“I see it!” says Lucy, pointing to a doorway cemented into the hillside.

“Finally!” says Kai.

Passing the threshold into the cave takes us from arid to humid, from hot to cold, from light to dark, from the profane to the sacred. We have arrived at Zeus’s cave, on Naxos in the Greek Cyclades.

The cave is more than fifty feet high and at least double that in width. Some stories say that he was born here, others that he hid here during his teenage years from a jealous father, and a man in the village even told us that Zeus received his thunderbolt from an eagle on top of this mountain.

We are silent, walking the smoothed pathways that Zeus walked, breathing the air of his boyish fragility or his teenage angst. He is embodied. Behind the teal and green moss, drip-drops of moisture echo across a dark cavern. The light beam from my phone cannot take in the size of this place; I have to imagine the extent of its reach.

We have been studying the Greek gods, their powers, symbols, and interrelational dramas. We’ve read classic myths, written our own original myths using Olympian characters, and visited the many temples during our monthlong stay in Greece.

Our landlord told us about the cave—turn left at the potato patch and take the right fork at the white square house—giving directions that describe every intersection on the island. Getting here has been an epic quest requiring intuition, clues, research, and asking as many locals as possible.

For a nine- and ten-year-old, the myth and magic are real. “He must have been super tall, even as a kid. Where did he put his head when he slept?”“Did someone bring him blankets?”

For my thirteen-year-old, the isolation fuels empathy. “Who did he have to talk to?”

We try to orient where he would have cooked and ate. We take in his view when he stepped outside of his cave—to his left, the tallest mountaintop in the Cyclades, currently named Mount Zeus, at 3,300 feet, and to his right, a valley that tumbles into the island-dotted sea below. He could have seen visitors a long way off.

This cave kept our Zeus safe, timestamped his childhood, and prepared him for his extraordinary life ahead.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

The post Stories from the Road – Naxos, Greece appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

We share these ideas not to hand you a script but instead to show how easy it is to encourage learning with just a bit of preplanning. For those who want to go further with actual lessons, we offer example lesson plans on our website on such varied topics as poetry and water use.

Language Arts

Writing

We recommend having your kids each keep a journal in which they can write freely and without suggestions from adults so they can feel safe to wonder, vent, experiment, or puzzle through the world around them. Writing to learn through journaling means that we can sort out our thoughts and opinions by writing, finding the why, and seeing cause and effect as our hands scratch the pages. Learning to write, on the other hand, provides the structure and style to communicate and persuade effectively. There is a place for both types of writing instruction.

Consider keeping a writing portfolio, to imitate the way that writers actually write—in drafts. You could do early drafts in journals before moving on to revised drafts on fresh lined paper or typed on a laptop. A hard-shell accordion-style folder is handy for drafts and final documents that you can later assemble into a tangible portfolio for each school year.

Starter Ideas: Writing

* Create a scrapbook. Include ticket stubs, flyers, pictures your kids have drawn, or poems they’ve composed over the course of your trip.

* Write postcards to friends and family back home.

* Ask your kids to write a monthly post to put on your blog. This is a perfect opportunity to take a first-draft journal entry through the editing process and then type it out on your laptop.

* While you’re waiting for food at a restaurant, create group haikus or limericks.

* Write a Yelp or Airbnb review.

* Invent worlds and storylines for Dungeons & Dragons or other online gaming realms.

* If your teen or tween has strong opinions (ahem . . .), encourage them to share their thoughts on an online forum or write to a politician or even your federal government (such as whitehouse.gov).

Reading

Oh, the luxury of more time to read! Read with your kids as much as you can. Read out loud together and predict what will happen, connect scenes to your own lives, find clues (foreshadowing), and examine characters, conflict, and theme. The sky’s the limit. This one-on-one exchange with time to explore is hands down the best way to teach reading. Be sure to give your kids plenty of room to read independently as well, especially if they are older, and keep a running list or informal bibliography of what they’ve read; it will be a great way to document their work if your kids are returning to traditional school.

Starter Ideas: Reading

* Find books that take place in your destination, and let your kids teach you about it.

* When your kids are reading on their own, ask for updates on the plot. Ask leading questions: Why do you think they did that or said that? Wait, who is that again?

* Read the placards at national parks or museums. It’s a wonderful way to learn how to read nonfiction organically.

* Do a book report. For young ones: Draw your favorite scene or character. Write about the conflict or challenge in the book. For older ones: Compare two books, create an alternative ending, or write a five-paragraph essay on a topic of your choosing. Make a book jacket. Draw a tourist map of the fantasy land.

* Read a local newspaper. Identify any biases, and discuss the sources cited in the articles.

* Leave a book review on Goodreads.

* Listen to an audiobook while traveling on a long stretch of road.

Grammar/Spelling

Try these ideas for grammar in context and to review or learn a few specific skills.

Starter Ideas: Grammar/Spelling

* Use Mad Libs to teach parts of speech. After introducing adjectives, pronouns, plural nouns, and adverbs, practice with this high-interest game. It’s an entertaining and often funny way to pass time on a long bus, plane, or train ride.

* Review your kids’ existing written pieces to find error patterns, then create individualized “find the errors” exercises. Adjust for age and ability.

* Practice dictation: using the information you have about your current location, read a sentence (or an entire paragraph for the older ones) aloud and ask your child to write it down in their journal. Then review together what they’ve written and make any corrections with them. Without realizing it, they’ve also learned some important facts about this new place.

* If your kids are really craving structure, create weekly spelling lists using words inspired by the place you’re visiting. In Florida, it could be orange, archipelago, alligator, or roller coaster. Or use the words in your dictation and “find the errors” exercises. Practice writing these words in the sand, if you’re at the beach, for bonus fun.

* Take advantage of spelling resources. Angela’s family had a cool spelling program, but the book was huge. Instead of doing writing exercises, they went through the book and took photos of the upcoming pages for each kid and quizzed them out loud during long journeys.

Math

This is one subject that builds sequentially, so it may work best with some regularity and order. You can also naturally apply mathematical skills within an unschooling approach. There are so many ways to bring math into everyday life.

Starter Ideas: Math

* Calculate mileage for your RV, flight, or boat ride. You could do this by using a map or odometer, and then create graphs or charts as a visual representation of the data.

* Get your kids involved in keeping track of the budget. You can make a ledger and have them track costs over a day, a week, a month, or the entire trip. They can break down expenses into categories and even help decide where to splurge and where to cut back.

* Play cards, which will reinforce patterns with Go Fish or counting and probability with blackjack.

* Convert metric to imperial measurements or vice versa while baking or cooking, or when measuring distance traveled or volume of water in your RV’s clean-water tank.

* Double the recipe while cooking. Voilà, it’s a math lesson! Share the extra food with new friends.

* Practice converting fractions to percentages while doing fun things like hiking or kicking a soccer ball.

* Estimate the length of a bridge, the height of a cathedral, the diameter of a tree, or the speed of a motor scooter.

Science

Science is all around you, in theory and application. Every time you cook can be a chemistry experiment, and every time you move can be an exercise in physics. When you drive, there may be roadside geology exhibits. Simply asking your kids to observe, notice, wonder, draw, or hypothesize about cause and effect can set you up for a science lesson anytime, anywhere.

Starter Ideas: Science

* Volunteer for an archeological dig or a river cleanup.

* At the airport, check out exhibits or tours open to the public. Maybe you can view an educational display or visit the control tower when your flight’s delayed.

* Make your own bingo cards and play to identify flora, fauna, and other natural features during a boat trip, land trek, or safari.

* Research environmental challenges and how humans are working toward solutions. For example, there are apps for determining air quality in China and tsunami risk in New Zealand.

* Use your magnifying glass during a hike.

* Study applied physics at one of the many amusement parks that offer special “learning lab” days.

* Observe the sunset every day for a week. Sketch the different colors, and explore negative and positive space, shadows, light, and silhouettes.

* Spend as long as you want at a streambed. Turn over rocks, wade in the water, and notice what kinds of insects live above and below the surface. Learn the words riparian, habitat, limnology, and anaerobic.

