As we shared in this blog on creating a worldschooling roadmap, we want to encourage you to experiment with education, be spontaneous, and trust your instincts. To help you get things started, the following section provides some techniques that worked well for us and other families we interviewed. Many activities and prompts are interdisciplinary, so adapt and blend them with your own. The learning can be woven in through a day of discovery or as themes you return to throughout the year.

 

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!