 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waduk way. I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be about car schooling or road schooling. By now you probably know that we are getting ready to go on a big road trip. It is part of our back to school kind of season. We are going to be going on our longest road trip and we're gonna be going the farthest we've ever gone. So the plan is Texas and New Mexico and possibly Arizona. So with that in mind, I decided that it was probably time for me to update and lay as car school organizer which is like a bin that sits next to her in the car full of educational activities that kind of keep her busy when we're in the car and on the go. And I thought I should share it with you guys because I haven't shared one with you in forever. And so if you are interested in activities to keep your kids busy that are also educational for the car and the road, make sure you stay tuned and you might also wanna check out this playlist that has months worth of car schooling videos that we've done in the past. Now normally when we car school or road school I don't worry about academics per se because we are typically doing something educational pretty much always. And this trip isn't really an exception to that because we will be visiting historical sites like the Alamo and National Parks. So it is an academic educational trip. However, that being said, the school year just started. We are only two weeks in. We have just kind of like figured out our rhythm. And so I don't really wanna like let all of that go and just throw caution to the wind. So we will still be doing some basics while we are on the go and in the car. And those are gonna be our math, some writing and some reading. And so we will be doing teaching textbooks while we are on the go because they make it so easy and like can just use her tablet. She has the app and even when we don't have a lot of service, it always like downloads the next couple of lessons and it's on this continuous cycle. So even when service isn't the greatest she'll still be able to do some math. And then the next time we get to a hotel that has Wi-Fi it'll upload those lessons and download the next few which is amazing because it just does that all by itself. We don't even have to think about it. So we will be using that for math. We will be using Knight Zookeeper for writing. It's just a fun way for her to get some writing in it doesn't require me taking like books for reference and paper and pins and a laptop. So she can do that from her tablet as well. And then we will be doing tons of reading because we have all already picked audio books that we wanna listen to and we all have tons of books downloaded on our Kindles. The books that me and Emily will be reading together are 39 clues. We just finished the first one and we have I think nine or 10 more to go. So I got the whole series on my Kindle so I can read those aloud to her during the trip mainly because I'm super interested and wanna know what happens next. And then also we recently found this series it is actually on Audible. It's called Rivals. It is hilarious. We listened to two of them and we saved the rest for the trip because we knew we would all enjoy it. So it's like Rivals for enemies who change the world there's one and two and then there's also Pirates, Vikings and Spies. So we've listened to Pirates and Vikings and we're saving the other three for the trip. So that's historical. We'll also be listening to some podcasts. Obviously we really, really like greeking out and brains on. There's tons of others that we really enjoy. And then Emily will also have her tablet as well that she can play educational games on just tons of apps. So I will link all of our favorite podcasts and apps for that kind of thing in the description so that you can check those out instead of me sitting here naming all of those off. That is the basic though. That's kind of how we're gonna get in our reading, writing and math on the trip and on the go without me needing to take a ton of stuff. And then in the car organizer next to Emily I have always kept educational activities that are screen free because while I have no problem with the screen I also don't want her to be on it for like 10 to 20 hours at a time. So I like to keep things that will keep her busy, entertain her that are somewhat educational that have some sort of value to them. And so I'm going to go ahead now and share what will be in her organizer that will sit next to her in the car. And those activities will just be in there for her to do whenever she wants to do them. Some of them are even some games that we can play on the road that I'm super excited about. So this is the stuff that will actually be in the car organizer next to Emily in the car. The first thing is our national park guide. She likes to pretend that she's the boss of our trips. So she asked for this to be next to her so that she could turn to whatever national park we would be going to and tell us, the entrance fee is where the visitor centers are, look at the map cause she is obsessed with maps. And you know, like the top three things to do inspiration or hikes, things like that. Like she just likes to think she's in charge. So she wanted this in her car school organizer. Then we also have the national park scavenger hunt. This is the first time we're using this and I'm really impressed. It's got all 63 national parks in it. And there's just like a few simple things to find but I feel like it keeps you active instead of kind of passive when you're at the parks either hiking or driving through the scenic drives. And so here's an example and then it gives you a little small excerpt about that national park and then like animals or a cabin or canyons just kind of depending on what that national park has. Sometimes it's plants, this one has a fossil. So it just kind of keeps you like I said, paying attention and then in the back there's actually a score sheet. So you could have like your total points for what you found for each of the national parks. So something to kind of keep her occupied if we're looking for specific things in specific parks. I also have the My Funny Fillins National Park Adventure. Now we have been using this for a while. I mean, there's some that have already done where we were using it but not all of them. So we will put this in here. She likes to ask us from the front seat. So like she'll say, give me these things and then she will try her best to read us. The story normally I end up reading it because she's laughing so hard she can't read. The Trace Along, Scratch and Sketch National Parks and Landmarks, I thought this would be kind of fun to do. She's