* Visit a nature and science museum.

* Check out ready-to-go science programs, like Citizen Science and Junior Ranger described in the resources section.

* Track the night sky. Learn about International Dark Sky Places and light pollution. Take a late-night excursion. Find the North Star. Find the Milky Way. Ask: Can you see Jupiter? Do you want to go to Mars?

Social Studies

Many parents find that social studies is the easiest subject to worldschool. It’s literally hard not to learn. Just observe, absorb, and discuss.

Starter Ideas: Social Studies

* Talk to strangers. Ask questions. This is the heart of worldschooling. Yes, it really is that simple. Or you can be more intentional and interview people.

* Hire a local guide: not only will you learn but you will also contribute to the local economy.

* Read maps: plan the route from your accommodations to the museum, or take the subway to the market.

* Keep a running timeline that incorporates interesting history facts from every place you visit over the year into a visual representation. This will help your kids see what was happening at different places in different times.

* Bring historical fiction to life! If you take a tour of Pompeii, ask your kids to write down five, six, or eleven facts that will be incorporated into an imaginary story or scene. This is an adaptable and fun activity that can be done anywhere.

* Preview a museum’s website and use it to create a museum scavenger hunt in your child’s journal. Or, better yet, ask your kids to create scavenger hunts for themselves or each other.

* Take a road atlas or world map and diligently chart your course. Explore cartography through exercises in scale, compass rose, place names, and boundaries. Whose story is being illustrated in the map? Who makes maps, anyway?

STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, The Arts, and Math

STEAM encourages students to use creative, out-of-the-box thinking to solve real-world tasks. Kids play with perspective, discovery, and questioning that dovetail effortlessly with worldschooling. Consider banking ideas and family brainstorms for future science or art-fair projects.

Starter Ideas: STEAM

* Build a sandcastle with moats and tributaries leading back to the ocean.

* Make a family trip website and have your kids do the coding.

* Help your kids take digital photos and edit them with an image editing program.

* Visit science and transportation museums.

* When something breaks—a zipper, luggage handle, a bicycle derailleur—pause and let your kids diagnose the problem and brainstorm a solution.

* Read inspiring books about real kids who were faced with a STEAM-based challenge and used science to help their communities. A few examples are *The Water Princess* by Susan Verde, *The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind* by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, and *Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea* by Elizabeth Suneby.

* Source websites with coding instruction. For example, Hour of Code has hundreds of free computer science activities for kids of all ages.

* Learn CAD and design structures inspired by the places you’ve visited.

* Play chess. It requires multistep thinking, problem-solving, and real manipulatives. Bring a travel version when you’re on the road. You can find chess games everywhere in the world, and it can help you find immediate friends who also play.

World Languages

Languages offer insight into the psyche of a place. In Thai and Mandarin, the “How are you?” greeting literally translates to “Have you eaten your rice yet?” Now that is a window into the culture!

Starter Ideas: World Languages

* Learn a new alphabet. For instance, you could learn how to read the word train in Chinese characters. Try to spot it when you can. Or study the Greek alphabet and sound out the names of foods from the grocery store or place names while driving.

* Learn to say “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” “thank you,” and “where is the bathroom?” in the local language of every country you visit.

* Ask for a word a day from a neighbor, a hotel clerk, or new friend. Offer to reciprocate.

* Learn and practice appropriate nonverbal communication, customs, and body language. For instance, learn how to hongi (press your nose together with another person in traditional Maori greeting) in New Zealand; recognize when to make or avoid eye contact, when to remove your shoes in someone’s home, or when to say hello with a handshake; or know how to hail a cab in New York versus Istanbul.

* Use online language-learning apps like Duolingo.

* If you’re staying in a place for a longer period of time, enroll in a local class.

* Do the obvious: go outside and talk to someone.

Music/Art/Culture

This is a great way for kids to interact with their surroundings. You will be so happy to have their Wonder Year art years from now.

Starter Ideas: Music/Art/Culture

* Find hands-on art activities at your destination that you can join for a day, a week, or more. These are easy to find in online searches. Weaving classes in Cambodia, painting lessons in Guatemala, or pottery classes in Costa Rica are just a few examples.

* Carry colored pencils, charcoals, or watercolor sets and a sketchbook wherever you go. Sketch a temple or cathedral. Copy four artist signatures. Paint a watercolor landscape.

* Begin a museum visit in the gift shop. Let your kids pick a postcard, and then do a scavenger hunt to find that piece. Ask why they were drawn to that particular work of art.

* Find a local music festival and volunteer or do work in exchange for free admission.

* Learn to finger knit, crochet, or hand sew. Travel is a great time to do handicrafts, and you can bring some simple ​​prepackaged kits with you. Insider tip: bamboo knitting needles are TSA-friendly.

* Take a local cooking class or learn a new recipe from the owner of your accommodations.

* Look at billboards and be an anthropologist for a day. What are the values represented? Whose perspective is being shown? What are the cultural norms implied? What is the message?

* Take a one-, five-, or tensecond video that represents each day or week you travel. Create a video compilation and set it to music.

Health and Wellness

Physical activity may be an integral part of your trip. If not, you may need to be more conscientious to get the blood pumping in the course of a day.

Starter Ideas: Health and Wellness

* Go to the local park. Carry with you a soccer ball, hacky sack, diabolo, juggling balls, or Frisbee—these are great ways for your children to meet local kids and get a party started.

* With proper research and gear, go hiking on a glacier.

* Get in the water: swim in a local pool, kayak on a lake, or snorkel or surf in the ocean.

* Use the step counter on your phone and chart how much you and your family walk in a day.

* Take a meditation class as a family, and incorporate mindfulness practices into your lives.

* Try a sport you know nothing about. Netball? Cricket? Kneel jump?

* Learn basic first aid and restock your kit. Learn the signs and treatments for altitude sickness, dehydration, and heat stroke.

* Observe the ways that the locals exercise—is it part of their everyday lives? Consider incorporating new habits while you’re there.

Life Skills

Survival, self-care, independence, and self-esteem all grow as children take on more responsibility and contribute to the team. Whether you are overseas or in your own country, in an Airbnb, in the backcountry, or on 5th Avenue in New York City, you can learn “street smarts” through your travels.

Starter Ideas: Life Skills

* Have a regular family meeting and rotate leadership roles. Share your “roses and thorns,” the highs and lows of your day.

* Learn how to read subway routes, bus schedules, or topographical maps. Let your kids lead the way.

* Practice threading a needle and knotting thread. Sew a patch over a hole in damaged clothing.

* Plan for, shop, and cook a meal.

* Practice packing light, keeping track of your gear, and staying organized.

* Climb a tree to put up a clothesline, then hand-wash your clothes and hang the laundry.

* Wash and dry the outside of your van.

* Learn how to build a fire with one match.

* Study and practice the principles of Leave No Trace.

* Learn how to write thank-you notes. Mail them at the local post office.

We hope these starter ideas help you launch your worldschooling journey. And remember, EVERY experience can be a learning experience, and part of the journey is to have fun and make it your own!

The post Worldschooling: Subject-Area Starter Kits appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

Then I walked around the yard and saw the cherry tree full of perfectly ripe cherries—for the first time since it was planted three years before—and realized that the pie must be made today. Time sows its constraints, and cherries will not wait long. The mental to-do list had started. I turned to Will, and he said, “Let’s go. Let’s just not unpack the car and just keep going.” We looked at each other and laughed. And cried. Holding hands outside of our house, next to the electricity and gas meters, we realized that we were choosing to land, choosing to find meaning in one fixed place on the planet and plant our roots like the cherry tree. At least for a year, we could give it a year.

