General topic: Homeschooling & Moving,

[kidsforHim]

Ok, just to be upfront and clear, we are NOT using HOD this year with any of our children.
But has anyone ever moved in the middle of the school year? My parents live 1100 mi away and are facing physical troubles. My mom is right now in the hospital. She has various health issues. We feel it might be time to move nearer to them, most likely WITH them til we can get settled. My only help in packing etc. would be our children (my husband works 8-5 but with travel time he's gone from 7:30 - 5:30 or later) School would have to stop or be very limited. We have 2 highschoolers and a 7th &4th grader.
Any ideas how or what we can do about school?
mostly concerned for the 2 in high school. The area we would be moving to has a private church school that we've heard is good... i'm afraid we might be pressured to place them there once we arrive 'to lighten' my load and they would 'get school done'. At this point, not sure we'd want to do that.
Just reaching out.....thanks!

[kidsforHim]

Ok, just to be upfront and clear, we are NOT using HOD this year with any of our children.

Ok, i said this only because I didn't want someone to misunderstand and think we were using HOD. We have in the past, but this year we were led in a different direction.
Have you ever moved in the middle of a school year? Did you or would you keep doing school somehow??
This is something we've considered for some time and yes, it would be better to wait but... life brings things about that causes a decision to have to be made sooner than expected.

[Nealewill]

How long does it take your highschool students to finish their day? I am not sure what you are using but can they double on any of their lessons? Can they listen to any of their books for literature on CD (like when they are packing, they can listen to the book?) I think the hardest part is that you are probably feeling like because you are home, it is yours and the kids responsibility to do it all. It really isn't. It is a family thing.

My best advice would be to drop outside activities and work on most of this stuff in the evenings and on the weekends. That would mean no sports, maybe no music lessons, not taking the kids to as many church activities. If you wanted to work on it during the day time, I would have the kids get up by 7:30 and be ready for school at 8:00. I don't know how long it takes your high schoolers to get done. If it is 4-5 hours, I would have them work straight through. They can be done with school if they work 8-1. Are you doing a co-op? If you need more time, I would drop it unless that is where they are taking some of their educational classes. This would then give you all afternoon to work on moving stuff. I would box up the stuff you don't use now and I would start cleaning house and getting rid of things you don't need or use ASAP. I know that I am not much help but I would try and have all of your kids get their school work done before lunch if you can. That way it frees up your afternoon to do what you want.

From my experience with needing my kids to help me (I recently had shoulder surgery and couldn't do any housework for 1 month), I gave my kids off on Fridays and made them clean my house from top to bottom, plus cut the grass and clean up dog poop, plus do the laundry. That isn't necessarily a long term solution but it worked for us for the month we did it. I needed that. And on the day of my surgery, my father-in-law passed away. My husband wasn't around the whole week I had the surgery and gone a lot the second week too. I desperately needed my kids to help me all the more. But that might be something to consider if you are able to double up any lessons or listen to things on CD. Save those books for Friday and double lessons so that your kids can be free on Fridays.

Prayers to you though. I can't imagine how stressful it would be to move. There would be so much stuff to go through and so many things to pack up. Plus, the urgency you feel to make the move probably added to the stress as well.

[kidsforHim]

Oh I had this nice long response to Nealewill and got pulled away from computer and now it's gone!!
I have to go now, but thanks for the advice you shared nealewill!

just to answer quick, we do no outside activities, just the sunday services at church and most times the wed evening.

[MelInKansas]

Well, we just moved, and it was in town. I had virtually no help from my husband in packing, he didn't even finish packing all of HIS stuff and I had to help him. I had kept the school stuff out as long as I could, thinking eventually I would get back to all of the subjects (we kind of kept math, reading, and a little writing going while we moved).

My kids had 3 months off HOD. That is by far the longest break I have ever taken (I don't take summers off). So I can't give you advice on how to keep it going, but I can say that with high schoolers, they ought to be able to own it quite a bit, hopefully. Now, you have to spare them the time to do it, but when you move, you just go into overdrive for a while and somehow you have superhuman strength for a few months and then when it's over, you can relax back into a somewhat normal routine. And it sounds to me like you aren't SURE yet whether this move is happening? It just depends on how they do? I pray you will have wisdom and grace to get through the crazy-ness.

