Portable Homeschool

[Wheres Toto]

I know in the past I've seen posts about ways to make school more portable, either because of work, or extra-curriculars, or car-schooling but no matter how I try to search I can't find any of them. :001_unsure:

 

I've recently returned to work and at least two days a week my kids will be doing the majority of the skill subjects at my mother's house. I'm trying to find a way to organize things the same way for the days they are there and the days they are at home. I'm thinking the easiest would be individual backpacks with binders holding their work (which is mostly workbooks for the items my mother will be covering) but I'd love some ideas/tips for making this work as smoothly as possible.

[Mandy in TN]

I bought school folders with brads and pockets and labeled them Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, and so on. I took ds's workbooks and had the spines cut off. I divided the work from each workbook, hole punched it, and put the sheets into the folders.

 

In his backpack he will need his folder, his science textbook (the sheets for written work are in his folder), his history textbook (the sheets for written work are in his folder), whatever book he is reading for literature (the sheets for written work are in his folder), and his Kumon pouch. He doesn't have a dozen separate workbooks/ spirals/ worksheets, and he should be able to carry this without breaking his back. Also, the pockets in the folders will allow me to store any additional information that comes up or notes specific to that week even if it isn't school related (take your medicine at 2).

 

I haven't decided what to do about math, but I am hoping that it is something I can have the spine cut off of and put in the folders.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[*Lulu*]

We were schooling 3 days/week away from home last year.

 

I tried bags for away days and other storage for at home, but it was a real pain and I felt as though I was constantly shuffling materials around.

 

So I gave each kid a Rubbermaid tub that is big enough to hold thier stuff and small enough they can schlep thier own junk from place to place. Everything goes in the tub. When we are schooling at the library the kids just carry thier stuff to car and away we roll.

[happypamama]

We have as much as possible in PDF form on a tablet, so that cuts down on how heavy the backpacks are. I deliberately plan things that use the PDFs for days that I know we'll be out of the house whenever possible.

 

Each child has a pencil box for pens, pencils, colored pencils/crayons, scissors, gluestick, and erasers; they use these at home as well as out of the house, and it's very easy to grab them and go.

 

I do occasionally bring a workbox per kid in the car, but a backpack or tote bag seems to work better. We've found clipboards to be pretty useful for when we're out of the house as well.

 

In your situation, I might opt to have certain things stay at your mom's house -- either buy two copies of them if you can, or just do those subjects on the days they're at your mom's, so that you have less to lug back and forth. I would probably also tear out the workbook pages you want them to do at your mom's to eliminate any confusion and to make the physical load lighter. I would also write out what they're supposed to do, specifically, to make it easier on everyone to know exactly what you're expecting.

[Mom0012]

Depending on how much stuff they have, rolling carts might be helpful. You could store all their stuff in the carts and then they'd always be sure to have everything they needed. Also, if you are not using checklists, I would start making a weekly checklist that would sit on the top if the pile in the rolling cart. That way they know they need to do and so will your mom.

[T'smom]

We spend a lot of time camping in the summer, so I have things packed in a Rubbermaid tub. It is an abbreviated version of what we do during the year though. I like the idea of cutting down on what you have to carry by keeping some subjects for your moms house. If you were doing something like SOTW, you could keep the CDs at your moms. Whatever you do, I'd make sure bags are packed the night before!

[JudoMom]

When we needed portability, I used milk crates (they're usually pretty cheap at Walmart during the Back to School season). Each boy had one, and we kept the texts they needed in it. They also had a big binder, with tabs for each workbook or subject. Behind the tab was the workbook pages or notebook paper. They kept pencils/erasers/colored pencils in the crate as well. When it was time to go, everyone just grabbed their crate and put it in the van.

[Wheres Toto]

Thank you for all the suggestions. We are currently using crates that I made writing tops for to turn them into lap desks (sort of). Just using them would probably be easiest (for me) but the kids wouldn't be able to carry them out themselves, especially not dd. I do need to arrange things differently for my mother than for myself. She needs things to be very spelled out and clear, which is why I already switched dd to a weekly binder (ds already had one).

 

I'm trying to decide if backpacks would be the way to go. I already have a full-size backpack that ds could use and would just have to get one for dd. They should be able to hold all the stuff they would need at home or my mothers. And they should be able to carry them on their own. Each would have: their weekly binder, their handwriting book (HWT), a pencil box with pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, etc., reading books, read-aloud books. Ds also has a set of sheet protectors taped together for his reference sheets (HWT cursive alphabet, 100 chart with prime numbers marked, multiplication chart with squares marked, etc.). That doesn't seem like too much.

 

There isn't too much I could leave at my mothers, at least not permanently. I don't plan to have her do anything but math and language arts, and only stuff that is easy to transport, so not the large whiteboard and tiles for AAR/AAS. All projects will be done at home.

[Desert Strawberry]

I packed all their workbooks into accordion files, put those in backpackers and stocked the front pockets with pencils, erasers, sharpeners, etc. I marked the books with "Stop" at the top of the last page in every lesson. I taught them to do one lesson from each book.

They were largely unsupervised. This was a system that they could do on their own.

[Ravin]

Our portability is rather ad hoc, but one thing that might help you is to do what I do with DD in the way of a daily to-do list. Last year, all her assignments that were to be done independently went on it. This year, I may put all her assignments on it. When I am out of the house, I leave a neat stack of just what's in the to do list in the way of worksheets, workbooks, etc., and when she's done with the list, she takes it to her dad to confirm she completed it all before getting free time.