If your dyslexic/dysgraphic carschools, how do you do it?

[FairProspects]

We are always on the road this year for some good reasons that I don't want to give up. That said, I really detest working late (like tonight) because so much time is wasted in the car doing or sitting doing nothing on location while waiting for brother's classes. If you carschool with your dyslexics/dysgraphics, what do they do? Do they bring a laptop with them? So much of our school is tech-based or mom-based that I'm struggling to figure out how we could utilize the time while out and about to actually get something done.

[Heathermomster]

This is funny.  Today, my DD read books to me in the car and completed math while DS was with the PT.  If we are somewhere with a table, I haul whatever needs to be completed and DD works.  I've hauled puzzles, coloring pages, science books, math books, phonics cards with books, and math manipulatives.  Head phones are important.  We listen to audio books and foreign language in the car.  DS read aloud to me last year as I drove and praticed his Latin flash cards.  DS also uses his Kindle.   What to take and work on has been situation dependent.

 

If you are interested in your children being able to type their work, you could buy a used Alphasmart Neo.  It is very light, durable, and works on AA batteries.  DS now carries his Netbook when he needs to type somewhere.

[Plink]

Audiobooks, memory songs, and Math are the easiest subjects to do in the car.  We also have great success with spelling practice and copywork.

 

[PeterPan]

You could hire someone else to drive him to the classes.

 

(just thinking outside the box)

 

It just wouldn't work in our house to school while about like that.  Too much need for structure, consistency, limited distraction, etc. To me, and I really don't mean to get all preachy here but I THINK someone once got on my case about this, one child cannot drive the situation for the other.  It's not really fair that Johnny can't get his proper accommodations and work situation because Ralph needs x class or therapy.  My 12 yo didn't need to sit in a car for hours every week just because my other child needed therapy with long trips. But since NEITHER were negotiable, we had to find solutions.  So that's how I got to finding a driver as the suggestion.

 

But you know, if your kid can focus while out and about, that's awesome.  My kid just couldn't.  

[FairProspects]

I stack their activities so it wouldn't really work to have someone else drive. For example, ds 2 is in the car while ds 1 & I are in piano lessons. Then we drive to the violin teacher's house and ds 2 and I go into violin lessons while ds 1 is in the car. Both kids get something out of the afternoon, but due to their ages & abilities, they are not usually able to do the same classes at the same times. The problem is just a pretty typical one that the time on the road and then with sequenced activities adds up. Sometimes I think it is harder to have kids 2 1/2 years apart than if they were closer together or farther apart. In either direction they could be in the same classes or I could drop the older one off and stay more with the younger. As it is, it seems like they are the perfect spread to not be able to combine anything and just make life more difficult.

 

I'm pretty sure I don't need to be in piano lessons anymore; it is just an arrangement that stuck around from when ds was 7 and he had far more sensory meltdowns during lessons. I could probably be with ds 2 during that time. Ds 2 does Suzuki and the parent involvement is part of the commitment so I have to be present for those lessons.

[PeterPan]

Ahhh!  Well if you can be with him during the piano lessons, that might give you some options.  Snippets of time like that would be cool for drilling things, working on speed, anything you can pop up (like those rapid naming dot patterns!), tangrams or visual processing, audiobooks while playing apps (because every kid likes down time!)...  Might be a cool time to read and narrate something super engaging like a Muse magazine or load a science video onto the ipad.  

 

So to me it would be all that extra stuff you feel guilty about never getting done, not so much regular school work.  Maybe spool knitting or other handicrafts?  Think about the hilarious memories...  "My mother made me spool knit for an hour while my brother got piano every week..."   :lol:

 

Is there space at the lessons where you could go in another room together and play games?  It would be a convenient time to work on visual processing with ThinkFun games, puzzles, etc.  A totebag would make it easy.  You could do a 200 piece M&D puzzle in that amount of time or a floor puzzle.

[Heathermomster]

I stack their activities so it wouldn't really work to have someone else drive. For example, ds 2 is in the car while ds 1 & I are in piano lessons. Then we drive to the violin teacher's house and ds 2 and I go into violin lessons while ds 1 is in the car. Both kids get something out of the afternoon, but due to their ages & abilities, they are not usually able to do the same classes at the same times. The problem is just a pretty typical one that the time on the road and then with sequenced activities adds up. Sometimes I think it is harder to have kids 2 1/2 years apart than if they were closer together or farther apart. In either direction they could be in the same classes or I could drop the older one off and stay more with the younger. As it is, it seems like they are the perfect spread to not be able to combine anything and just make life more difficult.

