My Top Tips For Homeschooling On The Road

Are you planning to practice homeschooling on the road this year? We’re big fans! Carschooling has become a routine part of our homeschool year for all kinds of reasons.

We love taking field trips and we live far from town so travel and even days with more than one errand can mean we either lose a day of homeschooling or get creative about how we learn. Homeschooling on the road allows us to keep the learning going as we explore real-world learning opportunities, embrace new experiences, and use technology to learn new things while we travel.

Keep reading to learn more about why we practice carschooling so often and get my top tips for homeschooling on the road. Plus, discover some of my favorite tools and resources for making carschooling a success.

Why We Often Carschool

Carschooling has become a wonderful method for adding fun to our road trips, squeezing in learning time while we run errands, and so much more! Since we live an hour from town, we often practice carschooling as we travel to the library, grocery store, or other appointments. 

Although I try to plan all our errands for the same day each week, we need to spend some time in the car on these days and carschooling means we don’t have to cancel our homeschool day to complete our errands.

Carschooling involves squeezing in fun and “sneaky” learning moments with fun podcasts, trivia in the car, and educational tools that work well when we’re on the go. These activities and tools don’t just help us squeeze in another day of homeschooling. They’re also a great way to keep Emily engaged and having a great time while I drive.

There really are so many incredible benefits to homeschooling on the road. If you’re thinking about carschooling, I’d encourage you to give it a go.

The Benefits Of Homeschooling On The Road

I love homeschooling on the road because it makes it easy for me to be consistent with our homeschool routine. I didn’t like the idea of losing a whole day of lessons every time we needed to run errands or travel. Embracing carschooling has made it possible to keep the learning going even when we’re on the road.

Being able to embrace learning on the go and real-world experiences at the same time as we homeschool is just one more way we can cultivate a lifelong love of learning in our family. Since one of our family’s homeschool goals is to adopt a lifestyle of learning, this method of fitting in more learning time is ideal.

Another way we homeschool on the road is with travel schooling. What’s travel schooling? Sometimes travel schooling just means taking our books along as we travel. For example, a program like Teaching Textbooks makes on-the-go learning really easy to do.

When you’re travel schooling, you can use your books, tools, and resources to enhance the experiences and take advantage of the learning opportunities you encounter along the way. Sometimes travel schooling means letting your travel plans definite the curriculum. An example of this might be planning to travel to many US National Parks and using my Traveling the Parks Curriculum to learn more as you explore each park.

My Top Tips For Homeschooling On The Road

If you’re thinking about homeschooling on the road this school year, check out my top tips to make carschooling a success for your family.

Plan Ahead

An ounce of planning is worth a pound of preparedness or so they say. When it comes to homeschooling, planning doesn’t just make you more prepared for a variety of scenarios, it’s also going to play a big part in making your carschooling experience a success.

One of the ways I plan for successful homeschooling on the road is by saving certain activities just for the car. We can’t often do science experiments or art projects in the car. However, it’s the perfect time to catch up on our favorite educational podcasts, Teaching Textbooks lessons, watch YouTube playlists that go with our unit studies, or practice writing skills with Night Zookeeper.

Get the Right Tools

Even YouTube videos, podcasts, and educational apps can get boring after a while. That’s when it’s important to have some hands-on activities that work well in the car to keep the learning going and ensure that carschooling is a pleasant experience for everyone. Here are some of our favorite tools: 

            

 

Field Trips As Curriculum

Use field trips in place of textbooks and boxed curriculum to make your carschooling experience a success from the start. Planning educational field trips as a regular part of your learning experience as a family makes homeschooling more fun. Plus, it’s a great way to learn together as a family, forge a deeper connection, and add real-world learning.

Check out some of our favorite field trips for homeschooling families:

Use Your Captive Audience To Your Advantage

In the car, it’s often easier to do certain things. If your kids are often wiggly and struggle to focus during read-aloud or audio recordings, try saving these activities for carschooling.

Audiobooks and lesson plans with audio recordings are the perfect things to save for days when you’re homeschooling on the road. Listening to learning songs is another great way to squeeze in some extra learning while you’re in the car. Math fact songs and music from Story Bots are perfect for learning on the go!

Audio Books the Whole Family Will Enjoy:

                

 

Conversations In the Car

Some of our very best conversations happen in the car. Kids are often more open to discussing things and responding to questions in the car. You can check for comprehension, have important chats, and discuss what you’ve been reading or learning about as you travel. 

Carschooling is the perfect time to practice narration with your kids, ask them questions about what they’re learning, and even answer big questions they might have. You might be surprised by all the educational conversations you can have while homeschooling on the road!