Would it be damaging for my oldest to be homeschooled/travel for 1st grade?

[Anonymous]

We have two kids, currently 5yo in Kindergarten and almost 2.75yo in daycare. I was recently laid off and DH works for a European company and is able to work remotely anywhere in the US or EU. We have been talking about renting our house and homeschooling/traveling/worldschooling until our kids are entering K and 2nd. Our kids are awesome travelers and have been to 4-6 countries each already. My main concern is would this be damaging to my older daughter to miss 1st grade in school? If it matters, she is already reading and does all addition and subtraction problems using numbers 0-20. We'd keep up on learning and hopefully provide a ton of experience the classroom couldn't. I would be mindful of socialization opportunities as best I could.

Doable or crazy?

[Anonymous]

I think you would have to actually home school her...present some kind of curriculum to the school system. You can not just keep her out at 6. I am sure there is something you can buy or subscribe to. Otherwise...go for it!

[Anonymous]

It will be fine. Contact your local school district to see what kind of documentation you need. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

It’s fine. I would do it if I could.

[Anonymous]

I think it would be fine but I also think that potentially she'd start 2nd grade behind peers. That's not the end of the world and what she'd gain in life experience and family time could absolutely be worth it. But I'll just note my DD learned a ton in 1st grade and I don't think I would have been capable of keeping up with that curriculum had I been homeschooling her. There are a lot of building blocks that get put in place in 1st with regards to reading and math. She learned a lot of grammar (parts of speech, sentence construction) and her writing vastly improved. In math there were all these techniques I had no idea they taught but I know understand lead to much better math literacy. Stuff like the "take from ten" technique or visualizing large additions problems using sets of ten, as well as introducing multiplication concepts. It was cool to learn about how she was introduced to these concepts and work on them with her at home, but I do not think I would have been able to cover as much ground as she did in 1st grade at home.

So just keep in mind that even if you can keep her generally on grade level, she may need some help getting up to speed when you return if she misses some of this stuff which they then build on in later grades.

[Anonymous]

It’s fine. I homeschooled for all of 3rd grade because of Covid and my kid did just find going back for 4th.
As long her as her English and math standards are on a 2nd grade level when she returns she’ll be good. If she learns different science, social studies etc that won’t be detrimental.

[Anonymous]

Damaging? Spare the dramatics Jan

[Anonymous]

No, not at all damaging as long as you actually do the homeschooling. It can be more difficult than it seems!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s fine. I homeschooled for all of 3rd grade because of Covid and my kid did just find going back for 4th.
As long her as her English and math standards are on a 2nd grade level when she returns she’ll be good. If she learns different science, social studies etc that won’t be detrimental.

I don't think it's the same as homeschooling during Covid. All kids had a weird year that year, even if you school reopened and kids went in person. But OP's child will be the one having a weird year, and the other kids will all be attending normal school. It's entirely likely that OP's DD will be behind when she returns.

I would also want to know more about exactly what the year will look like. Are you going to be traveling all year moving from place to place? I think that would be incredibly disruptive for a kid still learning to read and get math foundations. But if they are planning on staying in one place for most of the year and then traveling on weekends and holidays, then it would be easier to set up a proper homeschool curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Now is the best time to do it! Just keep on top of reading and math (and really in math, all they learn in first is basic addition and subtraction, coins, and some charting/graphing).

[Anonymous]

And writing, make sure you teach her how to write.

[Anonymous]

It's fine. It's very slow before 3rd grade. They are mainly learning reading so they can self-learn in upper grades. Make sure your 1st grader progress in reading and writing. Math doesn't take too much time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now is the best time to do it! Just keep on top of reading and math (and really in math, all they learn in first is basic addition and subtraction, coins, and some charting/graphing).

Very much not my experience! I guess it depends on your school's curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it would be fine but I also think that potentially she'd start 2nd grade behind peers. That's not the end of the world and what she'd gain in life experience and family time could absolutely be worth it. But I'll just note my DD learned a ton in 1st grade and I don't think I would have been capable of keeping up with that curriculum had I been homeschooling her. There are a lot of building blocks that get put in place in 1st with regards to reading and math. She learned a lot of grammar (parts of speech, sentence construction) and her writing vastly improved. In math there were all these techniques I had no idea they taught but I know understand lead to much better math literacy. Stuff like the "take from ten" technique or visualizing large additions problems using sets of ten, as well as introducing multiplication concepts. It was cool to learn about how she was introduced to these concepts and work on them with her at home, but I do not think I would have been able to cover as much ground as she did in 1st grade at home.

So just keep in mind that even if you can keep her generally on grade level, she may need some help getting up to speed when you return if she misses some of this stuff which they then build on in later grades.

+1 to this. You need a real curriculum and probably and hour or two a day really focused on academics to keep up. Now, that can ebb and flow, as travel permits, but I would think that's what you need to keep her up. Definitely look into some homeschool curriculums, you won't be able to just "keep on learning" you'll need some structure.

[Anonymous]

Totally fine.