Some families know at the outset what their worldschooling approach will be. Others have no idea, or they might know how to they want to cover some areas but not all.

 

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.