Ramblings by Jes, Part 3 - Homework

When I talked to the principal of the kids' school about the trip, I was prepared to take them out of school and handle homeschooling them for the rest of the school year.  As it turned out, the principal was excited and appreciated that the kids would gain a lot from the trip.  He said we could talk to the teachers about some projects for the kids to do to get grades while they were gone.  It all sounded good to me.  I actually worked on some ideas of things that I thought would make good projects for the kids.  I figured the kids could keep a journal, send letters back to their class, do book reports on the books that we listened to or they read, we'd learn the states and capitals, do a presentation at the end, etc.  It seemed manageable and easy.  The kids' teachers ended up giving us a significant amount of written work. Rachel had 3 math tests and 4 vocabulary tests that I needed to administer, along with all the workbook pages to prepare her.  Alex had 2 chapters in math and 3 chapters in religion and some reading comprehension sheets.  All this in addition to the stuff that I had suggested.  It was definitely a lot of work, but it seemed manageable. 

But, then, we got on the road.  Rachel can only do short amounts of work in the car before she begins to feel sick.  And, it's hard to concentrate in the car with 4 kids.  Not exactly quiet.  I've tried to have them all doing work at the same time, but then they all need me for something.  It is a huge challenge.  We had days full of activities and then driving late into the evening.  In the mornings, we were usually hurrying out of the hotel room in order to head to our next activity.  It has been almost impossible to fit in homework.  Occasionally, we get lucky and have an early night or a morning that we can dally a little.  I take control of all those situations and make the kids do something.  But, we are running out of days and still have a pile of work to do.  We may have to book it home to have a couple days to really just do homework.  The kids have only read about 50 pages each.  But, honestly, I've only made it through 1/2 my book.  Too much experiencing, not enough paperwork.  But, that's OK with me.  I know that the kids have learned an immense amount of stuff over this trip.  There is no way to quantify it, unfortunately, and the teachers need that for grades.