portable homeschooling

I'm overwhelmed, y'all. Moving is no joke. Trying to keep a house "show" ready for prospective renters while moving and with kids undoing things you've done along the way is even less of a joke. I have a long, long list of things that need done, but I still seem to be wandering around not knowing what to do or where to start. Kelby's birthday is tomorrow and that will be an awesome distraction because we have a little party at the park planned and a dinner with family planned and that will keep us busy and provide my son with some new Legos that are sure to keep him busy through the weekend while the real work for Casey and I begins. Movers come on Monday and we will be staying with my Mom during the cleaning/repairing of the house process. Needless to say, we are anxious for all this to be over.

In the mean time, I tried today to get an on-the-go school bin together. We applied for on post housing, but are on a waiting list. It is entirely possible we will get there and have to begin the hunt for a rental, in which case we could be spending quite a few days in a hotel. I don't even want to think about how much per day it could cost to feed us all if we do not have a kitchen! But, the Lord always provides, this we know :)

This is our homeschool, reduced to the bare necessities:

It is fascinating to me how little I actually need to homeschool three kids. We are not a textbook type of family, which may make it easier for me to pack lightly. The past couple weeks have been pretty unstructured due to the current circumstances and my frame of mind, but we have discovered the beauty of lap books and are really having fun with them! Kelby is making a letter of the week lap book with these printables from homeschoolshare.com. It's been really fun for him and he is proud of his little  file folder books when he's done. I usually have related stickers for him to decorate it with too.

As for the girls, I spent a whopping $5 on the American Girl Felicity lap book from Currclick.com. We have collected a ton of American Girl books from thrift stores and happened upon the entire Felicity boxed set at a Goodwill quite awhile ago. Since she is from Colonial Williamsburg and we will get to visit there when we move to Virginia, I decided to start with this one. The books are not long, so I think we will probably get through several of them over the next month. Natalie especially is really enjoying the lap book activities! She loves art and drawing and there is a lot of opportunity for that, so it's right up her alley.

Other things in my portable homeschool bin:

• Alice in Numberland. This book is part of the I Love Math series. It's older, but readily available used on Amazon. I stumbled on one of these books at a thrift store (Pizza Math) and after finishing it with the girls, I promptly ordered more for this school year. These books teach all aspects of math through stories and silly adventures. Living math at it's finest! 
• Math Mart. This is a math game for many grade levels. We haven't played it yet, but it's small and will be fun to play on the road. 
• Linkology Animals card game. 
• Passport to the World. We are really enjoying this one! The kids look through it just for fun and try to say hello and other phrases in the different languages, it's super fun. 
• A Girl of Beauty, a devotional I'd like to start with the girls and Devotions for Preschoolers, which I used when the girls were younger and am now starting to read with Kelby. 
• Pattern blocks and cards. These keep Kelby busy longer than almost anything else. You can get these in several places so I won't bother linking. I also have his little magazine holder of extra practice workbooks and wipe-off activity books. He is pretty good at occupying himself while I work with the girls, although I give him special attention to work on his lap book each day. 
• Other than those things, I have a primary journal for each of the girls, one of our favorite art books, a drawing pad, white board tablets and a pencil box with pencils, glue sticks and scissors. And it all fits quite nicely in one bin, which I'm sure you recognize if you've ever attended a thirty-one party ;)

And there ya go! Hopefully by the time this move and our next move in March is done, I will be an expert and will be able to write a post called "how to homeschool and move across the country twice in one school year." Or maybe it will be called, "how to lose your mind trying to homeschool and move across the country twice in one school year." Ha!