How do turtles watch documentaries while traveling?
With shell phones!
While this might be the worst pun ever written (don’t look at me…I’m just the messenger), documentaries might be the best thing ever invented for homeschoolers on the go.
We managed to move across country this Spring. I say managed because we moved driving two cars and towing one, with three kids, two dogs, two cats, all while my husband and I were both in the middle of an online college semester, and I was also teaching two online writing courses. We drove for five days on our journey from Central Texas to Washington state. As if this wasn’t enough, we were selling our house in TX and answering the phone throughout the day.
How did we survive this? I am sitting on my comfy couch in my house in WA as I write this, and I still can’t answer this question. Some things will always remain a mystery…
Anyway, back to my point. Originally, I had some high ambitions for this move. The box of homeschooling supplies I had packed for our trip was pretty healthy by weight standards. We were not going to let some little cross-country road trip stop us from learning!
And that strong confident, don’t mess with (homeschool) mama attitude fizzled out half way through the first day of our trip. It was a nice thought until the hail and wind hit coming through New Mexico. That’s right—my dreams died in the Land of Enchantment.
I was sure then, that there was no way we were accomplishing anything to do with school on that trip. By that first night, we were so exhausted that our face became one with the pillow.
I can’t take credit for rescuing the educational part of our trip. 
This would be the kids who, because they are awesome, found some really great documentaries to watch. During that trip they watched five documentaries, and as I listened behind the wheel, I was reminded of just how great documentaries are. We don’t make a lot time for documentaries as we are always on the move. The truth is that these documentaries taught my kids more on this five-day trip than I ever could have done with that box of curriculum. Documentaries are fast, entertaining, educational gems for homeschoolers who just need to get some learning in at the oddest of times.
Amy teaches college English and literature full time. She recently self published a book of poems, and her novel is currently with an editor. Amy started homeschooling her oldest when he was in first grade and now he is a junior in high school. Her other two are 9 and 12. They are eclectic and Amy has dived into several curricula. Her middle son is dyslexic so that’s a challenge in itself. They have done umbrella schools, groups and even online curriculum.
