and grab you mail, recycle the stuff you don't want, read things you do and life goes on. We've already started by canceling a lot of  what most people might call junk mail (horse people call catalogs Christmas in ... name your month). A post office box is next in the line of business.

Finances. Deposits can be made online with the click of the camera phone. Transfers between banks with the click, click of the mouse. Most of the bills can be paid online and banking can be done anywhere these days. Sheesh, you can download your statement and never see another piece of paper again from the bank. I guess that was one of the easier things.

Other things we've taken for granted over the years include stockpiling. A term used by many coupon shoppers I guess, but we've been doing it since before it became cool and trendy. Hubby turned an old, un-used mud room into a big, wonderful walk in pantry for me (a Mother's Day present I still cherish to this day) where we got to stockpile items when they went on sale. By the way, our new home on wheels has a ton of storage for a camper. Stockpiling will not be completely eliminated but will be a little more of a challenge.

Schooling. Now we've almost exclusively home schooled our kids, but it's been with the help of video "tutors" as well as specialty classes. Life on the road seems to eliminate some of the fabulous classes we've had and at the same time opens an entire world of learning opportunities around every corner for the entire family. US History; hands on. We are going from home schooling to road schooling.

Most things we've got a pretty good grasp on alternative ideas but then there is Housekeeping. Hmmm. My biggest question for all those pro RV'ers out there...how do you vacuum and mop the floors? Do I pack up my new vacuum to go on the road with us? What about the vinyl flooring? I'm not going without, I do know that much, but really, how do you do it?

We are under no grand illusions that everything will be a cake walk. Heck, we know there will be days we'll want to walk out while the car is moving. We've got some special things we have planned for the boys on the road ... we'll share that another day.

Any of you camp? What are the must have items you take with you?