Our 4th Year of Homeschooling in an RV (2021-2022)... Let's Try Unschooling!

The 2021-2022 school year was the year we decided to really make a big change in our homeschooling / roadschooling.

We decided to dive in and fully embrace a style of learning called UNSCHOOLING. Unschooling can mean different things to different people. I’m going to explain what it meant for us.

Casen and Calista were entering the “school year” at ages 8 and 10. They had tested well above their grades level in standardized tests I had given them at the end of the previous school year. During our first few years on the road, I had been hearing about and learning more and more about unschooling, and since the kids were ahead of schedule in their learning at this point, we wanted to give unschooling a go.

What is unschooling?

Unschooling is basically child-led learning. We decided to learn about things based on the kids’ interests and not worry about what the school system said they needed to learn based off their ages/grades.

We didn’t use any curriculum, but instead learned in different ways. We did a lot of reading, baking, art, playing games, visiting museums, etc. When the kids had a question we would look up answers online or at the library, teaching the kids HOW to learn. We spent 3.5 months in Mexico, immersing ourselves in the culture and learning a new language. We had some amazing experiences through travel and made some great memories.

How did Unschooling go?

It was a good year, but I found that the kids kind of missed having somewhat of a schedule. Our lifestyle is so different since we travel full time, and most of the year we travel every couple of weeks. This inconsistency is something we’ve grown accustomed to, and I think since things are always changing for us, the kids enjoy when they have some structure.

We enjoyed the year of unschooling and the freedom, but decided that the next year would include more structured learning. Each year we assess how things are going and what we could do to improve. We truly believe that learning happens everywhere and we enjoy trying new things and are open to different styles of homeschooling or learning.

We will continue to be open to our kids’ wants and needs as they get older and each year of learning will continue to change and evolve.

You can watch a video that we made about how we learned on the road in 2021-2022 HERE.