The happiest part of coming home for me was putting things in drawers. It’s astounding how much pleasure that gave me: to open a drawer, arrange my things inside, run my hand along the folded clothes, and then close the drawer. No longer was I digging through duffels, fumbling with zippers, or finding that something had leaked. A close second-best thing was my friends: although Will and I grew as a couple and deeply enjoyed each other’s company, there were some topics better discussed with friends. When I would talk with him about the complex set of emotions in letting my hair grow gray, he tried in earnest to find the discussion meaningful for the twenty-seventh time. And would often ask, “Did I do okay?” And yes, he did, but there’s something so much better about that conversation with other women in their forties. There is just so much to talk about with gray hair. And it is so yummy to have female conversations in real time with my beloved friends.

Back to the hum of the utility boxes and the urgency of the cherries, we grieved the loss of our family as a distinct unit. Our thirteen-year-old couldn’t wait to put the air in her tires before biking over to visit a friend. She literally rode off on a flat back tire as I stood in the driveway to watch her go, feeling enormous gratitude for our year and watching it end just like that. Poof. It’s healthy for kids to go their own way, and yet I would miss our shared time, our yearlong team build.

I feared that the best year of my life was waving at me from the rearview window. How could anything top the year of wonder, laughter, the expanse of time without hurry, and a year when family was the priority? Not like a kitchen-plaque motto or life-coaching exercise, but an in-your-face, 24-7 reality? This was my thought as I stood by the cherry tree: I will miss them.

In my first month, I started filling up my calendar in the way I used to. I quickly had three places to be in different parts of town at the same moment: a class picnic at one school, a class picnic at the other, and a Suzuki Strings group class three miles away from either one. My throat felt tight, my guilt at having to tell someone that I couldn’t do it all made me sweaty. But how was this possible? How could I be in three places at the same time? And the answer was: I couldn’t. The old me couldn’t see this impossibility. The new me said, Well, that’s unhealthy.

The new me also messed up my scheduling. A lot. I was like a pink Cadillac with loose shocks and a broken fuel injection trying to merge onto the Autobahn. To complicate matters, my phone somehow thought I was still in the time zone of the Aegean Islands (and mentally I probably was), but somehow I knew that we were probably not meeting with the tax adviser at 3:00 a.m., which left me always second-guessing the veracity of my schedule. I was simply out of practice in looking at my phone. As the muscle memory began to kick in, I tried to be mindful of when I truly needed to be accessible and when time and its dictates could be more mysterious and muffled. I vowed to not simply acclimatize to the way I used to be, to remember that my phone was not an appendage. I vowed to edit the family’s activities and not feel the guilt. I vowed to remember that time could be expansive and did not hold me captive.

The post Coming Home – Annika’s Family appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

In case you were wondering, yes, you absolutely can educate your kids on the road. This blog will provide you with guidelines and gridlines, ideas, and inspiration. And if you’re reading this from the road, we hope it reminds you just how much experiential learning is already happening effortlessly.

You have the right to educate your children outside of traditional schooling. In our book Wonder Year we share more about the process for pulling them out of school, and now we want to whet your appetite with all the ways that you can put them into the world. 

We’ve spoken with many parents at all stages of worldschooling, and strong sentiments emerge. Before parents leave, they often feel pressure to have their whole worldschooling plan figured out. While on the road, they worry that they’re not teaching enough or that their kids haven’t mastered the academic milestones. Good news, though: you already have the three most important ingredients for educating your kids:

1. you love and want the best for them;
2. with every question you ask and excursion you take, you model curiosity; and
3. having chosen to travel as a family, you recognize that the world is a very good teacher.

Even more good news: most parents return home proud of all the growth they see in their children.

There are as many paths to worldschool as there are paths in the world. Some parents want more structure, academic focus, and alignment with traditional school standards, whereas others prefer spontaneity and freedom. Our suggestions are guideposts for you to create your own approach, knowing that the alchemy comes from diving in and interacting with each other, with learning, and with the world. Be prepared to pivot as you, your children, and your map will likely evolve.

Some Important Terms

Here are some common terms you will encounter in Wonder Year and in online conversations about educating outside of traditional schools. Because this is an evolving space and the definitions are not written in stone, note that these terms are sometimes used interchangeably and are not mutually exclusive. It’s important to note that this is a dynamic—fluid, even—landscape that continues to evolve.

   * Homeschooling: learning at home rather than at a public or private institution

   * Worldschooling: learning through direct interaction with the world

   * Roadschooling: a form of worldschooling that most often refers to domestic travel

   * Nature schooling: using the natural world as the primary classroom; sometimes called forest schooling

   * Gameschooling: a form of homeschooling that teaches concepts and skills through games like chess, cards, board games, and manipulative toys like Rubik’s Cubes

   * Unschooling: using students’ curiosities and interests instead of prescribed curricula to drive self-paced learning (more on this below)

* Hybrid schooling: Anything goes! You can blend any of the above.

Unschooling: Don’t Let the Name Fool You

Unschooling is an increasingly popular form of education, and we want to delve a little deeper into it because many worldschoolers find themselves leaning heavily into it. The word may sound extreme, but it does not necessarily mean no schooling. It’s called unschooling because, as a form of learning, it does not try to mimic traditional classrooms with schedules and standards-based learning but instead lets kids follow their interests with great fluidity.

Popularized by American educator John Holt in the 1970s, the premise of unschooling is that we learn better when we aren’t forced to do so. Unschoolers believe that learning is not the same as schooling. Proponents believe that the unschooling parent’s job is to maximize their child’s experiences in the world and to find the learning that is already happening, hear the questions of their blossoming youngster, and nurture that inquisitiveness. The parent becomes the collaborator, the guide, the witness, and the recorder.

Families carve out time and space, and they expand the surface area between them and the world by exposing their kids to all kinds of people, places, and experiences. That way, the world becomes more readily accessible, and adventures become teachable moments.

Unschooling can be entirely open, or it can take on some structure. An unschooled Wonder Year might include monthly or weekly learning contracts (agreements between parent and student about program of study, dates, and assignments), interest projects, writing portfolios, fieldwork, direct instruction if desired, and other ideas.

Unschooling starts with the premise that we are all lifelong learners, and schooling is just one resource that aids education.

Learning Modalities

Worldschooling offers an opportunity to get to know your kids through a different lens and to learn how they learn. No matter the approaches you choose, chances are you will get a closer look at their strengths and challenges.

You’ll be there to help break down projects into small chunks. You can teach them about setting schedules, reaching goals, and prioritizing. These are the soft skills of executive functioning; and kids will thrive from the step-by-step, individualized instruction. Throughout the year, you can pull back or help them make their own system.

Direct, hands-on experiences result in long-lasting knowledge. Think about that time in middle school when you presented a science project to your classmates. Maybe you asked them to taste chocolate, lemons, salt, and arugula to learn about sweet, sour, salty, and bitter taste buds. Chances are you remember way more from that exercise than from a lecture you passively listened to on the same topic.

What does this mean for worldschooling? It means that your children are likely to learn and remember more from their multisensory travel experiences.

Each child learns in a variety of ways, and your teaching toolbox may be bigger than you think. On the road you can employ a full range of learning approaches such as the following:

* Visual and spatial learning happens by seeing the information and thinking in pictures. Kids can explore map reading and photography.

* Verbal or auditory learning works by hearing information and thinking about the meaning of words and sounds. Worldschoolers can interview interesting people they meet or listen to ocean waves, birdcalls, and audiobooks.

* Reading and writing skills are developed through interacting with some form of text. In this mode, we journal, write blogs, or read menus or books.

* Logical or mathematical learning happens through calculating numbers, identifying patterns, and thinking conceptually. Your kids might play logic games like Sudoku or collect coins and calculate and compare their value.

* Hands-on or kinesthetic learning occurs through physical activity, like learning a new dance or the times tables while practicing headers with a soccer ball on a rainy day inside a twenty-four-foot RV . . . for example!

We are not one fixed learning type but rather a constantly changing mixture. Play around with different approaches, and discover together what works for your family.

Most importantly, coach your children so they become lifelong, meta learners—those who are aware of their own learning. It all brings you closer; it all brings wonder.

If you have a neurodiverse child, your worldschooling might have more considerations. One mom we know attended an Orton-Gillingham (a type of multisensory teaching approach) training program for dyslexia so that she could more confidently help her two sons in their daily schoolwork. She also decided to shorten their journey to six months, to lessen her sons’ time away from the seasoned support of their learning center.

