 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be about car schooling. Car schooling is quite literally exactly what it sounds like, schooling in the car or homeschooling on the go. It is something that we have done for as long as I can remember, mainly because we live so far away from civilization. We are about 45 minutes to an hour to just about anything. So that means groceries, doctors, library, anything we wanna do, we've got at least an hour and a half round trip. So we're in the car a lot. We try to minimize that by doing all of our errands one day a week, but it still amounts to being in the car quite a bit. So to prevent from feeling like we were spending all of this time in the car and it was being wasted, I decided to do what I call car schooling. Now, in order to car school, what I like to do is keep a lot of stuff in a car organizer and I keep it right next to Emily in the car. The car organizer that we use now is custom built by Kevin because we have bucket seats in our vehicle and we needed something that would be a little higher so she could reach it from her seat. But I have a car organizer that I love that we used for years and I will link it in the description box if you are in the market or you need one so that you can start car schooling. What I do is I fill that car organizer with tons of stuff that will help make the time that we're in the car more productive. So sometimes it's activity books, coloring books, hands-on things. I keep things that she can build with in the car. I keep all of these things in there that will just kind of help keep her mind sharp and make me feel a little less guilty for having this wasted time. It makes me feel like we're doing school. We also keep her tablet in there, well, we don't keep her tablet in there but we will bring her tablet with us because we like having access to all of our educational apps as well as our curriculum such as teaching textbooks and that zookeeper that allows us to do math and language arts on the go. In addition to all of the things that we keep in the car that helps keep her hands busy and her mind engaged, we also like to keep audiobooks available. The things that we use for audiobooks are Audible which just so you know, you do not have to be a subscriber to use it. You can still buy audiobooks and not subscribe. Hoopla and Overdrive or Libby. Now Hoopla and Overdrive or Libby are through your library system. So those are free and anybody can sign up with their library card. And I try to get all of our audiobooks there first and then if they don't have them, I will go buy from Audible. And we always have an audiobook going. We actually have multiple audiobooks going normally and so we call our car schooling one our car school audiobook. In addition to audiobooks, you can also use podcasts. There are a ton of amazing educational podcasts out there. So those are really, really fun to use in the car and we love them. Now I'm going to turn you around in just a minute and show you guys kind of some of our absolute favorites, the things that pretty much always stay in our car for car schooling. And then I'm also gonna show you some specialty things because I like to change up our car schooling based off of things that I know we're gonna be doing. So if we're studying a unit study, if Emily has something super interesting that she's into, if we're going on a specific field trip and we are actually indeed going on two field trips in the near future, we're gonna be going to Kennedy Space Center as well as a national park. And so I have some things that I will be adding to car schooling to just make it a little more fun because those drives are gonna be a little longer than just our typical hour and a half round trip drive. Okay, so let's start with the essentials. This pretty much stays in the car all the time. It is a Sterilite container that has a divider. We have our Crayola Erasable Pencils. We have a water reservoir brush. So this keeps water in it and I just refill it whenever it gets empty with a water bottle in the car. Normally a dry erase marker and then some pencils. We normally always have some type of the Neverboard Learning Cards. As Warren has a ton of them, there's maze ones and word search ones, but they're just dry erase cards and that comes with a dry erase marker and they're just different activities to keep your kids busy in the car. So there's like the matching pairs and then let's see, these are brand new. The road signs, repairs, which are identical. So they're just kind of like fun little dry erase cards. Things pull them out and play them while they're in the car. And again, it has a dry erase marker with it, but in case this one gets lost, that's why we always keep one in that container. She also loves to keep trivia in the backseat with her. She likes to try to quiz Kevin and I while we're driving and stump us. So something like these brain buster trivia cards, professor noggin cards, or even a trivia book is essential because again, she just likes to ask the questions and try to stump us. She loves it when we get them wrong. And I love that she's sneaky learning at the same time. I also love keeping like activity books like word searches or puzzles and games. We really like the ones from Usborne because they're such great quality and they're vibrantly colorful and kind of fun and they come in all kinds of different ones. So this is just a general knowledge word search. Then we have some word puzzles and games. Then this one is number puzzles and games. And then this is a memory game pad. So what I really like about these is these little sheets rip right off and it's based off of memory. So you spend a few minutes, seconds, depending on what it says. This one says one minute studying this. And then when you flip the page, you try to remember what you studied and write it in here. So these are really, really great for challenging and stretching her mind. I also love to keep drawing activities in the car. She loves to draw. So this is just a sketchbook that has like a clear cover on the front. I buy these at Walmart at back to school time and it's just plain sketch paper in it. And then I have these directed drawings in the front. And I have some for each of the different seasons. So I change them out seasonally. There's winter and spring and summer. I will leave a link for these in the description box. But I just changed them out for her so that she has all kinds of seasonal things to draw while we're in the car. And then I also try to keep some sort of simple drawing book in there as well. This is lots of things to draw so that if she's not in the mood for something seasonal, there's still plenty of other drawing options for her. I absolutely love the magic painting books. They're so awesome because all you need is water. That's why we keep that water paintbrush