Learning on the Road/Adapting to Circumstances
Presentation at the WALDSFE 2004 Conference
by Loha Brown
edited by Doreen Blanding

 

Editor's note: Resources embedded in this article so watch for them. For Loha's book list please see this web page.

My name is Loha Brown and I’ve been homeschooling for about 8 years.  We started out following a Classical Style (Well Trained Mind.com definition), along with field trips related to a hands on approach to Washington State History.

 

Family circumstances changed and there was an extreme demand on our time.  Much time was spent in the car and away from home.  I needed to decide to put the children in school or find another approach to homeschooling. I needed to adapt.  I analyzed the time I had (or didn’t have) and discovered WE HAD ROAD TIME!  But how could I use that?  I also began to look at other things we were doing.  We were spending a lot of time with elderly family members who were in need of more visits and attention.  HOW COULD THAT BE AN ASSET?

 

Washington State Law requires the following 11 subjects be taught: reading, writing, spelling, language, math, science, social studies, history, health, occupational education, and art & music appreciation.  These do not have to be taught separately.  A unit study on health could include writing, reading, spelling, science, math, art and occupational education.

 

We adapted!  I don’t pretend to be an expert but I was forced to work it a bit.  While years of this sort of thing might leave holes in their education there were definite possibilities within our schedule. And testing, after the fact, seems to indicate there was no harm done (they both test in the top 1 to 3 percent on the CAT).

 

There were opportunities to teach my children several social and life skills. They would learn about aging, their grandparents growing years and life history, about care for the elderly, and service as they helped clean and weed at grandpas home and much more.  Here’s a brief account of our effort to take what was given us and work it into a curriculum.  I hope you can obtain ideas of your own from it:

 

Art Appreciation and Music:  Singing time in Primary, at the nursing home with the elderly, and at FHE, along with dance lessons filled the music requirement. My children learned many songs from the depression and roaring 20's era at the nursing home and this sparked further questions in history lessons.  We also purchased some cassette tapes with the stories of great composers life stories and pieces of their greatest works to listen to in the car.  The girls took notes and reported what they learned in writing, or orally at FHE.  The girls would put on singing and dance performances for grandma.  She loved to see them dance and hear the lively music. The oldest played the violin for grandma.

 

Math: Was done part on the road and part while visiting grandparents and at home.  They would work on memorizing math facts in the car by listening to math to music tapes from Audio Memory.  I would use this fact memorization as a hook for their lessons.  It made teaching math go much faster and easier. Their lessons were offered on the living room floor at grandparents homes.  The grandparents seemed to enjoy watching the children learn. Sometimes they’d get involved and I know their contributions made them feel productive.  Some fun math car games are to: 1) count all the white cars you see and maybe the blue cars, subtract to get the difference.  2) hand the children a map of your route and have them learn map reading skills by playing navigator.  3)They learned to use the mile markers and exit signs to calculate the miles left to our destination.  (For higher grade levels you can use these exercises to calculate percentages, ratios, work multiplication and division)

 

Science, Health and Social Studies:  A study of health, aging process and dying became part of our focus for these subjects.  In addition we studied some botany and collected insects for observation while working in or around our ageing parents gardens.  (Any bug they caught we read up on, and drew pictures of in their nature journals which we kept in a storage area in the car.)  Bug research was done through the internet or through Anna Botsford Comstock “Handbook of Nature Study”.  As you can see science was event lead. What ever happened, what ever health issue came up, and each bug or plant we worked with were read about and studied in depth later.  Sometimes we could find a short easy science reader about the subject on our next library trip.  (We kept a note pad in the car to write down the subjects we’d look for at our next library visit. Library trips were after FHE each week and FHE turned into a rather long evening from 4 to 9 PM each Monday. We really needed the family together time and added a multitude of items to the agenda. ) The girls also spent time listening to and memorizing many of the songs found at Lyrical Learning. We have an ongoing project of lap book and wall poster of a human body we’re putting together - piece by piece.  I’ll take a few more years to complete.

 

Reading: For the older one was done quietly in a corner at the nursing home or while I was completing chores at grandpas.  She would read out loud to us in the car on the trips from books we were using to study various subjects.  Both children read signs along the road.  The littlest child was learning to read.  And would take her readers to grandmas and would sit near her with her fingers under the words, reading out loud.  Grandma who was suffering from memory loss and had a severe loss of vocabulary could still read!  Amazing! At first she would lovingly correct my little one when she made an error.  Later when grandma lost all ability to talk she would grunt, point or shuffle her feet if my early reader made error.  How worth while and productive this made grandma feel to be able to help with lessons and to hear stories.

