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“Carschooling” Keeps Education Rolling

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Between school, afterschool activities, errands, doctor’s appointments, road trips, and more, kids and parents spend a lot of time in the car together. But, often the time spent on the road shuffling back and forth between responsibilities or fun, is spent in the zone—meaning zoned out. Kids might be glued to their tablets or phones and parents are focused on the road, the radio, or relishing the silence that the tablets and phones have created. Yet, by dismissing drive time, parents and kids are missing out on valuable learning opportunities.

Diane Flynn Keith, a homeschooling parent and author of “Carschooling,” has found a way to turn the time she and her kids spend in the car driving to and from activities, field trips, and errands into a mobile extension of her homeschooling classroom.

This education on wheels first began with audiobooks of great literature and then grew into sharing audiobooks that covered multiplication, life sciences and biographies, which also offered games and activities to enrich the audiobook lessons. After talking to her network of homeschooling parents who shared their own ideas for lessons in the car, Keith was inspired to compose, “Carschooling.”

In “Carschooling,” Keith outlines more than 350 activities and games that parents can use to make the most of travel time, including: “How to use 18-wheeler chemistry to understand the Periodic Table of Elements”; “Use license plate number to learn how to round up or down”; “Scramble up an Animal Cookie Car Safari”; and “Turn historical markers into roadside textbooks in the game, Drive-by History.”

Even if you’re not a homeschooling parent, you can still maximize the time you spend in the car with your kids by engaging in some old school road games suggested by Edmunds.com contributors, Warren Clarke and Tori Tellem, including, I Spy, which encourages players to guess what one player has seen by asking questions; 20 questions, which celebrates kids’ favorite thing to do—ask questions; or Name that Tune, which challenges players to name a song first—guess songs on the radio or if your family is particularly musical, have each player hum, sing, or whistle a tune.

There’s no question that time goes by too fast, especially with kids. Use every moment you can to connect, educate, and communicate with your kids, on and off the road.

News Source: Homefires.com, Carschooling.com, Edmunds