You want to hit the road but you also want to continue your homeschooling? Well you can have the best of the both worlds. Life on the road when you're traveling is not going to be the same as your normal homeschool routine that you would have in the comfort of your own house. But the traveling life can offer an array of new learning opportunities and real life in depth experiences that you wouldn't find in your home or the classroom. You can use these tips and educational apps to maximize your road tripping experience.
Plan on traveling to a national park? If you have a fourth grader with you, the entrance fee is free. Every Kid Outdoors is a national initiative for families to get out and enjoy the outdoors. Simply go to the website, have your kid answer some questions, and print out a pass. When you get to the park, give the entrance ranger the printed out pass and your child will then get a plastic card which they will have to sign. This pass is good for the next year, so feel free to explore those national parks to your heart’s content.
Once you are in the national park, a worthwhile app to purchase is Just Ahead. This app is your virtual tour guide once you are inside the park. If you download it, the app works without phone service or wifi. It connects with gps so while you are driving, it plays content and will be your virtual tour guide that tells stories about the different places you are traveling through. Your kids and you will learn so much more from your experience, and it’s fun to follow along with it.
Want to put your kids in the driver's seat of their education? Roadside America is your online guide to offbeat tourist attractions. Have your kids download this relatively inexpensive app and have them pick one destination they want to stop at per day. This will get them familiar with navigating the course you are driving and also the freedom of picking what interests them and exploring it. Want to stop to see a scrap metal marching band or a grave that glows at night? Then this a must have road trip app.
How about mastering geography as you travel to your destination? Stack the States or Stack the Countries are apps that make learning geography fun. Kids have different options to play multi-answer trivia games about different locations and also are challenged to map out states or countries in an engaging way. I promise you will master geography faster from this app than any textbook.
Are you sick of trying to find some tunes everyone agrees on for your road trip? Why not try listening to a few podcasts that both you and the kids will not only enjoy but you can learn from as well. Our current favorite road tripping podcast is “The Past and The Curious”. This is a kids’ history podcast that makes stories from the past come to life. The brilliantly structured format of the show has kids engaged throughout the whole show. Why not utilize those miles on the road with a bit of history education. If you are clueless as to how to listen to a podcast you can check out this article that will walk you through it, https://discoverpods.com/how-to-listen-to-podcasts-guide-for-beginners/.