not into as many like little kid things anymore. And so this is kind of a big kid thing and it comes with the little scratch. So it's kind of all self-contained and I liked that I had already previewed it. Some of the places that we were hoping to go were actually included in here. And then again, because she's over the little kid stuff, I got her Extreme Dot to Dot National Parks which is extreme to say the least. But she's really excited about it. She already, it's like, I can't wait to do those. So this is what some of the finished images look like. And then I actually have two of the license plates across the state's books. Me and her have already decided we're gonna compete. She's gonna keep my book and her little basket so that they're together. I need to get a permanent marker and write our names on the front. We've already decided that we're gonna compete. Basically in the center here, we have stickers for all of the different license plates. I mean, there's activities in here as well, like crosswords and stuff, but mainly we are going to take the stickers out and see who can find all or as many as close to. License plates from 50 States. And we haven't decided what the winner gets yet, but there's gonna be some sort of prize involved. And then I have the marvels of the U.S. activity book, spirit of the U.S. activity book and animals of the U.S. activity book. Just because we're gonna be going through numerous states, so there's just all kinds of just different fun things that she can do if she chooses to do so. I don't require any of this. I just like her to have things that aren't necessarily dependent on a screen all the time. So plenty of things to keep her occupied and learning more about some of the states that we might be traveling through. And then I also have the Across the USA activity book. This is also from Usborne. And it's just full of all kinds of different activities. And then in her pink clipboard, I have all of the traveling the states and traveling the parks student notebook pages that we will possibly be doing. So for example, here is Texas. So the coloring page, the flag profile, the state profile and the nature profile. And then the first, well, the national park traveling expense. And I seriously wish that these were still the prices. But then the first national park we'll be stopping at will be Big Bend. So I have all of the pages from traveling the parks for that so that we can do these on our trip. And then I also have just kind of a few like game and hands-on things. So the first thing I have is this wrap up. This is for the states and their capitals. So you would unwrap this. Let me see if I can get it to focus. There we go. And you would just wrap from the state to the capital and you would just keep doing that. And then what's really cool about it is obviously I'm doing this really fast and not paying attention. So what's really cool about it is if you turn it over there are like ridges here. So if your strings might match up, then you got it correct. So it's a self-checking puzzle. Obviously I did not get it correct. But it has all 50 states and capitals on it. So it will be kind of a fun way to quiz her while we're on the run. Then I also have the BrainQuest America. So this is like trivia. And Emily really loves trivia. She really loves stumping Kevin and I. Honestly, that is what she loves. So she loves anything trivia based that she can quiz us from the backseat. And we just keep it a secret that she's learning at the same time. So she will sit from the backseat and just ask us all of these. And then the answers are right behind there. And when she can stump us, she gets super excited. She stumps me a lot more than she stumps Kevin when it comes to things like this. He is a well of knowledge, just so much. I used to call it useless knowledge. And then we started homeschooling and it's no longer useless. Same thing with this. This is Trivial Pursuit National Parks. So it is trivia questions. There's a dice in here. And normally she will just roll the dice in her lap or she'll just randomly start asking us the questions on the back of the cards and see how many she can stump us on. And again, I'm not gonna tell her that it's self-learning because she's learning at the same time. So we just roll with it. Again, another trivia based game we have is the Professor Noggins. This is the Professor Noggin National Park. Now what we like about these is they have the easy and the hard questions. So typically we will start a study with an easy question and then try to progress to the hard. Or a lot of the times we will have her do the easy while she gives me and Kevin the hard. And then we have the Road Trip America Word Teasers. So this is another trivia kind of game. It's just a box full of word teaser trivia here. So UFO enthusiast flocked to which New Mexico town to honor an alleged UFO crash landing that occurred there in 1947. And the answer is Roswell. Let's see here. The world's largest outhouse race and anchorage Alaska requires each team's home made outhouse to have an occupant and what other item. Toilet paper of course. So just like random things about the America and things that happen here. Then we also have the scavenger hunt Road Trip. We haven't played this one before but you have like this little score sheet. So the name and you put a check mark in each one. And then you have a deck of cards, a huge deck of cards by the way. And you have all of these different images. So she will keep score for all of us. And it's basically whoever can find or spot the different things. So like a sign with an animal traffic cone. So again, a way to make it where you're participating versus being passive. And then I got her to kind of craft type things. One is cat cradle. I did this a ton when I was a kid. Some of them require two people's hands, like two people to do it. So she'll have to wait until I can do that with her. But I knew she would like the single hand once a ton. And because I have the instructions in it for how to do the different things, I think she will absolutely love this. Like I think she's gonna have the best time doing it. And then here's where I said, you know, sometimes you need the second person. So she'll have to wait for me for those. And then she's been really into making bracelets lately. So I got her this friendship bracelet kit. So it has a little clip and you actually clip your bracelet to the book. And then all the string is in this like Ziploc bag. And there's directions inside for making a ton of different, like here's the different bracelet patterns that the directions in here include. So I thought that would be something fun for her to do while we were in the car.