in there. And there's so many different ones to choose from. So you just flip this little thing forward to prevent you from painting on the next one. And then she can use that paintbrush to paint while we're in the car. And because it's just water, again, I can just refill it with a water bottle while we're driving. I also like to sneak in as much math as possible so I like to keep small hands-on math things like these. So we have the wrap-ups. This is multiplication. That's what she's working on currently. So these are in there for her to work on while we're in the car. And then this math gear from Melissa and Doug is also multiplication. It's just a fun hands-on way to get her to practice while we're driving. We absolutely love games. So we, of course, have some in the car as well. My favorite games for us to keep in the car are single-player logic games that she can play from the backseat by herself. But I really, really love the ones that are magnetic so you don't lose the pieces. So these are by Smart Games. And all of the pieces are magnetic, so they stick to it. And then there's multiple different levels of challenges within these. And these are just small and easy to use. We have quite a few of them. Again, the pieces just stick on there and then it all snaps together. And then one of our newest additions that I really love is canoodle duplexity. And it is fantastic because it has a carrying handle. So it's great if you need to carry it in somewhere as well as the pieces are magnetic. And even all of the different card, like the different levels, store inside here. So it's just kind of a really convenient all-in-one game that doesn't lose its pieces while you're driving. Emily loves to build and when she was younger, I would just use a pencil box with one different building medium. So she only had one thing at a time. This is like one of those like fish tackle boxes and it's divided. So I have different things in here now that she's a little bit older. So we have linking cubes right now, some brain flakes, and then some unifix cubes or math cubes currently. So that's what I have in there. And then I changed these stem cards out seasonally as well. So this is the fall season, just to give her some ideas if she needs some while we're in there. And what I love is that they actually just fit right in this box. So she's ready to go with like a little portable in the car stem bin. The last essential that we keep in car schooling is a sensory item of some kind. These are fantastic for if we're anxious, if we have a long way, if we just need to kind of calm down. I love the broccoli boxes minis for this, but we've used all kinds of sensory items in the past. And this is just a pencil case that has all of the little sensory things. So basically this will be an on the go sensory bin for her to play with in the car as she needs it. And then the last few essentials are her Kindle Paperwhite. I used to keep a lot of books in the car, but once I got this for her, I found it was a lot easier because I could just load new books on it and kind of keep track of what she had read, what she was interested in. So I really enjoy having the Kindle Paperwhite for her. It's also easier for her to read for a longer period of time without hurting her eyes because it can adjust and it doesn't have that blue light. And then we also, like I said, we don't keep her tablet in the car, but we do keep it, and we take it into the car frequently so that she can play educational apps and do things like teaching textbooks and night zookeeper and other educational things on it. Now when we have a field trip or a trip trip coming up, I like to add some specific things into her car schooling so that it's something that relates to it. So we are studying space and heading to Kennedy Space Center soon. So these are some of the space type things that I will be adding to her car schooling for that field trip. I have our Professor Noggin space so that she can ask us trivia questions from the back seat. I have space word searches. The Usborne Space Puzzle Pad. Again, this is just one of those puzzle pads that has lots of different space related activities in it. I have the Space Magic Painting Book. The Look Inside Space. She likes the with the flat type of thing so I thought this would be a fun way to learn a little bit more. And then a Build Your Own Space Warrior sticker book. Just a few days after we get home from Kennedy Space Center, we will be leaving for a national park and we will be taking about a 10 plus hour drive. So these are some of the things that I would add for a trip like that. I have our Professor Noggin National Park so she can quiz us while we're driving. And then I have a travel word search. 100 things to do on a car trip and this is again, just travel based activities. The Travel Activity Pad. So lots of different activities that have to do with traveling. The Travel Journal. Now this is a new one but I like to always keep some sort of travel journal in there when we are traveling so that she can journal and write down her thoughts on things we're seeing and doing. And then this is one of those clipboards that has storage. I love to keep this in there for her so that she has some things sturdy to write on. And inside here for this long trip, I have our free road trip pack. So we have road trip bingo, the road scavenger hunt, the road trip scavenger hunt, road trip I spy, the U.S. license plate game. And I will actually, I didn't laminate them because I didn't want them to glare for you guys but I'll actually have you laminate it so that she can use them again and again on the trip. If she wants to do it like on the way there and on the way back. I'll leave a link for these in the description box below as well. Now maybe you love the idea of car schooling but compiling all of these things is just too much of a headache for you. Then I really suggest something like this, the on the go bag. So this is just something that's already all put together for you that is full of different fun activities that your kids can do in the car and it takes no thought on your end at all. You just buy it and it's ready to go. I hope you enjoyed seeing some of our absolute favorite things for car schooling. Now before you go, I want you to make sure you check out that description box because I have left links for our car schooling blog post which has all of the answers to frequently asked questions. Our favorite educational podcast that you can use in the car. Our top audio books as well as some of our other favorites that you're going to enjoy that would make great additions. If you still have more car schooling questions and that doesn't answer it or you would like additional suggestions for resources, let me know in the comments and I would be happy to answer your questions and give you suggestions.