You could also plan your trip in a way that allows you to return home periodically so that you can tap in and out easily with specially trained teachers. Another mom found that working one-on-one with her daughter, who had ADHD, helped her understand and strategize solutions that carried them both way past their worldschooling trip. Sometimes removing the literal and metaphorical noise is advantageous for diverse learners.

Finding Your Rhythm

With worldschooling, you choose the time in which to learn and the space you want to do it in; this flexibility can be one of your most powerful educational tools.

You could, for instance, have “school” each morning for one hour. You could have one day on and one day off, or you could have pockets of concentration. You will inevitably adjust these dials to suit your needs and preferences throughout your Wonder Year.

The point is to find a cadence that works for your family.

Angela used their RV home base for traditional homeschooling of some subjects. Her family alternated three months of international traveling with three months of domestic road tripping, multiple times over. This gave them a base for desks, storage space for materials, and the time of slow travel to work through their lessons.

Annika had “buckle down” time in New Zealand so that she could get through 75 percent of their goals and objectives and then relax into the magical moments of travel, fitting in the remaining goals as opportunities naturally arose.

Be flexible and take advantage of the natural downtimes in travel, such as a long train ride in China, a rainy day in the Everglades, or waiting for food in Greece. Keep flash cards in your purse or backpack. A pair of dice is also good for math exercises: divide, multiply, add, and subtract.

Annika kept one big Ziploc with 5″ x 7″ journals, colored pencils, scissors, and a glue stick for impromptu sketching, scavenger hunts, or journaling. Julie, Charlie, and Johnny always had their “10 essentials” bags handy with things like headlamps, pocketknives, compasses, star charts, and paracords. You never know when there’s a knot to be tied, a limerick to be written, a stick to be whittled, or a constellation to be identified.

Worldschooling rhythms can be highly efficient. While classroom teachers fill their seven- or eight-hour day with teaching, classroom management, and breaks in between, most worldschooling families find they can cover material in much shorter times than they ever imagined.

We have found that one or two hours per day of focused learning is profoundly effective.

When Everything Isn’t Awesome

When you are the parent and the teacher, what happens when your kid doesn’t like your supercool lesson idea? They look at you and say no. When you’re on the road, your kids will be distracted, tired, and sometimes, it may seem, just plain over you. The emotional proximity might make this normal child behavior feel like a personal attack. It’s not.

Coping strategies for off days:

* Limit the direct instruction to no more than an hour, maybe even fifteen minutes on a bad day or if you have younger kids. Create some space. Keep stepping back until the dynamic lets you step forward again somehow.

* Find ways for kids to do independent work, maybe an art project or online lesson.

* Remind them that they are not spending all day in a classroom, and that, in your most gentle parenting way, their end of the bargain is to do this schoolwork.

* Kids need you to be their safe space. If long division is causing a divide between you and your child, stop.

* If there are more and more of these off days, find ways to shake it up. Hire an online or local tutor, look for an online class, reach out to loved ones back home for ideas, or offer your kids self-paced books or science kits.

Here are some tips for working with differing levels of learners at the same time, especially when the kids outnumber the parents:

* Set one child up to do independent work while you coach the other one.

* Ask one child to help or present information to another child; ask siblings to quiz each other.

* Remind kids to do what they can independently for, say, fifteen minutes, and then go check on them. It’s hard to move forward with one child when you are interrupted repeatedly by the other.

* Of course, if it’s an option, two parents can coach.

Packable School Supplies

Here are some things that are easy to pack and bring along almost anywhere:

* Journals

* A durable carrier for colored pencils, a glue stick, and TSA-approved scissors

* Hard-shell accordion file folder for drawings, school assignments, or keepsakes that you don’t want to get tattered

* Index cards for flash cards, quick diagrams, and other ideas

* Dice for math games

* Binoculars and magnifying glass

* Mini portable photo printer

* Kindles or other e-readers

* Deck of cards and travel board games

* Camera

* Compass

* Laptop/tablet

* USB thumb drive to deliver files to a print shop

Culmination Projects

When you have finished your worldschooling journey, how do you make sense of it with your children? How do you document and memorialize what your family has done and learned? How do you present it to your school upon reentry?

There are many ways to capture your children’s educational adventure. Take some time to digest, integrate, and share your experiences.

* Create a writing portfolio as a culminating project. Make a cover, create a table of contents, and add some artwork.

* Apply to attend a conference or festival, and once accepted, prepare a presentation or poster for display as an exhibit.

* Keep a running document about some of your kids’ favorite unschooling learning moments. Include photos. This is easier to do as you go, rather than cramming it all at the end.

* Create a timeline of your trip, and have your kids list their greatest hits from each place, month, or activity.

* Final exams. Not what you’re thinking. If your children are nervous about having a whole year out, create a “Celebration of Learning” that circles back to those goals, standards, and objectives you articulated at the beginning of the year. This kind of final is a fun way to show your kids just how much they learned. You might ask questions like:

     * What is the strangest food you ate?

     * What is the capital of Maine?

     * What is the major religion in India?

     * Which countries colonized Vietnam?

     * What are the trees in these photos?

     * Would you recommend a Wonder Year to your friends? Why or why not?

With the tools and ideas shared here, we hope you feel well on your way to crafting an education approach that follows your children’s curiosity and is meaningful for your family!

The post Worldschooling Education: Background Info to Support Your Launch appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

In this blog we walk you through suggestions to help create an education road map. We begin with some logistical considerations that may help you narrow your planning. We ask you to think about your vision and values around education and ask you to consider larger goals for your family. Then we drill down into goals and objectives and look at options for how you “do” education. We share thoughts on available curricula, introduce you to the worldschool community at large, and show you that a world of faculty awaits. Finally, we share thoughts on how to bring home what you have learned. 

Step 1: Consider Logistics

Every family has a unique situation with regard to their school district, their children’s educational history, and other practical needs. All of these considerations should be looked at when tackling the educational logistics of a Wonder Year. It’s best to address any specific requirements or constraints up front so you can leave and come back without disrupting or complicating enrollment status, academic credit, or advancement. Considering the following parameters can help illuminate options so you can build a workable game plan.

Enrollment Parameters

If your kids are in public school, you may simply need to register each of them as a homeschool student for the time period they are away. The forms don’t include worldschooling as an option. Yet. So, in most cases, worldschooling families are homeschoolers in the eyes of your US public school district.

Be aware of the following:

* Homeschool laws vary by state. Check your state’s department of education website.

* If worldschooling families follow the procedural and performance requirements, the vast majority of students can advance a grade (or grades) upon return. Another option is to pause grade advancement while you are away. There is no right or wrong approach.

* Your district might have requirements already spelled out on its website, or it may write an individual contract with you that includes quantifiable benchmarks. For example, your district might say that your child needs to pass a math exam or produce a writing sample. Your school might also ask you to keep a log of instructional hours or sign a document certifying that you will homeschool for a prescribed number of hours per day or week.

* School districts can be bureaucratic, and this process can be daunting! Remember, school administrators are guided by funding, ratings, and child protection, and that exceptions—which may seem perfectly reasonable to us—can feel disruptive to them. On the flip side, their suggestions and enthusiasm may give you some great ideas for your homemade educational adventures.

* Your school district may have an online learning option. You can also reach out to the principal or a teacher at the school to get their input, cooperation, and support.

For families with children outside a public school system:

* If you are already homeschooling your kids, you may need to research the implications of an address change or shift in curriculum.

* If you have a rising kindergartener or a student entering a new school upon return, you may need to think about when you want them to start and if you can register from the road.

* If your kids are enrolled in a private school, ask the school how to work within the law. In some cases, you don’t need to do anything official with the state to homeschool.

* If you’re relocating upon return from your Wonder Year and you do not know where your family will reside, you can conduct research from the road. Perhaps you can explore new possible hometowns and learn what might be expected.

* We highly suggest networking with other homeschooling families as you are going through this process (see the resources section for websites).

