Thread: Weekly Poll: What sounds most like your family's version of "carschooling"?

As we all start another year of schooling our kids, I am always amazed at what different families can squeeze into driving to soccer practice, field trips or co-op classes. I hear my friends talking about going over multiplication facts, important holidays and history, foreign language, and so many other things it makes my head spin! After I thought about it, I realized that even I do this with the boys on our MANY outings in a week. We have brain teasers decks in the car and we have our Spanish songs that we are learning that we sing a couple of time while driving. We are not thinking of new ways to re-invent the wheel BUT we could

So what are you doing in the car, that you consider fun and educational?

Not a thing. My kids watch Disney movies on the dvd-player. We do sometimes put in one of the Leapfrog videos and they're educational, right? My son did learn left and right when he was 3 by asking which way we were going everytime we came to a stop. He also started learning N, S, E, W (and NW, SE, etc.) by looking at the read-out by the Onstar in our truck. Same thing with temperatures - we would discuss how 90 degrees felt, or 40 degrees.

One problem is that my son gets car sick very very easily. He can't read, play Leapster/ITouch games, color or do anything that involves concentration. Even when doing nothing if we get stuck in traffic or the ride is too long, he will more than likely get sick. So, we really like it when he falls asleep on long trips but that's pretty rare these days. The kids do bring little toys in the car with them and will sometimes play imagination games and tell stories. But, again we have to be careful he doesn't spend too much time looking sideways.

Most of our trips last year were taking my oldest to dance - right in the middle of rush hour. It would have been a nice time to try to play books on tape - but my kids are not at all auditory and have trouble listening to something without a visual, anything else would be hard for me to do since I have to concentrate on driving in heavy rush hour traffic with a lot of idiots. My oldest can't run flash cards or anything with them since she also gets car sick. We shouldn't have to make those trips anymore this year since she now has her drivers license.

The radio is usually on my oldests choice of radio station for at least the drive out to dance. Last year my 3 year old learned the lyrics to some really "interesting" songs. Does that count?

During the final hours of a full day of car travel, BalletBoy suddenly announced he wanted to do math "for fun!" And dug around and found his Math Mammoth book and did two pages. I'm still a little speechless.

We're a solid hour away from most of our out of the house activities so we log a lot of car time. We listen to tons of audiobooks, and now that she's starting Spanish we'll probably be listening to foreign language discs as well. My kiddo is good at making up games - right now the favorite is her version of TriBond. Sometimes when we're on straight stretches for a while she reads. And for the not-so-good days there's always her DS (funny how that never makes her carsick!). Doesn't keep me entertained, though. Sigh.

Right now the only thing I've found to keep my kids calm in the car is to play the Beatles. My three-year-old is especially fond of them, and will tell you all their names and who is still alive and how the ones no longer alive died. He will also sing you "You Say You Want a Revolution" or "Nowhere Man" (or take requests). My DD moons over old pictures of Paul McCartney. I guess this is educational in its way, but I'd like to try those Spanish CDs at some point...

Originally Posted by dottieanna29

The radio is usually on my oldests choice of radio station for at least the drive out to dance. Last year my 3 year old learned the lyrics to some really "interesting" songs. Does that count?

This made me snicker. My kids all know "Jenny's" phone number. hehehehehe

My son is fascinated by anything that sticks to windows... or roofs... or ANYWHERE in the car. He has been known to stick a grasshopper to the window just before we leave, then bring along a magnifying glass so he can try to see how it sticks. I do have audiobooks, a skip-counting CD, a Spanish language CD, and DD's violin CD in the car as well, but my kids are just as likely to beg for Pandora as any others.

I understand the "interesting" song bit. When you have to remind your 7-year-old that he's not allowed to sing Nickelback's "Rockstar" or Flo Rida's "Right Round" and your 5-year-old that she's not allowed to bellow anything Lady GaGa in front of your grandmother... you miiiight have a problem.

Definitely the "b word" option. My son is *always* saying, "Mom! That wasn't a nice thing to say!" Yeah, well, the military-spouse b**** driving the
huge-a$$ minivan or SUV, who doesn't know how to use a British roundabout wasn't exactly nice either!!!" LOL

None of those fit us. We listen to Powerglide Spanish and books on CD while driving.

Nothing that I could check. We pretty much stick to audio books for long trips and music (it has to be "snappy") for short ones.