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Welcome to Homeschool and Humor! We are about living the homeschool life with the best kind of laughter. So bring your steaming tall double white chocolate mocha, pull up your chair with you favorite fuzzy socks on, and stay for a while.
This website is focused on real-life homeschool days, the crazy mom life in the chaos, and organizing a little of that crazy into well thought-out structure. On coffee cup #2, we’ll also chat about traveling while homeschooling, homeschooling while traveling, and the days where you are at that hotel home away from home and emerges that random need for a friend.
I will be that friend. Your proverbial road dog. Your homeschool holla. I will guide you in the best ways of traveling with your family, even with toddlers. Because I’ve been there traveling and homeschool simultaneously for a few years now, and I’ve figured out some money-saving tricks along with some organized time-saving ways to do everything there is to do in your every day, and still enjoy that craved Mommy Time with a steaming mug.
Allow me to brighten up your day with structure for your home, ideas for your toddler, homeschool printables and bundles for your homeschool children, and the best traveling tips that will work wonders for you.
Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.
Hey girl, hey! I’m Richie – former childcare teacher turned hotel manager turned stay-at-home homeschool mama! Life gets twisty for all of us, right? I have 3 children that love to explore, engage, inquire. and praise the Lord. Two of them are elementary-aged and the third is my very busy tot. We homeschool and travel all over the USA and we love it.
How We Started Homeschooling
My eldest had such a difficult time in public school, even as early as 1st grade. Because of issues with the teacher that I don’t care to get into at the moment (mama bear growl will come out again), on top of developmental and behavioral issues, I longed to find a solution.
My son just needed the teacher to take a little bit more time to teach him the concepts, more of an individualized approach that public school is popular in NOT doing. Because she wouldn’t or couldn’t, he lagged behind the other students. Every evening when we did homework, either before during or after dinner, I would practically have to teach him the work from the beginning; he had no clue what the work was.
My heart ached every day for him. I was seeing a bright happy little boy shrink further into himself each day thinking he was stupid for not being able to know the work, and worthless for not being valued enough from the teacher to take 5 or 10 minutes of her time to make sure he was on track to succeed. My outgoing little boy became a quiet introvert that year.
My son, keep your father's command and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Bind them always on your heart; fasten them around your neck. When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way of life...
Enter: my Honey. I was dating a wonderful man at the time and we quickly fell in love and, as they say, zhe rest is zhe hiztory! Because the nature of his job means 100% travel for him, through answered prayers we pulled the kids out of public school to begin homeschooling! And we immediately hopped in a car to travel with Dad! (And Daniel is back to himself, happier than ever and brilliant!)
Year One of homeschooling was also Year One of travel – I had no clue how to do either of those things! ha! But with a lot of trial and error, scheduling and planning, and communication with the kids, I can now proudly and confidently say that I practice what I preach.
I am in no way a know it all, I haven’t gotten EVERYTHING under the sun figured out, but I know the best ways to do homeschooling when we are in our hotel room away from home. It was difficult to find resources on families that travel while homeschooling, such as best practices and cheap shipping shortcuts, so I built my own resources and am glad to share it all with you.
Continuing this story: Not only did I homeschool and travel in year one, I was also pregnant!!!! Holy Moly, just typing that sentence freaks me out! I can’t believe we did all that.
Travel and Homeschool Living
As I mentioned, the first year we homeschooled was the first year we travelled with Dad. Since I was also pregnant, I had to quickly call all the Powers That Be into Super Huddle to help this aimless mama out! There were definitely learning curves, and I had to figure out what was best for our learning styles+ family styles + teaching styles + homeschool styles + hair styles (ha ha), but blissfully, I managed to create STRUCTURE in the midst of change.
And change.
And change.
Do you picture a car driving all over the place while the kids study notebooks in the back seat when I say “homeschool while traveling”? Because that’s not at all what I mean!
We do not, what some families refer to as, “roadschool.”. In fact, when we drive from Point A to Point B we don’t even pick up textbooks (not only do we, instead, appreciate the wonders of God’s creation but we also utilize the benefits of year-round homeschooling – therefore we take lots of breaks. It’s a perfect homeschool schedule for traveling).
Although we are away from our home base in Texas for about 70% of the year, we are not roughin’ it out on the road. We stay in family-accommodating hotel suites, or we try to. Or we stay in condos. Or corporate housing apartments.