One thought is - with the layout of the guides, it's not even necessary to do a whole day's worth in a day. They would just need to check things off and keep on going. If there are subjects you definitely don't want them to fall behind in, because catching up would be torture for them maybe, keep those going full speed but a lot of it can go down to half or 3/4 if you want. I also had a big push of just having everything organized - school supplies, my kitchen, and even before we were moving or knew when we were, I had a LOT of the craft supplies, some clothes, and probably 2/3 of my kitchen stuff that I don't use as often all packed up and in boxes in the garage. The more organized you are, the easier a move can go and the easier packing is, and then with a lot of your stuff already packed, once you get the word that you need to, there will be a lot less to do. I was so glad I packed up and moved out as much stuff as I did right when the moving idea first hit.

I had cleaned and purged my kids' rooms before I started on mine. I think I did almost every other room first, with the kids' help too. They did own getting rid of a lot of their stuff. It was a really good thing.

I don't know if any of this is helpful, but I am praying for you!

[kidsforHim]

Thanks!!
And see, here's the thing, if I start packing, the boxes will have to be sitting somewhere here in the house. I don't have a basement or a garage and no extra closet space. If I go ahead and start packing then there's all these boxes sitting around, making me feel chaotic, which makes it hard to do school. And too, it's the mental pondering, " is it the RIGHT thing to do!" I pray and pray but can't seem to get a clear or definite answer. I feel if I could just know, then maybe I could deal with the mess better. And I know you really can't tell me what I should do.
I have been cleaning out getting rid of stuff as time and energy permits. It needs done anyways, moving or not!

[kidsforHim]

Adding to what I said, both of you, Nealewill and MelinKansas, you have mentioned some things that has helped me get a clearer idea of how I can do this. thanks!

[Lynn3ggb]

My family has moved three times while homeschooling. The first time I really burned my candle at both ends trying to get it all done, to the point I almost gave up! The second time, it was close to summer, so we just "dismissed" school early and only had the move to deal with. The third time, I decided to re-imagine what school would look like for us until things were settled.

I allowed the kids to decide what they wanted to learn more about. Whatever topic they were interested in. We did this by going to the Library and checking out books/videos on anything they wanted. My son checked out books on trains, cars, science experiments, birds and animals, and many other things. My girls checked out books on sewing, cooking, crafting, gardening, sign language, and more. The best part about this for us was that we were only moving a town away this time so we were able to continue taking items back to the library as we were done with them. No need to pack/unpack their learning materials! All we needed was a notebook and pencil that I required them to write a paragraph or draw an illustration each day to tell me about what they learned.

I also purchased subscriptions to online educational programs that were fun, but also reinforced concepts I didn't want them to lose. This allowed for quick and painless review without having to have physical materials to deal with. The kids enjoyed it, as well. This would be very easy and inexpensive to do these days with all the apps designed for educational purposes.

I will also share with you that even though this method of learning was supposed to be a short-term solution, it turned out to be one of the most successful things we have ever tried as homeschoolers. From this time when they had the complete freedom to chose what they wanted to learn, my children found hobbies and life interests that they will pursue for many years to come.

My oldest discovered she loved cooking. She read dozens of books on different cuisines and cooking styles. She used the recipes and information she learned from her reading to teach herself to cook and bake. She asked for things like woks, pressure cookers and cookbooks for Christmas. Today she is working on her Bachelors degree in Business Management. She then plans to get an Associates in Culinary Arts with the end goal of owning her own restaurant, which she is already working towards.

My middle child discovered she had a talent for arts and crafts. She learned to make her own jewelry and asked to take a class on sketching and drawing. This interest has continued in her until today as she has begun to teach herself to master the tools and techniques used to paint on canvas. She is truly talented in this area and may have never discovered it if we had not had the time to just let her explore what she was naturally drawn to.

My youngest, my only son, discovered a fascination with birds of prey. He has memorized manuals and pages of bird encyclopedias. He has taught himself their anatomy, habitats, life cycles, and how to identify dozens of birds of prey and song birds at every stage of maturity as well as how to identify them by their vocal sounds and their outline when in flight! It truly is amazing since he is the only child I have that hates to read. He has also learned everything he will need to become a licensed Falconer in our state.

I tell you this to encourage you during your move. It turned out to be one of the best times in our homeschooling journey with long lasting positive impacts. The experience changed the way I look at educating my children forever. I just needed to be forced out of my rut and comfort zone for a few weeks to realize it will be ok if learning doesn't look like I think it should as long as it produces results.

So, maybe you could just consider this an opportunity for adventures in learning. Blessings!