Packing Educational Materials to turn a "Road Trip" into "Road School"

One of the things I love about homeschooling is the flexibility to learn what we want, when we want, and how we want. Most of which is facilitated through engaging activities. So what better way to reinforce all of that education than by real world experiences. Reading about something can broaden your imagination but visiting the actual place you are reading about is like having that experience hop off the page and into your very own story!

  When we started planning this journey from Florida to Canada, I was really interested to hear what my 6 and 7 year old wanted to experience. Everything from the highest tides in the world in the Bay of Fundy, to the Museum of Natural History, to Woodstock, to visiting the Amish way of life. Each stop on our expedition was going to be not only memorable, but also educational. Thus the term,  "Road School". So how am I going to ensure that instead of playing Minecraft or watching Pokemonon on our Ipad for hours on end while in the car, we were actually going to be applying our visits in a scholastic way? Binders, books, and interactive tidbits that I mostly found on https://www.pinterest.com/. Not to mention our favorite National Geographic books, sticker books, and car bingo. You can find a ton of stuff at the dollar store and dollar section at Target. I use Teachers Pay Teachers for many of my printable activities as well. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com I even found Madlibs on Amazon which the kids have been recently introduced to and are now obsessed with! So I have pieced all of this together to make sure that hours in the car doesn't turn into hours of mindless video games..or driving mom and dad crazy. Every state we pass through they will get to open up in our "Explore the States" book and read all of the details. Such as the sights, the state flower, state bird, when it became a state, and it's given nickname. We have 14 states to get through so 14 pages of reading at least and a ton of word searches, cross word puzzles, and coloring books. Good thing the kiddos don't get car sick! Also, when they are on their Ipad, the app called "Stack the States" is an awesome and very applicable way to kill time while learning. Other than that, I wrote out some boredom buster questions in a "would you rather" style so I'll hold on to those for just the right moments. I think that just about covers it and hopefully we will have learned a ton more on the road through tangible experiences and memories that will last a lifetime!