School on the Go
Complete Guide to Unschooling on the Go with Kids
But how do you manage school on the go with kids? This question is asked almost every week, but the answer is very simple: thanks to the possibility of doing unschooling on the go with kids.
We travel full time with two school-age kids and have chosen the path of home education precisely to avoid location and time constraints in our schooling journey.
Recently, Giulia, our little nerd of not even 8 years old, took the exam for eligibility to advance to the third grade, choosing Darwin’s theory of evolution as her topic entirely on her own, so we can affirm and prove that no, kids who do unschooling on the go do not fall behind in their educational paths.
Introduction to School on the Go
But let’s start in order, before delving into our personal experience I want to really explain what it means to do unschooling on the go and especially show you the concrete advantages of doing school on the go.
What is School on the Go?
When a family chooses to travel full time, as we did, if the kids are school-age, the first big hurdle is their education. We chose to follow the path of unschooling on the go, which allows us to manage our children’s educational journey completely autonomously.
Advantages of Education on the Go for Kids
The main advantage of this choice is obvious from the start: freedom. Kids who follow unschooling are completely free from the obligation to follow a defined program and especially free in terms of schedules and locations. Those who do unschooling on the go, which is very different from homeschooling, do not wake up at the same time every morning, but follow the natural rhythms of their bodies and the entire learning process happens when the kids are proactive and truly interested in a topic.
Unschooling on the Go: An Alternative Approach
Choosing to do school on the go is certainly the most alternative choice among the available home education options. There are countless learning methods in the homeschooling world and unschooling or, even better, unschooling on the go is certainly one of the most alternative and minimal. I have already discussed the differences between the various alternative educational paths in the article Homeschooling vs Unschooling: Is There a Difference?
What is Unschooling?
But in practice, what is unschooling? Among all the paths you can choose in the world of home education, that of unschooling on the go is certainly the most open and least defined. Unlike many homeschooling realities where an attempt is made to reproduce school at home and almost follow the school program to the letter using textbooks, unschooling is much freer.
Choosing to do school on the go means having limited resources (books and school materials) but on the other hand, infinite learning opportunities: museums, nature, archaeological sites, geographical locations, and much more.
Benefits of Unschooling on the Go
When it comes to the benefits of unschooling on the go, I could talk for hours; kids who are free to study and delve into topics that interest them the most learn much faster and approach the world of study with a much more proactive attitude: it is very rare for unschooling kids not to want to study (precisely because the main assumption and perhaps its only rule is to approach study only when the child is inclined to).
In addition to the speed of learning and the consequent reduction in study time, another benefit of doing school on the go is that kids constantly stimulate their innate curiosity and, not having a program to follow, often find themselves tackling topics that they would cover later in traditional school.
Preparing for School on the Go
When choosing to do school on the go and follow unschooling it is not necessary to write and define a program: kids, if left free to learn on their own, will acquire the same skills indicated by national plans from the Ministry of Education (the famous ministerial programs).
Planning the Travel Curriculum
Contrary to what one might think, the national school programs defined by the Ministry of Education, those that teachers should follow in schools, are very broad guidelines that cover topics kids would acquire even without school. That’s why it is said that unschoolers do not follow the program: they don’t need to.
Personally, I always look at the guidelines mainly to guide Giulia and Aldo in the right topics, especially regarding mathematics, but for the rest, I leave them very free to choose what to study and when.
Educational Resources for School on the Go
If you do school on the go, you encounter some logistical problems, including the lack of space. We will never have backpacks large enough, cars spacious enough, or shoulders robust enough to carry all the material a child in traditional school uses in a single school day.
Accepted this fact, you can proceed and see what a child really needs to learn: a notebook and a pen.
Aldo learned to count with Lego, Giulia with shells. As you can see, a child needs nothing more than what they have.
Tools and Materials Needed for Unschooling on the Go
If we want to be 100% honest, here is the list of materials that Aldo and Giulia share in their school on the go:
- 3 pencil cases: one with markers, one with colored pencils, and the other with a ruler, glue, pens, sharpener, and eraser. Being always together, they share pencil cases and materials; only regarding pens, they have 2 per color, otherwise, Aldo, the little one, would always want the one Giulia is using.
- Bortolato books. This is our personal choice; for mathematics and geometry, we relied on Bortolato’s material, so we have books covering these topics for the kids’ age. Every time we finish one, we sell, give away, or send it home to replace it with another.
- 1 diary each. Aldo and Giulia have a diary where they write what they do every day. Sometimes they draw, sometimes they paste a photo.
- Brushes and watercolors/tempera. They don’t always have these; usually, they have either tempera or watercolors, depending on how long we stay in one place.
