Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Smith:
Moving presents challenges both for homeschooling parents in the military and for their children. Crystal, how did you keep your children’s education going during those moves?

Crystal Rants:
Well, if I know about a relocation six months in advance, then I plan our school breaks around our moves. There was a four year period where we moved every single time we took a school break. The Army is good about trying to schedule moves around a traditional school calendar, but it’s just not always possible. Because of homeschooling, I’ve been able to change our schedule to coincide with the move.

We always move our curriculum with us, even when professional movers handle the rest of our house. We take at least two weeks off to get unpacked and settled in, regardless of the time of year. But we still bring books to read and even some math to do, just to keep a normal structure to our day.

We start school slowly, usually with math and reading, adding a couple more subjects each week until we’re back up to a full school program in about four weeks. We might decide to school longer than 36 weeks, if we feel that we lost too much time to the move, or if the state laws have different requirements. Either way, we have the freedom and the flexibility to change things so that our schedule works with our current circumstances.

Mike:
Crystal, thank you very much for sharing your experience today. I’m sure other homeschool moms will find your words very encouraging. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.