Practical Considerations

There are a host of other factors that can inform how you approach worldschooling. For example, you’ll need to be realistic about how much access you will have to digital resources, Wi-Fi, and technology. Be sure to investigate the speed and capacity of Wi-Fi connectivity. Knowing what you will need for everyone’s work and school, as well as what’s realistically and reliably available at your accommodations, is essential. If getting off the beaten path and unplugged is your goal, then online education may not be the most suitable option for you, and we offer plenty of other approaches in our book, Wonder Year.

You might also consider your desire for English-speaking libraries and local tutors. Physical space is also a factor for some families. How much can you carry, and where will you store school materials as you travel? There may be dates or milestones that influence your academic approach, such as ACT or SAT dates, entrance exams, or placement tests. Keep these practical considerations in mind so you don’t invest in options that are impractical for you and your family.

Finally, if you are working from the road, that can have a great influence on how you roll out your worldschooling plan. You’ll need to think about leveraging the working hours, the Wi-Fi bandwidth, the desk space, and the locations where you may stay a while. A more free-standing curriculum plan, with accessible online tutors, may be more your style. As we noted earlier, the flip side is that work time for parents can naturally be schooltime for kids. Even if you fall into this camp, there’s something for you in all these steps.

Step 2: Examine Your Vision and Values

There are so many educational opportunities beyond what’s listed in your state’s learning standards. Is it important to learn long division? Absolutely! But the experience of visiting with a Native American elder or tasting fresh mangosteen at the Chiang Mai night market just might be the catalyst to ignite a passion for learning itself.

Does your child intend to go to college? If so, this will shape their worldschooling curriculum, and they may have to navigate the application process differently. But worldschooling kids do it all the time, even if they’ve been on the road for most, or all, of their high school years.

So, before diving into the nitty-gritty, let’s consider your family’s education vision and values, knowing they may look different before, during, and after your Wonder Year. This is big-picture thinking; we’ll get to specifics as we move through the process.

Spend some time thinking or writing about these defining questions:

* What do you wish you did more of as a kid?

* What were the most powerful lessons you learned as a child?

* What do you want your child to know about the world?

* What do you think will matter most to their educational future?

* Is it important for you to have a plan, or do you like to be spontaneous?

* What do you wish you could learn about if you had more time?

Keep these inspiring values close to your heart as you begin to braid goals and objectives into your vision.

Step 3: Identify Your Goals and Objectives

Goals can serve as the philosophical underpinnings of what you will do day to day—the principles that arc across the specific content that you’ll teach and learn. On those days when you ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing, goals can be helpful as a compass heading.

Invite your kids to partner with you in making your family’s list. Here’s an example list to get you started.

We will:

* Make our own opinions about the world. Is it kind, beautiful, and safe?

* Interact with people who do not share our language, and discover our similarities and differences.

* Learn how to respond when we are outside our comfort zones.

* Pay attention to how the world views our own country, and begin to recognize our cultural biases.

* Become fluent in “I notice, I observe, I wonder . . .”

* Develop a deep understanding of the world.

* Make connections across subject areas.

* Think critically and creatively.

* Communicate and collaborate with others.

* Learn to analyze data, test assumptions, and draw conclusions.

* Develop street smarts.

* Explore future career paths.

Add more, subtract some, make it your own.

Let’s take goals one step further and articulate education objectives. Objectives are the direct, tangible, specific activities that are born from your goals. They are often measurable achievements that your child can meet during your Wonder Year. Many school districts would love to see this level of specificity after you return.

Here’s an example of an objectives list:

My learner will:

* Trace the alphabet in the sand.

* Follow fourth-grade math curriculum and complete fourth-grade Khan Academy.

* Research one curiosity every month, and teach others about it.

* Meet with an online tutor each Monday, and create a weekly study plan.

* Read for one hour each night with a parent or sibling, and make a list of books completed.

* Learn about foods, trees, and animals that are endemic to a region they’ll be visiting.

* Make a travel brochure with good old glue and scissors. Or create a digital slideshow for each state, country, or national park visited.

* Write a paragraph using a topic sentence, three supporting ideas, and a conclusion about something meaningful.

* Write a compare-and-contrast essay about breakfast in Mexico and the United States.

* Complete four practice SAT tests.

* Know how to check tire pressure and oil levels, fill auto fluids, and understand each gauge on the dashboard for your vehicle.

* Meet someone new each day.

Step 4: Determine Your Approach

You might be saying to yourself: Yes, yes. Alchemy, kindling of flames, and blossoming children, that’s all well and good, but what do I actually do? How do these abstractions translate into what happens when I sit down with my kids, they’re looking at me expectantly, and I need to be their teacher?

For many worldschooling parents, this is the most overwhelming and the most fascinating pillar of their Wonder Year. Consider this discussion a menu of options to help design your worldschooling approach.

Some families know from the outset that they want to purchase a full-year curriculum already prepared for a third or eighth grader. Or they are just looking for a math or writing supplement. Others build off of what their child would have been studying at home had a Wonder Year not been happening. Still others follow a theme, or globe-trot to locations where they have family members or friends. We will explore a rich collection of options for you to “try on” and see what fits—school based or not school based, structured or unstructured, print or online, prepackaged or do-it-yourself.

Packaged Curricula

Prior to 2020, there were several big-name education companies and organizations in the online curriculum business—Khan Academy, IXL, Outschool, Charlotte Mason, and Oak Meadow, to name a few. The COVID pandemic contributed to a huge transformation in this space as more educators and businesspeople tapped into the demand for online and prepackaged homeschool offerings.

Some public school districts offer remote options with free online curricula so that you can do self-paced public education from afar, while online private schools are popping up virtually everywhere.

Popular online sources directed specifically at worldschoolers include Outschool, Kubrio, Brave Writer, and many others. For learners on the younger end of the spectrum, Art for Kids Hub or MUZZY language programs are some examples of resources available through online platforms like YouTube.

For older students looking for college credit, consider “CLEPping.” The CLEP test, administered by the College Board (a nonprofit organization that creates standardized testing and is best known for the SAT), costs roughly US\$100 per test. With over thirty tests available, this can be an economical leg up on a college degree or an inexpensive way to learn at the college level from the road. Modern States offers free online courses that help students prepare. The College Board sells study guides for US\$10 each. Another great resource for older learners is a membership learning hub for creatives called Skillshare.

Deciding on a curriculum package or à la carte options, apps, resources, and content can get exciting and messy all at once. Our assessment is that the quality varies with off-the-shelf resources. You can find resource hubs that rate curricula, such as Common Sense Media’s reviews and professional opinions on hundreds of options.

As you explore options, be sure you consider the fit with your learner(s). Maybe your Wonder Year is a time to try out something new, or maybe it’s the time to go with what you know will work for your children. To help narrow the field, here are some additional factors and questions to consider in selecting an off-the-shelf curriculum that is right for your learner:

* Are there specific topics that your child requires?

* Do you want to limit screen time?

* Do you need to get your own work done? How much of your involvement is ideal?

* Do you want to be wedded to being on Wi-Fi at a specific time each day or each week?

* What’s your budget? Remember, there are tons of free options out there like Khan Academy, Oak Academy, or educational videos on YouTube.

* Is there a trial period before you need to purchase?

* Does your child do better with independent or more social learning? Some programs offer synchronous learning pods. This provides group planning, goal setting, discussion, and social interaction.

* As mentioned earlier, do you have room to carry and store books?

Many families like the predictability, structure, and modularity of preset resources. You can make it work in so many ways. For instance, your child might be in second-grade math and first-grade spelling. Or you might use a print workbook for cursive and an online class for coding.

When using a packaged curriculum as the fulcrum of your approach, you can think of worldschooling as a set of massively cool field trips.

Theme-Based Curricula

There are many families who see a Wonder Year as a time to untether from academic prescriptions and structure and feel freedom in designing their own curriculum. If this do-it-yourself model is for you, consider these themes as brushstrokes on your blank canvas.

