How do we handle school for Baby Bear (age 6-9, grade 1-3) while traveling?

Summer Camps, World schooling, Grandparent school and self-study

Many people ask us about Baby Bear’s schooling during our trips. We pulled Baby Bear out of school a few times to make our trips possible. We are in California where attendance rules for schools are strict, and absences above a week are scrutinized. But we managed it and you can too. Here’s how we did it. I break it down by each trip and show age because what we need at each age is different.

For most of it we managed it on our own but for Bali we joined a worldschool. It was wonderful to have the support of a summer camp program and other families so we can share baby sitting. And it's so much fun connecting with other parents!! Now, whenever we can, finding a family travel community is our preference.

Our classroom while traveling. It’s so visceral and fun!

1. 🌍Europe, 5 months. Age 6.

   1. Timing: In late March, she left first grade 2 months early.

   2. School Logistics: We did the paperwork to register us as a California homeschool, which was not too hard. She is considered dropped out of her school after first grade and registered in the homeschool. We talked to the principal about this who told us it should be fine. We re-registered her for second grade when we came back. Since few new students entered second grade, there was a low risk of not getting a spot. It was only a bit of extra work to re-register her again.

   3. Education: At this age, we didn’t worry about it too much, she is learning far more from being on a trip with us.

      1. Life Skills: We focused on life skills learning such as how to pack and re-pack her bags 50 times.

      2. History: She learned Roman history by visiting all the Coliseums, theatres, and circuses that the Romans left behind. And boy there were so many stretching from Croatia through Rome to Portugal. Having visited most castles along the Mediterranean coast, she is now an expert on Castle design. Her sand castles have moats, keeps, gun and arrow galleries, etc.

      3. Podcasts: Since we were in the car often, I supplemented with educational podcasts which also kept her happy and quiet during the long drives.

      4. Reading: She loves reading so we downloaded many many digital books.

2. 🌴Florida, 3 weeks, Age 7.

   1. Timing: In mid-December, she skipped 1 week of school.

   2. School Logistics: No issue with 1 week's absence. We just told the teacher.

   3. Education: Minimal as we were mostly on Christmas break. Our main learning goal for her was swimming skills because we love snorkeling.

      1. Swimming: We made sure she knew how to swim and practiced snorkeling in a pool before this trip. We took her to a snorkeling theme park called Discovery Cove to snorkel with fish and rays on this trip We spent a lot of time teaching her to snorkel, and she became an excellent swimmer and free diver.

3. 🛶Bali, 2 months. Age 8.

   1. Timing: In early June, she left second grade 1 week early.

   2. School Logistics: No issue with 1 week's absence. We just told the teacher.

   3. Education: Summer camp-style enrichment. In total, 5 weeks of summer camp, and 3 weeks of traveling around with us.

      1. Worldschool: We went to a world school with 6 other families for 4 weeks, which offered about 10 hours of summer camp per week. There she socialized with other children and learned basic coding.

      2. Locally offered Summer Camp in English: We registered at a full-time summer camp for week 5. Many expat families from all over the world were also there so their kids could be exposed to English. Everyone complimented her excellent English since she looked Chinese. 🤣

      3. Chores: We had a kitchen to cook in. I taught her how to do the dishes, she was still too short and had to stand on a chair at the time. But she picked it up for the first time there.

      4. Museums, etc.: She learns from the signs and brochures at museums, zoos, and parks that we visit.

      5. Cultural learning: We sought out cultural performances that she learned from and now knows the different Balinese traditional dances, of which there are surprisingly many.

4. 🇧🇷 Florianopolis, Brazil, 1.5 months, Age 8.

   1. Timing: In December she skipped school for 4 weeks. There were 2 weeks of Christmas and New Year holidays during this time.

   2. School Logistics: Her school allows self-study up to 4 weeks a year. We maximized our trip to connect holidays and the maximum allowable self-study period.

   3. Education:

      1. School-provided self-study material: Most of the time we’re working on our job she’s working on her materials which included math, writing, and typing practice. The material was submitted to her teacher when we returned. She was a bit behind on the material since we were so busy traveling. But she caught up quickly after returning.

      2. Learning from Nature: We encountered many interesting wild creatures, including the Katydid and Giant African land snail just outside our front door. We would look these up on Google and Google Lens, and then learn all about them. She spent hours on beaches catching the Tatuira.

      3. Museums and Cultural Learning: This is a staple for all our trips.

5. 🇯🇵 Japan, 2 months. Age 9.

   1. Timing: In mid-June, we left right after her school ended, and will return before school starts.

   2. School Logistics: No school was missed.

   3. Education: we focused on the areas to improve from last grade, which were writing and typing.

      1. Writing: I started teaching her to write for this blog. Every day she would write her journal, sometimes that’s only one sentence, but it’s a start. And every week or so she would choose the best from her journal and turn it into a blog post.

      2. Grandparents Zoom: We arranged for her to be on a video conference with grandparents for 2 hours, 3 times a week. During this time, the grandparents would play math games with her, watch her write or do typing practice, and generally keep her busy from afar so we can have some couple time.

      3. Learning about Marine biology, Geology, Japanese history and trade, WWII, Present day Japan: Japan has very extensive explanations on the walls of their world class aquariums and zoos. Often they have some English descriptions as well. She is now very well versed in marine animals from whale shark to the nudibranch. Japan is full of volcanos so we learn at every museum about how land is formed here. We visit different rock formations, and find rock museums too. At castles we learn history from samurai era to WWII. She learns and loves the onsen culture. In every hotel or apartment we stay in she makes observations about how life in Japan is different from her life in the US, truly immersed in the culture of present day life in Japan.

We have now settled on the December + Summer travel plans for every year going forward. This mimics the 4.Brazil and 5.Japan schedules above every year until her school situation changes.

There you have it, a very detailed overview of how we did it and I hope it inspires you to figure out your pattern with your kids to make your travel dreams possible. Baby Bear likes to read and is introverted, which helps a lot on these trips where she’s often the only kid around. As she gets older, the desire to socialize with other kids grows, so we are now seeking ways to incorporate community into our travels.