Home Schooling - Does anyone buy/use "pre-prepared" curriculums?

We're heading off on extended travel some time this year and so I am going to be promoted to head educator of my soon to be 7 and 6 year olds. We will need to do home schooling, as opposed to distance schooling because we are not going to be travelling with any particular schedule.

Have any of the home schoolers out there used the prepared curriculum you can buy or get for free? Is there anything better than anything else? I have been doing a heap of reading over the past couple of months and TBH it all just seems more daunting now than it did before I had read a thing. I had previously thought I would prepare my own curriculum for the girls, but wonder if that is just too hard given we will be travelling?

Any advice gratefully received.

Travelling will bring about many oppurtunities for learning naturally, I know my daughter learnt about distance and orientation from our 'talking map' for example if you're using a gps at all which can then be a jumping point for looking into it at depth. But it is a commitment to constantly be noticing and acting upon the opurtunities and having the patience to involve children in lots of different things (such as helping plan with maps for example or with money transactions) and it won't be linear or consistant in a similar way to school which might be hard since your kids will need to transition back at some point.

My advice would be to get a Maths and English program if you are concerned about keeping up in order to make the move back into schooling smoother and then just build on topics of science and history and geography and health/physical ed as they come up or as you feel it might interest the kids. Do you need to do a language? Can't remember if that's a year 2 or 3 thing. You can access the national curriculum through the government site to check what you'll need to cover. Depends where you're travelling to too. Also depends what state you're registering in as to what sort of plans and proof you'll need to provide.

I don't know anyone that used premade curriculum though unfortunately. Someone might see this though after my response bumps the thread hopefully that knows more about that.

And get pinterest. If ever I need ideas on a topic and can't think of anything, I just search there and millions pop up!

I have a GF who home schools her 4 boys. She doesn't use a curriculum as such. She has a great blog called Airskull, if you google it, the blog will come up. She is Irish and her boys have blog names starting with Irish....
She would be more than willing to offer advice if you ask.

It's a great read and she has just been interviewed by another prominent home schooler who loved her style of Home School.

As Jellyfish mentioned, you and your children will learn alot while traveling. Everyday is a day of learning when traveling, meals, petrol, accommodation costs, shopping etc.
When we went overseas the main thing the girls had to do was keep a diary. This was something they did at the end of the day and you will be amazed how much they take in. It takes a while to get into the groove but once they did they love it.
Also, talk to their school. Ask what they will need to know by the time you come back.
If you have internet you can keep in touch with the school while away

Thanks so much for the replies ladies. TBH given their ages I'm not really all that concerned about them taking a year off, but I do want to make sure they are where they should be with concepts in maths when we get back because they will then return to mainstream schooling. Everything I've read says that I need to submit a curriculum to the education dept for approval and I guess that's what's freaking me out a bit.

Rivlas - I'm desperate to talk to the school to see what they can offer, but figured given we don't have a departure date yet its a bit unfair to hit them now when they're organising all the back to school stuff for next week. Did you officially home school while you were overseas, or was it more that you just took the kids out of school for an extended holiday?

~H ~ thanks. Will have a look at your friend's blog.

DH is a teacher but never taught the girls even when away. We were on holiday and it was amazing what they learnt just by traveling.
The main thing is you all enjoy the holiday. Life is a great learning tool so everyday they will learn.
Speaking about your day is good as it helps with the language, geography, maths, art and other aspects of learning.
Playing in the park or swimming is PE.
Helping with the shopping, reading the speed & road signs, helping get meals ready........you get my drift.......everyday is a learning day for us all.
Even helping plan your holiday is learning.
Good luck with your planning and have a great holiday whenever it happens

I don't know if this is an option but 20 years ago we travelled around Australia for a year and a bit (I was 10) and we did Correspondence School. They were very understanding that travelling was more important then deadlines. I did it through the Victoria version but the WA site is "schools of isolate an distance education". Hope that's some help/interesting :)

Our friends did this for their sons who were 9 and 13 when they travelled for an extended time in France. They got their school to prepare a curriculum of sorts for them. so they had work books and assessments to work on etc. are you planning on sending them back to their current school? because that could be an option! probably worth calling up and making an appointment with the principal to discuss options (even though you dont have a date yet...good for a heads up)

Thanks Dollyroux. That is awesome. When I looked into distance schooling before everything I've read insists you have a postal address, but this looks like a real possibility. Thanks so much.

ETA: Thanks Cassius2. Just saw your post while I was typing. I'm definitely going to talk to the school. My concern is that we're looking at being gone for a minimum of 12 months, so the girls are going to effectively change years at school so not sure how that's all going to go.

No worries. I'm sure it's all down online now but at the time we would just update our next address with them and they would forward to that post office e.g Townsville po or Ceduna Po!

Good luck :).

We did this when I was about that age.

We had maths workbooks and kept a diary, then did things local to where we were. Lots of maps, sightseeing, language issues and museums. I love museums.

If I were to do this with Liebs now, I'd do the same. Workbooks, one page a day, then what we wanted. We'd learn the constellations and all the different currencies, languages, customs, local histories, read books about other explorers... I am so jealous of you! I dream of doing this.

With a more Butteresque child than Liebling, of course. Liebling is a bit less fond of museums and books than I. Very frustrating.

I'm not sure my kids are going to be too fond of museums either. I think there are going to be a lot of solo experiences in museums and galleries for DH and I while the other has the kids.

oh and yes! the diaries! it must be a thing as my friends that did the travelling with schoolkids really impressed the importance of them writing a diary each night outlining what they did/found interesting etc.

It's so exciting! We love our adventures so i will so be following your journey when it happens as our next adventure will be with a schoolkid for the First Time Ever...eep! so much easier to do stuff before you have to worry about school!

we don't use a curriculum, i buy these workbooks that I usually find at newsagents or BigW/Target/Kmart have them also. they're great, cheap and my son loves them. hes 7...

they're called school zone. my son has whizzed through 2 this year already and i just bought him one called 'Giant second grade workbook', its 224 pages and inlcudes reading/writing, basic maths, science and social studies.

I just bought one for my daughter also, she recently turned 4. shes enjoying it.


have a look at their website maybe... Google Hinklerbooks

they dont seem to have all of their books on the site though, not that i can see.