Subject-Driven

Some families “take a page” out of what would have been their kid’s school syllabus for the semester or year they are gone and turn it into the experiential equivalent. Traditional subjects can come alive in the world. Here are some ideas to consider:

* If your child would have been studying the ancient Mayans, you could check out the ruins and visit museums in the Yucatán.

* If your first grader would have been studying biodiversity, you could get down and dirty with living things in the Olympic Peninsula tide pools.

* Geometry in the cards for your eighth grader? How about some time on a sailboat or comparing arc length to arc measure at Arches National Park in Southern Utah?

* If your student’s classmates back home are all learning about US government and politics, you could easily spend a month or two in and around Washington, DC, and not only read, study, and discuss government, but also see it in action: meet with your representative, go to the National Archives, see what groups are rallying in Lafayette Square, or do research at the Library of Congress.

To get subject-specific ideas, you can review your school district’s website for curriculum details by grade. For a snapshot of expectations, you can pull up grade-level report cards to see what your child would be expected to learn during a year. You can also browse state standards by subject area or dive into the Common Core Standards, a set of national guidelines meant to provide consistency and maintain high benchmarks for all children living in the US.

Itinerary-Driven

The places you visit or want to visit drive the discovery and provide the material for your educational journey. Maybe you’ve found an uber-cheap flight to Miami or you’re incorporating a professional conference overseas. If you know that you will go to Argentina, for example, think about topics that naturally sprout from visiting South America. Is it the rainforest? Impact of colonialism? Tango? Catholic iconography?

Here’s a list of what some other families have done:

* The Langenegger family relocated to Guam for Chris, the dad, to do a four-year stint with United Airlines. Elissa, the mom, decided to worldschool instead of enrolling their fifth-grade son in a local school. They leveraged their family-of-a-pilot perks to worldschool across the South Pacific, with a deep study of local culture and history, sailing, navigation, and the effects of climate change.

* The Horton family studied the Renaissance while in Europe, using the lenses of geography, history, literature, and art. When they traveled to extreme latitudes like Iceland and Argentina, they wove together questions of global warming and receding glaciers.

* The Blew family was consciously working through the parents’ destination bucket list. Their son was fascinated by art and architecture, so they seamlessly wove in an organic lesson plan wherever they went.

* While Jake’s family was settled in Spain for his work leading banjo workshops, his daughter, Zinnia, became fascinated by the sea creatures that washed up on shore or found their way to the seafood markets. This spurred her research report on jellyfish, squid, and octopi.

Curiosity-Driven Passion

Passion and curiosity bring learning to life. You might have a daughter who loves architecture or a son who loves monkeys. How might you build this into your plan? What are you curious about?

Consider a yearlong inquiry of passion for your family that encompasses the places you go. For example, your primate-loving son might research monkey business in various countries by visiting native habitats, sanctuaries, and reading fiction and nonfiction books. This gives you a set of questions and observations to thread through the year across locations, cultures, and languages.

Here are other examples to inspire you:

* The Simon family chose to research and visit the places where their ancestors were born. They traced family roots in Hungary and tried to understand the reasons for emigrating. This inquiry helped with both education and creating a Budapest itinerary that included the Jewish Quarter, the Dohány Street Synagogue, the Holocaust Memorial Center, and the Shoes on the Danube Promenade.

* Annika’s family paid attention to plastics. How ubiquitous were plastic containers and bags? Were they recycled? Was there plastic waste in streams, on beaches? Was the recycling symbol the same in China as it was in Costa Rica? They even searched out the local dumps.

* Margot wanted to study fashion design, so her family used fashion as the basis for her educational approach and designed a curriculum that looked at international styles, textile supply chains, slow fashion, thrifting, silk in China, and lace in Croatia.

* Johnny, Julie’s son, conducted a research project comparing American ice cream and Italian gelato. This, of course, required lots of fieldwork, tasting gelato in every town he visited in Italy, sometimes twice a day. He took a tour to see how gelato is made and learned about the importance of temperature, choosing ingredients, the science of flavors, and why some people like crunchiness and others prefer smooth. After the five-week study tour, he practiced making graphs and bar charts and illustrated a final project. His fieldwork has continued to this day!

* Conor loved playing viola. His family went to Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg and the Puccini Festival in Lucca for an immersive experience in music history, classical composition, and operatic performance.

* Julie and Charlie shared expertise in water and sustainability, Charlie as a hydrogeologist and Julie as a sustainability analyst. They used water as a continual theme in their roadschool curriculum. They kayaked. They took pictures of rivers, which they also located on maps, and learned about watersheds, headwaters, tributaries, confluences, dams, diversions, pump houses, and water rights. At every river crossing, they’d estimate cubic feet per second, a common measure of flow, and then check their estimates on the USGS Water Data website. A quick stop by a river could turn into a three-hour “lesson” with amazing people to meet—fly-fishers, river heroes, waterkeepers, and others.

You can help your children wrap their theme-based inquiries into a final project, such as a journal entry, a publication, or a portfolio to share with their school at the end of the year. Alternatively, you could just enjoy the conversation as it unfolds and not worry about a final project at all.

The Organic Day-to-Day: A Syllabus of Serendipity

We want to point out that life itself can drive the curriculum. If you want to wing it completely, this is your chance. You can string together one adventure to the next—rolling, shaping, mixing, building, and ready for whatever good luck comes your way.

Without a heavy backpack of books or the weight of a schedule, you may feel more nimble and spontaneous. You are prepared to say yes to opportunities as they arise. And with nowhere else to be, the timing may be right for any adventure. So, accept an invitation, stay an extra week, wander over the hillside, or return to somewhere you loved.

You might stay up late for a full-moon hike because you can sleep in the next day. Perhaps you spend an entire morning and afternoon building a sandcastle. Or skip your stop because you’re having an amazing conversation with someone you’ve met on the bus. You can truly listen because, today, their stories won’t make you late.

Let freedom and serendipity illuminate the learning moments of every day.

Side Note: Parents are Students, Too

Remember that you are a learner, too. You’ve planned and saved for this opportunity; make the most of it. Maybe there’s something that you want to practice or perfect over the year—a language, skill, hobby, or mindset. You can challenge yourself with the added benefit of modeling lifetime learning for your kids. Maybe that means trying any of the following:

* Read both a nonfiction and fiction book based in each city or country you visit. Think Anthony Doerr’s Four Seasons in Rome and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for Rome, Italy.

* Write travel articles and publish them on blogs or in print, as well as learn the tools needed to follow through.

* Learn to play a new instrument, like the harmonica (think travel size).

* Commit to journaling every day.

* Start a new travel-friendly hobby, like running, photography, yoga, or knitting.

* Take an online class side by side with your kid, such as calculus with your teen or French with your preschooler.

* Learn as much as you can about learning. Read books and online articles, or simply observe your kids and see what works.

Step 5: Gather Your Teachers

In a traditional classroom setting, a teacher does the teaching. When we travel, parents, siblings, locals, our senses, time, space, rivers, maps, and coins can be our teachers. For us, the magic occurred when it all came together into one big, yummy stew.

Parents as Teachers

At home, parents often don’t have enough time and context for rich discussions with their children about what the kids are learning at school. As a worldschooling family, by virtue of being together in a variety of settings, you can leap right into fluid discussions with real-world learning, leveraging your lifetime of experience and sharing that valuable perspective with your children.

Be creative and share your interests with your kids. Mark, Angela’s husband, loves baseball, so he took their family to a game in Tokyo. Stacy, another worldschooling parent, brought her kids to a local tortilla bakery in Hatch, New Mexico, to share her love of cooking. Or consider your profession or hobby as a gateway. Are you a photographer, scientist, writer, geographer, or musician? You might use your professional network to set up a site visit, meet with a colleague or connect with someone in your field, and bring your kids.

When you run out of your own ideas, look out the window for other teachers.

Remote Teachers and Tutors

If you will have access to the web, there’s a world of online tutors at your fingertips. You might choose to use someone you know from home or connect with someone new. More and more curriculum packages, such as Outschool or Oak Meadow, now offer the enhanced options of 1:1 tutors.