 

I'm pretty sure I don't need to be in piano lessons anymore; it is just an arrangement that stuck around from when ds was 7 and he had far more sensory meltdowns during lessons. I could probably be with ds 2 during that time. Ds 2 does Suzuki and the parent involvement is part of the commitment so I have to be present for those lessons.

During these music lessons, can the child in the car come inside and sit at a table?  

[NotSoObvious]

Mine reads. All. The. Time. It makes me carsick even thinking about it. She'll do her math in the car, too. But, I can't really expect much more than that. It's distracting and difficult for her to write. 

 

 

 

***Hey, dyspraxia moms! Just an FYI, we have a FB group called Dyspraxia USA Homeschoolers. Come join us!

[OneStepAtATime]

We never got to try out all our carschooling plans for our 4 hour plus rides if we had relocated.  But during the limited time we were sort of carschooling I found that nausea kept us from doing more than just listening to books.  DS would have loved playing verbal games or mental math exercises with me but DD hated the noise, even with headphones, so that didn't work out either.  So yep, just listening to books (history, science, literature, even math based).  We were looking at getting a few Great Courses on audio from the library for DS but never did.

[prairiewindmomma]

We do audiobooks. With dyslexic kids, bookwork is a no-go as the lines of text move way more than usual. We have done the occasional DVD (for super long rides), but on our most recent 20h one-way trip we made it through 3 books and a few audio lectures.

 

We listen to SOTW around town. On the way to scouts last night we heard about the Black Hole of Calcutta.

[SandyKC]

Audiobooks, memory songs, and Math are the easiest subjects to do in the car.  We also have great success with spelling practice and copywork.

We did our carschooling primarily using these tools too.  Using audiobooks was our mainstay. We also completed math problems and our Megawords books while commuting.  We talked about learning items too. 

 

Like the OP, we spent a LOT of time in the car going to and from esteem-building passionate pursuits. We had bookbags our guys could pack with their books on the days we were on the go.  We had lapboards in our van that went everywhere we went.  

 

When one child was doing an activity, I could work with the other one.  We drilled with cards for our phonemes or math facts.  We sat side-by-side and worked on any lesson that was book-based.  

 

As my guys got older and did more of their work on a computer, we installed the learning programs on our "learning laptop," which we took with us too.  With the lapboard in the car, my son(s) could work on the computer too.  We had headphones so the computer lesson wouldn't distract everyone in the car. Doing computer work requires the programs be installed on the computer, or the computer has to have satellite Internet access.  Whenever I had a choice for the type of computer program to buy, I opted for one that actually installed on the computer, so we could take our learning to go. ;-)

[FairProspects]

We did our carschooling primarily using these tools too.  Using audiobooks was our mainstay. We also completed math problems and our Megawords books while commuting.  We talked about learning items too. 

 

Like the OP, we spent a LOT of time in the car going to and from esteem-building passionate pursuits. We had bookbags our guys could pack with their books on the days we were on the go.  We had lapboards in our van that went everywhere we went.  

 

When one child was doing an activity, I could work with the other one.  We drilled with cards for our phonemes or math facts.  We sat side-by-side and worked on any lesson that was book-based.  

 

As my guys got older and did more of their work on a computer, we installed the learning programs on our "learning laptop," which we took with us too.  With the lapboard in the car, my son(s) could work on the computer too.  We had headphones so the computer lesson wouldn't distract everyone in the car. Doing computer work requires the programs be installed on the computer, or the computer has to have satellite Internet access.  Whenever I had a choice for the type of computer program to buy, I opted for one that actually installed on the computer, so we could take our learning to go. ;-)

 

Yes, I think this might work for us too. I realized last night that Keyboarding without Tears and Wordly Wise 3000 have iPad apps that connect to our accounts, so the boys can do at least those pieces at activities. I sucked it up and paid for the full version of Kidspiration, so now they can outline compositions on iPad too and put them into Dropbox to finish at home the following day.