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Hi Ladies,
It has been a while since I've been on the message boards. Just a refresher, my name is Joy and I have 5 kids and we live in Indonesia. We have used HOD for the last 2 years. This year, my older two are using HOD at our little mission school. 5-8 grade has 5 kids and I convinced them to use HOD and they love it! They are taught by a sweet lady who homeschooled her own kids and they are now grown and she is a widow.
For next year {probably starting mid-June}. I am looking at homeschooling all 5 again, with grades 7th, 6th, 4th, and two 1st graders.
So, here is my questions/dilemma:
We are going to be on the road {furlough} for 3 months of our school year. I want to do Revival to Revolution with the older two, but what do I do with the younger ones? Is is feasible to run 3 programs?
For my 4th grader, his skills match up well with Preparing. And the twin 1st graders match up great for Beyond. But....I am a little scared to try to do all three, especially with being on the road. The older two are largely independent, which is the beauty of HOD, and that does take a load off.

I could homeschool for the summer months, and the months we aren't on the road, and take the months we are on the road off...maybe? {traveling all of Sep and all of Nov, settled for October}

Thoughts? Thank you ever so much!
JoyinIndo {but not for long, we are moving to Uganda!}

I think it's feasible and sounds like a great plan!

Actually the biggest issue I would see isn't even the doing of school or 3 guides while you are travelling. I would think it would be taking your books around while you travel! Maybe other families that travel and homeschool can shed some light on that, but with luggage fees and everything, I would imagine taking all of the books you would need to use for school might cause a problem! I guess it depends on how much flying you will be doing Stateside, if you are flying to one place in the U.S. and then driving everywhere else it would be less of an issue.

Also I know a travelling furlough for a missionary family might make doing all of the school work challenging. Right after my 4th baby was born we did math, reading, and storytime and of course did fun field trips and activities when those opportunities were available. Having the structure of school work to do might be a good thing in the midst of travel, but I think I would find it very burdensome and difficult. You know the best what will be expected of you with the places and people you are visiting and whether or not you could do school while you are there.

As far as running the 3 programs for your 5 kiddos, I don't think that will be as difficult as you think. A good schedule or routine will make it work!

I'm so new to HOD that I haven't ordered my curriculum yet, but I do know that as someone who frequently travels, having most of our books on Kindle has saved my pocketbook many many times, and makes doing school - at least the reading and science side, uber convenient.

Joy,

I would probably lean toward taking the months off that you are traveling, which sounds like all of Sept. and all of Nov. I would look at doing school during October, which sounds like it will be the month you will be more settled. With that in mind, I would look toward schooling in the summer for two months to make up for having all of September and all of Nov. off. Hopefully, this would still allow you to take at least a month off in the summer.

If needed during the summer, you could go half-speed with the 1st grade twins (doing left side of the guide one day and right side the next, or any combination you felt would work well). You could actually just keep the twins at half-speed for as long as needed during the year too (since they will be on the younger age range of Beyond). This would allow you more time to work with your Preparing and Rev2Rev kiddos to get them started and progressing well.

Hopefully, this will help a bit as you ponder your options. Sometimes it just helps to talk options through with others to find the one that will work well for you. Feel free to post your thoughts back, as talking can be so good!

Blessings,
Carrie