Homeschooling on the Road: Flexibility at its Finest

For my last post in the "Day in the Life..." Home School Link-Up party at Grateful for Grace, I thought I'd highlight the reality of the past week for us: Homeschooling on vacation. Or rather, on a business trip.

The Chemist has to travel for work; roughly 25% of his year is spent away from home on one business trip or another.  Sometimes, that means he leaves early in the morning, flies to a nearby city to visit clients, then returns late that same night. Sometimes it means he goes for 2 to 3 days at a time, and sometimes, like this past week, it means he is gone for five days straight.

We can't always go with him, but when everything lines up just right, we love to tag along. As he doesn't usually have more than a few weeks' notice that he has a trip coming up, it is usually a last-minute type affair. Flexibility in action.  This past week was no exception to that rule.

With only 2 week's notice, I scrambled over Christmas break to rearrange the 6 week lesson plans that I'd just completed, so that one week would then reflect "go on a trip with Dad" and thus lighter work loads. Lighter in the sense of less work than normal, and in the sense of "I'd rather not pack all those bulky, heavy textbooks..." as well.

Since we do have an outside deadline this year, due to using an on-line distance learning program, I couldn't just give the boys the week off altogether; they are closing in on crunch time and need to finish this last six weeks of material in time to request final exams, take said exams, submit, get them back graded, and still have time to retake the exams if needed (their program allows only the final exam to be retaken, and only once; I doubt we'll need to use the do-over option, but just in case, I want them to have time to exercise that right). 

Plans rearranged, we packed up. Three laptops. Art supplies. A few textbooks. Notepads, paper, pencils, crayons. Coloring book and math workbooks. Assignment folders. Big plans to catch up on some time-intensive projects. Even that had to be flexed a bit as the week came together. Here's a typical day...

7:00 -- up & at 'em so we can all eat breakfast together before The Chemist goes to work for the day

8:00 -- breakfast in the hotel: cake, jello, scrambled eggs, bread, cheese, grilled sandwiches, fresh orange juice, chocolate milk, fresh fruit. No coffee, because the hotel coffee was horrid. Which is crazy, given where I live.

9:00 -- The Chemist goes to work for the day; I check email, link my already written blog-posts up, check Facebook, etc. while the boys either finish waking up, play, sleep a bit longer, whatever.

10:00 -- Okay, really; school. I direct The Writer to read & summarize the article over the Arizona Immigration Law and do that paper for Geography; I instruct The Artist to do his English assignments (I first make him daily pages to fill in so he can brainstorm for his short story assignment), and I sit down with The Adventurer for a nice, quiet math session.  Except, no one told The Adventurer it was to be a nice, quiet session.

The Artist, being goofy, looking at his assignment folder for the day

10:01 -- The Adventurer is beside himself with anger, frustration, and defiance. Learning challenges at their ugliest; taken out of his home routine, all the little signals he looks to that help him understand his surroundings are gone, so he is out of sorts (because, remember, everything coming in visually or auditorally is garbled). He thrives in routine; the predictability takes away the guess work and the effort he has to put forth to understand what we want him to do.

Also, he finds great comfort in his familiar surroundings, toys, games, etc. I bring as much as possible for him, but two under-bed sized boxes of Legos just do not pack well when traveling. He fights me, mightily, about having to do school. Full on, haven't seen this level of anger in a very long time, meltdown. Kicking, screaming, yelling meltdown. I stay calm (really), love him through it, and eventually we do a math page, a Scribbles page, and some sequencing cards. We are both exhausted at the end of it.

11:45 -- The Adventurer is still cranky, even though we've just finished his school work. He wants me to make The Artist play with him, but The Artist still lacks Science before his school day is over. The Writer has stared at the same article for the past hour & a half, unable to summarize it because in the confines of our hotel suite, he can't think over the screaming. I declare a break for lunch --- down to the beach. Go. Now.

11:48 -- we stop for ice cream or a snack and then sit on the beach for a few hours. One day was ice cream, another day snacks & drinks from a beach-side restaurant, another day we stayed in and watched a movie instead. Some days the fussing did not last quite so long, but we had to take this break every day. The Adventurer is instantly transformed once he's had  a bite of food and is turned loose to play in the sand & the surf. I relax and enjoy the moment.

The Artist & The Adventurer play in the sand & surf

1:15 -- while The Artist & Adventurer play, The Writer sits with me in the shade of a tree, sipping fresh juice on the beach. He picks up a handful of sand, sifts it onto a white napkin, and comments on all the colors. Intrigued by the awe in his voice, I scoop up my own handful of sand, eager for this moment of precious connection with my oldest son. He's right; the sand is multi-colored; grains of red, pink, orange, yellow, tan, white, clear, gray & black, plus some that sparkle like diamonds when the sun hits them. Beautiful. Without looking closely like this, it just looks tan & black. I love that my son looks for ways to see beauty, and shares it with me when he finds it. Precious.

The Writer & I sit in the shade

2:00 -- back to the room. The Adventurer has been a delight while we took our break; The Writer reads the next part of Romeo & Juliet and takes his on-line quiz for that section; he did very well with this, reading more than I thought he would and finishing the play & all quizzes. Now he just has to create a soundtrack for the play (using 20th century music, though from any part of the 20th century) and he'll be done with that unit. The Artist does his science, and The Adventurer fusses only a little while I set up a movie for him to watch; I sit with him for a bit, he settles in and watches Sponge Bob, and the next hour & a half is quiet. I read a free book I downloaded to my Kindle, once I've finished scheduling Geography for The Artist.

3:30 -- The Chemist is done for the day and home from work. The Artist & The Writer are done with school for the day. The Writer promises to try the Geography project tomorrow (he will finish it this weekend, as it just was impossible to get done). The Adventurer is all smiles, mostly, and makes it hard for The Chemist to believe just how grumpy he'd been earlier. We go back to the beach for the afternoon, where we all share a snack & drinks. *our hotel was literally across the street from the beach. Nothing fancy, just a beach town where everything is across from the beach...

a crab we saw on the beach
his big brothers (much bigger) become snacks later, but I did not take pics of those

our hotel, seen from the beach. The white building with all the balconies.
our room was on the side and did not face the beach directly.

6:30 -- up from the beach; showers, change into non-sandy clothes, walk to dinner.

9:30 -- home from dinner; brush teeth, put on a movie for the boys, in bed by 10:00 because we are all tired.

Far less school work got done than I had planned; The Artist did pretty well, though 2 papers are still not written. The Writer did well, considering the challenges. He did very well with R&J, never did write the sonnet he was supposed to write, tried the geography project, and I never even mentioned geometry or art to him, as we just did not have time. The Adventurer's outbursts in the morning meant I was not available to help; The Chemist's short days meant we did not have sufficient time for long days of school; our mandatory break in the middle likewise cut our time for school short.

But. We will just keep being flexible. Projects can be homework, done evenings & weekends. The boys understand and accept this, no problems. The time together was priceless; despite the very rocky mornings, I am very glad we went. I am grateful, again, for the flexibility we have to just get up & go when The Chemist asks us to tag along.

This side of flexibility (vs. the kind you need when kids are sick, life interrupts, etc.) is my favorite part of home education; we set the hours, days, and overall schedule. Love that. Absolutely love it.