Angela’s family kept up weekly online Latin tutoring across many time zones for an entire year. Relatives back home can be teachers, too. The Fernandes family had book clubs with their grandma—they decided which chapters to read each week and then had book chats via Zoom. Two of Yasmin Page’s three children do weekly math lessons with their granddad. What a great way to keep in touch with family back home!

Learning from Locals

We encourage you to make the most of local resources as potential teachers. For example, you might hire a kid-centric guide for a day at Pompeii, who teaches your family that the ancient inhabitants ate walnuts to cure a headache. Maybe you join a naturalist-led hike along the Hoh River Trail and learn how the fog and mist make amazing things grow and how an epiphyte plant grows on another plant without harming it.

Hiring a teacher is an expense, but sometimes it’s a great relief not to be in charge. In Europe and other more traditional travel destinations, there are travel companies that cater specifically to families, such as Europe4Kids Tours and Global Family Travels, which offer kid-centered activities like curated scavenger hunts, gladiator training, pizza-making classes, and other personalized experiences.

Because of her daughter’s roots in China, Annika’s family wanted to connect deeply to the region, so they prioritized time there. They knew that they needed a guide who was fluent in English and could provide nuanced translations in Chinese if they wanted to get off the beaten path. They splurged on a month with an American PhD student who guided them around China. This was a total leap of faith that worked. Annika put up a request on an alumni board and tapped into her personal network. Her family interviewed their guide online and drafted and redrafted sample itineraries by email. It was a magnificent month.

Internships and Apprenticeships

Internships can simply be an exchange of volunteer work with an organization for access to someone with specialized knowledge. For instance, you can do a beach cleanup in Alabama or help with an olive harvest in California. You can also learn informally throughout your travels by finding a local artist, musician, or tradesperson, maybe even paying a small sum to have them teach their art form to you and/or your kids. A guitarist in Nicaragua? A carpenter in Crete? Play or work alongside them. Learning happens by doing, by observing, by questioning.

Teachers Are Everywhere

* Jakkarin and his family taught Kai to tap a rubber tree in Krabi, Thailand.

* The guesthouse owner in rural China showed Lucy how to make steamed vegetable dumplings.

* Ben, a docent at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, told Lorna about the local communities who work with them, and those who—unfortunately—don’t.

* A New Zealand boat captain instructed Asher on how to navigate and sail on the majestic Milford Sound.

* The ranger at Dinosaur National Monument, in Dinosaur, Colorado, taught Annika’s family about geology, archeology, and desert ecology.

You can search online for ideas in local networks, expat groups, on the Folk Education Association of America’s website; or look at WWOOFing, hotel, or Airbnb experiences. On the ground, check out libraries, makerspaces, or community centers, or ask your rental host. Volunteer experiences abound as well; multi- and single-day programs can help the local community while you learn experientially. Check the resources section for more information.

Enrolling in Local Schools

You may not know it, but you can enroll your kids for short-term stints in local public schools in the US. If you’re overseas, this may also be an option. Sometimes it’s as simple as meeting with the school administrator and showing them a copy of your rental agreement.

Private schools and alternative educational models like Waldorf, Montessori, and Forest Schools often allow very short stays, especially if your children have prior experience with these models. This can be a meaningful way to connect with the local community.

Worldschooling Gatherings

Worldschool gatherings can be an excellent way to tap into the larger worldschooling scene and meet potential new teachers. Some traveling families connect in temporary or permanent communities around the world, and often these offer an educational component.

Worldschooler gatherings are another option for learning. Consider your budget, preferred length of stay, location, and kids’ ages as you explore these programs.

Here are some examples:

* Jake and Gillian’s family spent six weeks in Andalucía, Spain, and jumped in with a worldschool gathering out of La Herradura. Here they had weekly teen meetups, Spanish-language classes, pottery, and other electives that were organized and met their teen’s social needs.

* Stephanie and Scott’s family spent six weeks at a gathering in Egypt. For a fee, their girls learned from local teachers and an English-speaking founder, and socialized with other worldschoolers three days per week.

* Viet Nguyen and his family spent three months in a hub in Bansko, Bulgaria. Parents volunteered as teachers and also shared the cost to hire two trained teachers from the Netherlands. And there was plenty of time to ski on the nearby slopes!

If you don’t see the educational offering you’re looking for at one of the existing gatherings, you might create your own. We spoke with several families who established new programs that they now offer to fellow worldschoolers. It’s exciting to watch the evolution of these grassroots, entrepreneurial efforts.

We hope these five steps have helped you begin to shape a clear, personalized roadmap for your family’s worldschooling journey. Whether you now have a detailed plan or simply a better sense of direction, you’ve taken important steps toward making worldschooling intentional, meaningful, and manageable. Remember, there’s no single “right” way to do it. You have the power to shape an experience that’s entirely your own.

The post Worldschooling: Five Steps to Create Your Educational Roadmap appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

Before him is a gathering of friends: some old friends have come from Colorado for a spring break meetup, some new ones from his language and surf day camp. And us, his now ever-present family.

On a piece of plywood, Kai has reconstructed a traditional Sherpa home from pebbles, glue, modeling clay, scrap wood salvaged from a nearby construction project, and paint. Before we left the US, I had asked his teacher for the project handout and carried it with me during our travel. We found a stationery store for supplies, and Kai handwrote a report on a two-sided piece of binder paper and is now presenting to the informal audience of twenty or so. He speaks with authority and fields questions about the outhouse, the guard dogs, and the reason for the green roof.

His spring-break friend, Leo, had just presented his own project back home on the teepee, and after Kai’s presentation, shares other shelter reports from their class with Kai. The boys compare notes, speak about the pros and cons of different materials, look at the homes around them, and both agree that the Costa Rican straw palapas (dwellings with thatched roofs) and porches are best.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

The post Stories from the Road – Nosara, Costa Rica appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

As we read the informational placards about brackish water, a kind woman interrupts to tell us there’s a pod of Hector’s dolphins over the dunes, swimming just offshore. Come quick.

So, we scratch our informal worldschooling plan and race toward the beach. Past the break, we focus on rare, diminutive dolphins jumping, surfing, and surfacing in tandem. We watch them in wonder. A crowd of travelers takes video by hand and selfie stick.

“Let’s go in,” my thirteen-year-old daughter, Lorna, says to me, in her puffy jacket.

“Gosh, we should,” I reply, standing beside her in my fleece and leggings—as if someone should, but not the forty-seven-year-old mother that I have become. Not the woman who sees every potential hazard around her. Not the woman who has a plan to get to the town of Haast by lunchtime.

“We might never get this chance again,” she says.

And in me is this cavalcade of why nots: Sweet Jesus, that would be cold. Doesn’t this current come directly from an ice cap? I would ruin the videos and photos of the tourists—maybe become a subject of their videos. What if the surf is too strong? What if I can’t swim out past that surf break?

But when I look at her, I know what I should do. The voice inside that says Don’t do it is the voice that urges me to play it small. It’s time to reclaim my outside voice.

I don’t see any offending offshore rocks or signs of a riptide. Secure in the knowledge that my daughter is a competitive swimmer, I take off my fleece, T-shirt, and shoes and stand next to her in my sports bra and leggings.

“Come on.”

A man in a down parka tells us we should make clicking noises to attract the dolphins once we’re in. Duly noted.

I stand for a few waves to ice my feet and realize a slow entry is a bad idea. Instead, we watch for a break in the waves and dive into the frigid turquoise waters of the Tasman Sea to swim toward a pod of wild dolphins.

We time our entry between wave sets and easily swim past the break. The cold takes my breath away; I inhale in gulps. Once I can finally breathe with some success—about fifty feet offshore—I start making a frantic clicking noise and look back to my husband on the beach, who directs us toward the dolphins.

Lorna and I swim side by side for more than ten minutes next to these gorgeous creatures, squealing with shared delight. We can feel and hear them swirling underneath us—their click-click sounds at our feet. Suddenly, five feet away, a dolphin breaches, pauses to give us the side-eye, and dives below.

