Weekly Recap {a day early} and Travel Trailer Tour

We made it to North Dakota late Monday night, around 9:00. It was so light outside, the kids played at the playground for about two hours while Rod and some of the guys working with him set up the trailer. I couldn't believe it started to get dark at 11:00 pm! The sun was up bright and early, too!

It's really pretty where we are staying. We are staying in a park with lots of trees {unusual for this part of North Dakota I hear}, a playground, picnic tables, and lots of space!

We found the library on Wednesday {we waste no time}, got a library card and picked out our 3 {THREE} books each. That's all you can check out here - three books a person! Little do they know, we usually have fifty or more books checked out at a time! Luckily, the library is close so we can visit several times a week.

The kids are signed up to start swimming lessons on Monday. They are excited! They have a super nice pool, but my kids can't swim yet. Hopefully, they will get their fill of the pool at lessons each day!

I'm going to show some pictures of the travel trailer and how I am "organizing" our school books and supplies. We don't have the fanciest nor the newest travel trailer, but it's our home for much of the year. It's a 40 foot long Luxury by Design trailer, with two slides, two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

This is the main part of the camper - our living room, kitchen, school room, and boys bedroom! Rod ripped the booth of the trailer and built the bunks you see. The boys sleep there now - two little ones on top and Eli on the bottom.

Here is our "couch" {it's a futon}. Underneath, I have tubs with play-dough, modeling clay and accessories, Mercie's WriteShop supplies, and a bin of all kinds of paper.

Here are the boy's bunks. Underneath, I have tubs of Legos, Duplos, cars and trucks.

On the other side of the futon, I have this cube organizer. The kids school books are kept here. It may not look organized, but it is! Mikaela and Eli each have two cubes, Silas, Titus and Mercie each have one, and I have one for Mercie and Silas's science and history. On top, I have a tray that contains our pencils, colored pencils, glue sticks, scissors, and markers. 

I have different sized containers for our supplies.

In between the futon and the bunks, there is a cabinet. I have art supplies and books in the cabinets. In these bins I have the kid's binders that won't fit on the cube shelf and Titus's preschool supplies - pattern blocks, Cuisenaire rods, counters, and that kind of thing. I am using my School House Teacher's bag to corral our library books!

Rod built me a small desk so the kids and I can use the computers. I have one computer for the kids with their Rosetta Stone Spanish, Stop Motion, and Typing Instructor. The other computer is the one that I use and the kids can't!

Here is my 'kitchen'. There is a pantry and refrigerator to the left of the stove. Not much counter or cabinet space, but we make it work!

This is a view of the kitchen and the bunkroom. That is where the girls sleep.

These are the girl's bunks - Mercie on top and Mikaela on bottom.

The kids use this dresser along with the small closets in the bunkroom. Five kids equal a lot of clothes, shoes, and underwear! Mercie has her Barbie's and accessories in the wicker basket on top. I hung a shoe organizer on the back of the door for hair bows, ponytails and brushes.

How do we eat without a table, you ask? When it's nice, we will eat outside on the many picnic tables provided. When's it's not nice, we will eat on the floor or futon! We've already had several picnics here. The kids love it, and there's no mess to clean up inside!

 

Isn't she gorgeous? She's already been working on the Typing Instructor program and loving it! She is progressing very quickly - much quicker than I thought she would! It's so much fun, she does it several times a day without me asking!

Concentrating hard!

 

We have had a busy few days so far up here! Hope to slow down and rest the rest of the week - my body is exhausted from traveling. How was your week?

Homeschooling When...You Move Around A lot

My husband is a tie-in foreman for pipeline construction. His job requires us to move around. A lot. Most of his jobs last anywhere from 2-8 months. They are usually more than a day's drive from our home in Louisiana. He works 6 or 7 days a week, 12 or more hours a day, so if we want to see him then we travel with him.

We've been doing this for around 7 years now. We have been to numerous states {some more than once!} and made many friends along the way.

Is it easy? Not always. It's not fun to uproot our family several times a year. It's not fun trying to find a furnished house or apartment to rent while we are away. It's not fun to be away from our family, friends, church, and house for extended periods.

Is it worth it? Absolutely. It would be torture to not see my husband for months at a time, not to mention him having to be away from us! I firmly believe that our family should be together, all the time. Therefore, we travel with him. Several times a year. To many different places.

Back to the topic... How do we homeschool when we move around a lot? The easy answer is - we take our books with us! It's not so simple, though! With 5 kids, it's not feasible to pack a ton of curriculum, books, manipulatives, educational toys, puzzles, maps, globes, games - you get the idea! We usually have a limited amount of cargo space - my husband's truck and my Yukon XL. Loaded down with five kids and two adults and plastic tubs of stuff and more stuff and even more stuff!

I don't take every piece of our curriculum when we travel {and yet, I always come home with way more stuff than I brought...hmm...}. It's hard to pare down the essentials {because I want to bring it all!} and there is always something I really regret not bringing with me {which is why we have double and triple of a lot of stuff!}.

I am going to share my tips and advice for homeschooling when you travel a lot.

1.) Find the local library. This is so important, that I usually google the library in the town we will be in before we even get there! Some states require different things to obtain a library card - always find out those requirements before you go. Having a library card makes it so easy when you need a book for school. Plus we never pack any books {other than curriculum books} which saves space! The kids love going to a new library for the first time. We always make friends with the librarians, too. That way they are more forgiving when we check out, oh, 40 books a week, or make use of the inter-library loans, or {gasp} tear a page out of a book!

2.) Find local museums and exhibits. We always make use of the awesome field trips available! Sometimes there are little hidden gems that are a lot of fun and educational. It feels like a big vacation sometimes.

3.) Pack only the most-used manipulatives. It is so hard for the decide which manipulatives I will bring. I usually pack counting cubes and bears, pattern blocks and cards, and letter and number tiles. We use these quite often, especially with Silas in Kindergarten and Mercie in 2nd grade. I would never have enough room to pack everything we use, so I paid attention to what we pulled out the most and these made the cut. You could always use dry beans or pennies!

4.) Find the local thrift store. I don't pack any board games, but I do allow room to bring some home. We always hit the local Goodwill store or thrift store and usually hit the jackpot on 99 cent board games. We bought a {brand-new} "Name That State" game and "Geografacts" game in the last place we were. These games are at least $30 on Amazon! We also find lots of educational books - kids dictionaries, Spanish words, atlases and more for around 50 cents each. {This is why I always go home with more than I bring...}

5.) Use a curriculum that doesn't require many extras. This is the first year that my kids aren't using the same core curriculum. It was a shock when I had to pack everything up {I bought it while we were on a job}. I won't make that mistake again! Eli, my 5th grader, is using Heart of Dakota's Bigger Hearts for His Glory. His books would fill up an entire plastic tub by themselves! That is not feasible for traveling, so we will be doing something different when the time comes to travel again. I really want to combine them for history, science, and geography again, as it not only makes traveling easier, it makes homeschooling easier.

6.) Use e-books. While I don't have an e-reader or even a tablet {double gasp!}, my oldest daughter has a tablet that was given to her. I will put a lot of her required reading on the tablet to cut back on books that we must pack. If your children like using e-readers, you could do this to save space.

7.) Use the Thinking Tree Journals! These journals don't take much space, and all they require to use them are library books. Talk about saving space!

Homeschooling when we travel so often isn't easy, but keeping my family together is important! I hope this helped someone in my situation.