 

Literature: Grandma found a book of poems by Robert Lewis Stevenson and was so happy to have the girls read it as it had been a favorite from her own childhood.  She wrote a loving note in it - it is especially precious as it takes quite a bit to discern what the note means because of the garble we were getting from her by this stage in her life.  Oh how she must have struggled to write it!  Also, I discovered there were others in the nursing facility that loved great literature.  I would carry in a classic book and they would follow me to the nearest sitting room to hear  a tale.  The couch and chairs would be filled with people who had two things in common: they were all losing their memories and loved literature.  I would read with much expression, some would beg for more when I ended.  One lady who loved to wear hats and a coat (even if the hat was a paper bag on her head) would thank me and quietly leave.

 

History, Geography, and more Social Studies: The girls took a tape recorder to grandpas and began documenting his life.  He lived through the great depression, served in the military, went hunting with Babe Ruth, met General Douglas Macarthur,  remembered the Blue Laws, Rockefellers, and much more.  He talked about his mom and grandmother cooking up batches of apple butter in a huge caldron over a fire in the front yard, many inventions and improvements in health care and more that came during his life.  They read the National Geographic at grandpas and grandmas.  They studied  maps, and we played map games with the globe.  They memorized much world geography by listening to and singing along with various geography tapes from Audio Memory (history, geography, & state capitals) and “Diana Waring’s History Alive” tapes (American Music) in the car on our trips. (Diana’s tapes are now out of print, you can look for a used copy at homeschool potpourri in Kirkland.) They would put together puzzles of the world and US on the floor at grandmas and at home.  They played the game Snapshots Across America during quiet evenings before bedtime at home.

 

Occupational Education: The girls learned to weave, knit and crochet.  They would take their work and ask grandma for help. At first this was fun for grandma and great therapy as she began to forget.  Later grandma took pleasure in watching the oldest sit in a chair and crochet in front of her.  On Saturday mornings their dad would take them to Home Depot and Lowes stores to participate in their children’s woodworking classes.  They learned to use simple hand tools to construct a variety of useful objects.  These skills and the life skills they obtained helping to care for grandpa were more than children are usually offered in grade school, so I determined they would suffice.

 

Foreign Language: The girls continued to meet with their language group each week and practiced in the car with audio tapes their teacher had made and with the following tapes: Lyric Language  or Learning Horizons  or Early Advantage

 

Physical Education: We tried to take time to stop at a park on our way (sometimes we took grandma) for the children to run, swim, and climb.  They had dance class, jumping on their back yard trampoline, a 4 foot deep swimming pool (mom taught swimming lessons), roller blades, bikes, and short hikes.

 

Spelling words and tests: Took place on car trips - orally.

 

Writing: Our current focus is much more formal now than it was during that time when writing was restricted to letter writing, entries in their journals, nature journals, and report writing.

 

While there wasn’t much time for TV and the like I did and do keep deterrents in our home that reinforce what ever they may be learning.  Examples would be Jump Start K - 5 ( after 5th grade level this program seems to be less interesting to children), Muzzy, Jump Start Typing, Magic School Bus interactive CD’s, Leap Ahead Spelling by Learning Co.

 

Other time savers I practiced:

•  Kept a bag in the car with wipes, napkins, forks, small kite, their learning tapes, work books and more.
•  Kept their readers, and two small hard bound books for nature journal entries under the car seat.
•  Combined my trips--if I was headed to Tacoma to visit grandma, we'd try to use that same day for field trips in that area.
•  Make use of paper plates, plastic spoons and forks, etc.
•  Have the girls pack a lunch in a cooler before we left for trips.
•  Make enough dinner one night and take left-overs to grandpa's to use in the making dinners when we visited him.
•  Hired tutors to come to our home.
•  Hired a teen to drop by after school to read the girls lessons to them, supervise simple math, or play educational games with my children.  Sometimes she'd clean and I'd work with the girls.
•  Hired some cleaning and yard work help.
•  They learned the Articles of Faith for their Primary Awards by listening to and singing with "the Articles of Faith" tape by Dave Shelton and Jeff Ostler (PO Box 641 Bountiful, Utah.)