My husband meets us at the shore with our dry clothes. I don’t even feel the cold. I just feel alive.

I’m finding the will to get uncomfortable—to even spend hours reheating myself—for the chance to greet a dolphin in the Antarctic currents. To let go. To share wonder with my daughter. To interact bravely with the world. To look her in the eye and know that I’m striving to be the kind of adult I want my daughter to become.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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“Mom, you speak Thai!”

“I told you I did.”

“But, like . . . you speak it, speak it.”

My husband laughs.

I had lived and worked in Thailand for almost two and a half years with the US Peace Corps right out of college. Work and life brought me back and forth until I was almost thirty. This was a home to me, a home that I had been away from for seventeen years.

My kids look me up and down. They turn their heads and squint from the side, as if I’m a spy, or at least someone very different from their mother. I feel very different from their mother. I feel like the girl I was when I first came to Thailand, started my career, and first tasted mangoes and sticky rice. This whole Wonder Year is about learning from the world, but it’s also a time to remember and share parts of myself with my kids. They could hear me say that I lived in Thailand in my twenties, but to introduce them to my Peace Corps site, share fried noodles wrapped in banana leaves, show them how to offer early-morning alms to the monks, or talk to a taxi driver is about sharing a piece of my heart.

Out of the context of home, I am recalling previous chapters of my life that brought me joy and a sense of accomplishment. Perhaps this remembering shows me an unabridged, more integrated version of myself. I’m more than the laundress, more than the lunch packer, more than the carpooler. I can’t help but wonder what this time will mean for me as a mom.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

The post Stories from the Road – Bangkok, Thailand appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

It was important for me to keep the kids aligned with math back home. As their teacher, I felt the least comfortable with math, so I relied heavily on paperback workbooks from local bookstores. I didn’t do much research but found ones that covered roughly the same material as our school did. It was important to me that these books were lightweight. We supplemented with Khan Academy when we could. It was challenging to have enough bandwidth in most rentals to have more than one kid online at one time.

We focused our third and fourth graders on memorizing their times table. We often quizzed them with flash cards when waiting for a train and sang the times table while hiking, and the kids quizzed each other while Will and I were busy doing something else. Mastery of the 7s was cause for celebration with ice cream. We didn’t need a formal curriculum to do any of this. The kids often say now that having their times table memorized has served them well.

For writing, we created writing portfolios and read a lot. My three kids read somewhere between fifty and a hundred books each during our Wonder Year! We kept a list, like an informal bibliography. As we hiked, my son would give me plot updates from his books. We would simply discuss them, and I would ask clarifying questions and what his predictions were—but all in a conversational style. It didn’t feel like school; it felt like shared curiosity.

My kids’ fondest memory when they look back upon our worldschooling “curriculum” was the luxury to have the time to read for interest and pleasure. Whenever we had Wi-Fi, we would download ebooks onto their iPad. My husband and I were always reading books aloud in the evenings with the younger ones. I miss those days!

We did “school” about 30 percent of our days. Surprisingly, the three kids enjoyed the structure of “school days.” Maybe it gave them confidence that they wouldn’t fall behind? For us, a half-day worldschooling lesson might have looked something like this:

* Practice “find the errors” and dictation (see page 223) in their journal, using learning points and spelling words from our geographical location. Review together and help them correct.

* Complete two pages in the math book.

* Learn about one new thing—for example, paragraph structure, photosynthesis, haiku, or the three Noble Truths of Buddhism.

* Do chore(s).

* Have forty-five minutes of structured and self-paced writing portfolio time.

* Reading time: independent, guided, or with a parent.

* Done. Out the door. Go explore.

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Annika

My love of the road trip probably began the summer I turned ten, when our family drove from our home in the San Francisco Bay Area to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in our VW van—with just three cassette tapes. I sat in front with a stack of AAA maps, which I read with the intensity of a novel, looking out into the high desert of Nevada with awe, imagining the lives of the ranchers on the adjacent frontage roads, kicking up dust swirls. The high desert offered perspective. My mom had passed away less than two years earlier, and we were left a family of three, reeling and reacting from events outside our control. Travel became healing.

Two years later, my father taught a two-week course at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy. My sister and I stayed with the family of a faculty member in the suburbs while he worked. We watched kids our age playing soccer on ancient cobblestone roads, ate strawberry risotto, and saw a whole new way of life.

That Italian summer, my father came to life again and we officially found our footing. We traveled around Italy, Greece, and Switzerland for four weeks after he finished teaching. My frugal father, enamored with a bullet train, told the cashier, “Hang the cost… I want to ride that train!” Words that were unimaginable weeks before. Those joyful adventures through new places with my dad and sister shaped the form of my life—it was my first Wonder Year.

Will and I had planned and saved for our own Wonder Year for ten years before we left. But as the time for our journey approached, I realized it was coming at the perfect time. Parenting, stressful jobs, and busy lives had been pushing us off our center for years, and knowing that the time was set for “The Big Trip” was the sweet reward waiting on the horizon.

Julie

When I was thirteen, my father married my stepmother, Joan—aka Noanie—and they took the new stepfamily on an extended road trip through the American West. We rented an RV in Denver and trucked our way through mountains and mesas, salt flats, and national parks.

We camped under the stars, made chili in our outdoor kitchen, took a raft trip on the Snake River, and ground corn in Puebloan fashion at Mesa Verde, crisscrossing our way through the expansive West. I was a curious teen from Cincinnati, Ohio, coming of age in tube socks and pigtails.

Twenty-seven years later, my son, John David, was born—named for his beloved grandfathers and bound to generations through memories and love. Soon after his birth, my father and stepmom passed away—Dad from cancer and Noanie from a broken heart. Life is short. You never know. “Get out there now” is the reason I always wanted to travel.

We have dear friends, John and Eydie, who several years ago traveled around the world with their twelve-year-old son, Brook. They started on bikes in Ghana, trekked in Nepal, studied Spanish in Mexico, and found themselves in the Peruvian Andes.

At the time, our Johnny boy was in elementary school, manufacturing letters and numbers in what seemed to me to be a two-dimensional curriculum. I was increasingly frustrated by this and was actually looking at options for changing schools. When John, Eydie, and Brook came to visit upon their return, they shared stories of educational adventures. It struck me and opened my eyes to possibility. We played pin-the-flag-on-the-country and marveled at their stories. We were amazed at Brook’s cultural literacy, global awareness, conscientiousness, and grounded sense of preteen self.

We figured if they could do it, so could we. John, Eydie, and Brook got the gears spinning and helped us commit to our trip. It all made sense, felt natural, and we are forever grateful.

Angela

“Breaker breaker 1-9, what’s your handle?” Mine was Blue Eyes, given to me by my Grandpa Ed. While I rode shotgun in his RV, he’d let me talk to semitruck drivers on the CB radio, and we’d count punch buggies. These are the first trips I remember—tagging along on fishing excursions to lakes in Indiana and Kentucky, where he’d bait my hook and spit tobacco on the minnow to attract bigger fish. I loved how cozy and contained the RV was, especially where I slept, in the narrow bunk above the cockpit.

I’ve always loved to travel. I’m lucky my house was a happy place to grow up, but if I scan over the course of my life, almost all my favorite memories were made away from home. The unknown has always held sway.

My husband and I took many trips together in our early years as a couple, and in hindsight, I realize we made our most important life decisions on the road. Camping in Montana, we decided to marry. Sheltering from a Wisconsin blizzard, we decided to move west. Watching children play at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, we decided to try for our first child. Then life piled up. So did responsibilities. A decade after moving to the Bay Area, we found ourselves with two sons, two very busy jobs, and a house we were working to fill. We were doing what was expected of us, but it no longer felt like us. The idea for a Wonder Year was born from a desire to find those things again—simplicity, time together, and adventure. We also hoped our kids would gain perspective and experience life outside their bubble. Soon we realized: there was no way we could not go.

Four months later—and forty years after my first overnight in an RV—I found myself in one again, this time calling it home.

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