Sometimes the living is spacious; sometimes we’re like sardines (but cleaning is easier when it’s like that, believe it or not!).
The Power of perspective
To teach your children about a concept with the capability to execute teaching methods in various capacities is priceless.
I have faced financial hurdles with traveling, thus learning how to budget everything properly and accordingly. But my Honey might would tell you that I’m still learning.
We are always after the best prices & deals for a traveling family for eating, doing stuff, learning, etc.
I learned that cities have local discount packages, if you know where to look, and that shipping boxes of textbooks really can be affordable if you know the best shipping rates & methods, which I now do! (And learned that hard way since, again, nothing in my Google searches ever helped me.)
Kids truly do appreciate schedules and routines, so imagine my surprise when the kiddos ran to check “what’s next” every day from my created planners, schedules, and meal plans that I taped on the hotel wall!
Remedies were discovered for creating family meals, 2-3 times a day, in a small space! We’ve had large kitchens and we’ve had kitchenettes! And we’ve had only microwave with those tiny hotel fridgettes. Creativity doesn’t even begin to describe it…!
We have a decent organization system for all the toys and games and just general basic crap that kids accumulate from everywhere and no where. Even my kids have developed into these cute little creative ninjas when it comes to storing and organizing our many homeschool books, read alouds, and chapter books.
These are just a few of the examples we have learned over the years from our traveling, homeschool lifestyle!
It’s been four interesting years of homeschooling & traveling, and what a wonderful opportunity for our children to see so many different local cultures. We’ve visited so many cool places, like Jamestown, Virginia! (Hellooo Early Settlers Unit Study!) And with these unique opportunities I’ve been able to document and incorporate our journey into our everyday homeschool life.
This is how I can help you! Even if you don’t travel while you homeschool, I know without a doubt you will find inspiration & guidance from this site.
You CAN teach engaging learning activities with multiple age groups anywhere you’re at in the world!
You WILL be confident in being the *best* mom boss in your home!
You WILL have structure in your homeschool day!
You CAN step away and take a mommy break without all the guilt and with all the grace!
You WILL have eager and excited children looking forward to their little days!
You WILL save money on travel expenses and sightseeing experiences!
You WILL be inspired and confident about teaching, whether you travel or not!
Homeschool Resources that We Love
- The Good and The Beautiful (Language Arts & Handwriting)
- Reading Eggs + MathSeeds (Online)
- Master Books
- Math Mammoth
- K12’s History Curriculum
- Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Astronomy (You can find a ton of free resources to go along with this curriculum online if you don’t want to purchase the Notebook or Jr. Notebook)
- Apologia’s Who Is God? series
- The Crafty Classroom
- The Child’s Bible Story by Catherine F. Vos
- Oklahoma Homeschool: The Checklist by Cindy Downes (We are home based out of Texas, but she provides a great checklist for curriculum creation!)
- The Confident Homeschooler: How to Thrive in the Day to Day by Pam Barnhill
Parenting & Mom & Dad Resources We Love
Traits of Homeschool & Humor
- Schedules and Routines
- Toddlers Activities
- Traveling within the USA (domestic only)
- Family Traveling Tips
- Minimizing
- Mom Time, Mom Life
- Mom & Dad Only Time / Keeping Relationships Strong
- Daily Outdoors
- Being in the moment
- Flexibility
- Budget-friendly Life
- Praying. And then praying some more.
- Nature Walks
- Weekly Library Visits
- Unit Studies
- Lap books
- Notebooking
- Homeschooling Resources from fellow Homeschool Moms
- Meal Planning and Prepping
- Hands-On Activities
- Curriculum Planning & Scheduling
- Creating Printables
- Creating Curriculum – Toddler, PreK, K, Elementary-Aged (for the time being. Next year will include this list plus Middle School-Aged!)
- Simplifying Life
- Laughing for no reason other than it feels good
- Uplifting Each Other
- Positivity
- Valuing the Moments
You will find many resources and more coming all the time for homeschooling, parenting, mom life, travel, meal planning, inspiration, and printables to help make your day easier. It’s so nice to meet you, and I look forward to a long and valuable friendship!
I would absolutely love to hear from you! You can email me at ri[email protected] or connect with us via Social Media:
