Family motto: Part 3 Learn

Learn is the third part of our family motto.

A young child learns new things every day. Most of us have the privilege to learn in school for 12 years or longer. But what happens when we graduate high school or college and get our first "real" job? Are we done learning at that point? I would hope not. I believe strongly that learning is an important part of life and hope to continue to learn new things as long as I'm alive.

We have chosen to take a very active roll in our children's education. We homeschool, or roadschool as we like to call it. We want to impart learning as a lifestyle. We only do "school" for maybe 2 hours a day 4 days a week. In that time we keep up with what is expected. But that is not when most of the learning happens.

The most obvious learning that happens outside of school time is when we go on field trips.

Learning from a Park Ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park
National Parks are always a favorite for us. All the parks we have visited have had excellent Junior Ranger programs that the kids can complete and get a badge for that park. This program is both fun and educational, not just for the kids, but also for us adults. It also helps us decide what to do when we visit a park.

Another favorite is museums. I remember this past summer when we were in Sweden. My 8-year-old daughter thought that we would not go to "even a single museum" for the whole summer. She was devastated until we told her that we had planned to find at least a couple of museums to visit during the summer. Seeing real artifacts and exhibits help to bring history to life. A good museum will also have some more hands-on exhibits.

This replica of an old canoe inspired a long roleplay

We also learn from each other. Common questions around the dinner table is: How does this work? or: Where does this come from? These are questions that the kids will often ask and I have to admit that I don't always feel interested in talking about where the food comes from, for example. But I want them to be curious and ask questions so I will do my best to answer or at least talk about what they asked about.

I hope that our focus on learning being a part of life will teach the kids that learning is fun and interesting. I think that it more fun now than I've ever felt before. I love learning together with my kids and my wife. And that word, together, is the last and final work in our family motto that I will talk more about in my next post in this series.

Thanks for following the journey of me and my family
as we travel and roadschool our kids around the USA.


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