School "Vacation", Homework, and Travel

So, while many families are not planning any learning activities while their children are home during the scheduled school vacation week, we are continuing to do learning. It is at a much more relaxed pace this week, however. Because our pace is a bit more relaxed to begin with, it just feels natural to have a sprinkling of planned learning into each day. We have a high school child who is taking honors and AP classes, folks, so this method can be very effective. Basically, the idea is to make learning a LIFESTYLE. It's not just something that happens between 8 and 2 in a brick building.

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As a society, we need to help children return to an enjoyment of learning. We need to expand the curriculum to include more FUN into the day. There should be more options and choices for students that align more with their interests, skills and needs.

What we are doing in our home is giving our children other options. We are expanding their curriculum. We're incorporating more FUN into their learning. We're choosing more classes that align with their skills, interests and needs. What I'm trying to do by telling our story is to inspire people to consider all of their options. Personally, I think *ALL* children should have a broad range of educational options available to them.

Anyway, so back to "vacation". It is a "staycation" for us this time around. There are no public school specials to attend or homeschool co-op classes, either. Instead, we're filling our week with fun activities at home and out and about. There was a fun family night this Saturday night, however it looks as though the snow may keep us home and off the roads. I'll personally use the time to work on preparations for our European travel plans. Have I mentioned those?
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Basically, we are planning to do a working/traveling/learning...trip? I don't know if you can call a year of traveling around a "trip". How about an experience? An era? We have some European contacts that can get both my husband and I work overseas (as you all may recall, my husband is not from this country and has done a fair bit of world travel himself).

We won't be rolling in the dough, but should be able to make enough to pay for lodging, 

food and travel.

This traveling is going to be an AMAZING experience for the kids (and for us, of course!). Don't worry, I'll be posting all about our travels on the blog when we finally get to that point. It is a couple of years off at this point, but there is a *LOT* to do in the mean time! I am going through our home and decluttering, so that we  can travel light and store the rest of our stuff in storage.

I've got a bunch of things I'll be trying to sell online to help raise spending money (not to mention to help with the decluttering project!). We need to plot out a basic idea of our itinerary and then research the areas we want to visit very thoroughly. I know some people like to travel without too much worry about where they land, but when you have children involved, you want to make sure the places you visit are safe and fun for the kids. We'll want to visit places of historical importance, and then do lessons on those places. We're all trying to learn the basics of a few languages (I am already fluent in 2 and "passable" in a 3rd), so we'll bump up foreign language study over the next couple of years.

I want to gather materials to start a sort of pre-lesson with the kids. For example, I want the kids to be familiar with Rome before we see it in person. Then while there, we can go on a bit of a scavenger hunt and answer questions about specific places. We'll be putting together a big learning scrapbook of our travels (not to mention the digital one we'll have online) that will be part of what we submit for their homeschool credit...and they'll be keepsakes the kids will hopefully look at again and again over the years.

Other preparations include finding out what shipping and relocating services to use, how should we pack up our things, what to bring and what to leave behind, which relatives or friends we'll stay with in which countries, what big events in what countries do we want to try to attend, figure out how much money we'll want to save for the venture (and then double it, because you always seem to end up spending more than  you think you will), and so much more!

I realize this could have (and possibly should have?) been its own entry. Sorry for the length of this entry, but I just had so much I wanted to squeeze into it! I hate to drop this big topic and then leave it there, but just know there's lots of planning going on over here....filled with great excitement and anticipation!