Meandering Around the World

OK, let me now be a downer. I assumed there would be bumps in the road. I just thought we would be on the road when they happened. We have this plan, which we thought was pretty well thought out, of traveling around the world. And one of the great reason for doing this was to educate our kids. We actually thought long and hard about when in their educational life span we should take this year off from traditional academics. My oldest daughter goes to Hunter, which has been cited by every academic survey as one of the Best High Schools in the Nation and by far one of the hardest to get into (and free!). So it was out of the question to go until she graduated. I may be capable of many things but I really don’t think I could teach college level phyics or calculus. But she is graduating this year so, yea, gap year! The plan is she will travel part of the time with us, part of the time on her own. Then we will all roll up to PA together and she will start college at the wonderful little mini-ivy 20 minutes from our new home.

DE will be missing 7th grade but the great thing is – at his present school he would be starting algebra next year but not until 8th grade in the School in PA. In other words he is one year ahead in math so we can spend the whole year reviewing and enriching his pre-algrebra foundation rather that trying to teach him brand new stuff (anybody noticing a touch of math phobia here?). M & L are of course the easiest, because even I can teach 3nd grade multiplication (I hope!). So the emphasis on this year will be on keeping them on track in math and english. History, geography, and world religion will be pegged to whatever country we are traveling through. Science, admittedly will be more piecemeal. Fortunately the science DE would be doing at school is, yay! biology. It is way easy to incorporate ecosystems and/or digestive systems into jungle treks, nature hikes and to top it all off a cruise through the galapagas islands! Imagine if it had been what he is studying this year – the periodic table, electricity and magnetics.

Anyway, the point is, this is a very nice break in their academics, DE won’t lose anything, M is taking a break between HS and college and the girls are just the right age to soak up information on the fly. Sigh, then in their infinite wisdom, the college in PA turned M down and Hunter, the HS of most peoples’ dream asked DE to take the entry test. So instead of our dropping back in after a year away with M staying practically next door, she will now be going to some college in some other state potentially either a 5 hr drive or a 6 hr flight away. Somehow that makes arriving back a scant couple of weeks before class starts slightly less plausible. Moreover, if DE does turn out to be “gifted” and is invited to Hunter, how can we turn it down? And then what, since we would never be able to keep him up to speed with those courses even if we were allowed to take him out of school for a year? Think we will still do it but if ever there was an example of “men make plans and the gods laugh” this is it….

So where are we now? Definitely more informed as too the medical side – we have gotten all the ho hum vaccinations that are covered by health insurance and in January will get the ones that are only available from the Travel Health Clinic – Yellow Fever, Japanese Encephalitis and Typhoid; still on the fence about rabies.

We are also farther along on the home schooling side – we have talked to the head of the math dept at the school the kids go to now and to the one at the school the kids will go to when we come back and found out that the kids are basically a year ahead of the new school’s curriculum. I had expected this since they are switching from a private school to a public one. This means we have to decide whether we treat our year of travel as a review year, just making sure they don’t lose what they have already learnt or, on the other hand keep pushing them so they will be still be ahead and go into an accelerated math class when we come back. It doesn’t help that one school uses one curriculum (Prentice Hall) and the other a completely different one (Everyday Math). But all the traveling families I’ve spoken to recommend Singapore math since it is so portable, easy to teach and apparently, pretty fun.
I’m actually leaning towards doing a review year with Singapore math, adding online math games, some enrichment and just make sure they really, really have a secure base without stressing over teaching algebra, etc. What a gift to have them already ahead so they can relax and enjoy the trip. If they whiz though standard 3nd grade & 7th grade math then we can go ahead to the next but no pressure.

How has it gotten to be the middle of September? My birthday is Sept 1 and it was supposed to be the point at which we really started buckling down and planning this trip. But what with clearing ... [Continue reading this entry]