Regarding notebooks, they each have one notebook for drawings. Additionally, Giulia has a notebook where she writes whatever she wants. When she reads books that interest her, or when she watches a documentary or when we explain something she finds too difficult to remember, she takes the notebook and writes it down. She doesn’t divide notebooks by subject because for her everything is school on the go.
Organizing Study Days on the Go
One of the most exciting aspects of unschooling on the go is that not having rigid programs to follow, it doesn’t require too much organization, which would be really complex to manage for those living on the go.
Creating a Flexible Learning Routine
If you live on the go, it becomes unthinkable to organize a stable daily routine because every day presents different challenges. Therefore, to survive school on the go, you need to abandon all preconceptions derived from traditional school. Those who do unschooling on the go do not follow schedules or timetables, often do not study every day, sometimes have breaks of several weeks caused by the children’s lack of interest, external events, or travel. Accepting this total absence of routine is definitely the first step to not being overwhelmed and to live unschooling on the go 100% serenely.
Teaching through Travel Experiences
When choosing such an alternative path, you have to accept that learning moments are infinite and that real leaps in learning can occur in the most unconventional places and times.
So, doing school on the go means learning from every place and at every moment: even when sitting and waiting for dinner, you can learn something, just as on the subway while going for a walk.
Integrating Local Culture into Education
The world becomes the textbook for those who do school on the go. There are no limits and age is just a number that matters little. So, an 8-year-old girl can decide to present the theory of evolution as exam material for the second grade; a topic that in a traditional school she wouldn’t know until middle school (5 years later).
Doing unschooling on the go also allows us not to follow a temporal line, but a geographical one: thus, the places we move to become study topics: after all, there is no better place in the world to learn about Egyptian culture than among the pyramids, right?
Testimonials and Stories from Families Practicing Unschooling on the Go
As I write this article, a doubt arises: who am I to support all this?
No one.
There are many other families like us in the world who have chosen this path and decided to choose the most alternative home education: school on the go.
It is often recommended to young people to take a gap year, to see the world and decide what to do with their lives: we have anticipated the times and decided to accompany our kids around the world.
Practical Tips from Experienced Unschooling on the Go Parents
Around the world, if you choose the path of school on the go, you will meet many other families like us, like you. Families who perhaps had the same doubts as you but embarked on one of the most adventurous and exciting journeys one can ever take.
There are many realities that then also united creating real communities of traveling unschooling families, the one I feel like sharing with you is Traveling Village, a real itinerant village of unschooling families around the world.
Educational and Personal Outcomes of Unschooling on the Go
If I still haven’t convinced you about the reliability of school on the go, let the results speak. My kids learned to read and write completely independently before the age of 6, Aldo even before the age of 5, although I’m convinced that his sister imposed herself as a hidden teacher.
Both my kids and all the unschooling kids I have had the pleasure of meeting around the world, have no problem relating to other kids and especially to other adults: not passively experiencing the adult/teacher relationship, they see the people they meet as their equals and do not feel inferior.
Frequently Asked Questions About School on the Go
What if a kid doing Unschooling on the Go doesn’t want to study?
It seems impossible but it is: a kid doing unschooling on the go and therefore approaching study in a completely different way from traditional standards will do so with desire and curiosity. Kids who do school on the go are always proactive about studying because for them it is not an obligation.
What is the best environment for unschooling on the go?
When choosing the path of school on the go, it is done to avoid location and time constraints, so we study truly anywhere: during car trips, during movements, on the beach, during a walk. In nature, we find the most interesting cues and from a simple question, an interesting in-depth study can arise (even at a later time if the topic is too complex and requires specific materials).
How much time do you dedicate to unschooling on the go?
Difficult to say because we have no schedules or routines. We rarely study traditionally, it is indeed difficult to find us sitting at a desk at a set time. Over the course of a week, traditional study moments are few, at most 2/3 hours a week), but the kids are constantly stimulated and we provide them with materials and tools for self-inquiry on a rotating basis.
What if a parent does not have the skills to teach their own kids?
Personally, I don’t see it as an obstacle: I am obviously aware of not knowing everything about any subject. As long as the kids are young, I learn with them and have learned to look for information online, filtering the true ones from the false ones (If you’re interested, I also wrote an article about How to Find Correct Information on Google.) When they are older, we will evaluate together if an alternative support or private lessons are necessary… or maybe the kids will decide to enter the school system: the paths are endless.
With this article on our very personal school on the go, I hope I have cleared some doubts for you, or at least not made you have more.
Digitally Yours
☀️ Sara ☀️
