HOW TO START WORLDSCHOOLING WITHOUT LEAVING HOME!

New to worldschooling? Check out our “What in the world is worldschooling?” article here!

So, you’ve decided you like the sound of worldschooling – but it’s going to take you a while to save up for that trip you want to do. What’s a family to do?

The good news is, there’s plenty you can be getting on with!

GETTING OUT AND ABOUT!

The first thing we did, was make a list of every playground we could think of within a 15 minute drive. The list was longer than we expected – in our case we had 10, (with 5 more very good ones just outside of our 15min limit)! Next, we vaguely ranked them – which ones were unusual in their design or construction, which ones had “extra” bits like skate parks, paddling pools, splash pads, or parkour equipment. Then we consciously mixed it up! At least 2 different playgrounds every week, trying not to repeat ourselves, making sure we hit every one on the list. We created as much playground variety as we could.

We made similar lists for historic buildings and sites, with a larger drive radius. Obviously, the history for each family’s area and country is going to be different, but our list included a number of stately homes, castle and abbey ruins, historic industrial sites, roman ruins and a stone circle. Yours might include historic state buildings, ancient native sites that welcome visitors, battlefields, who knows?! Then, again, we set the intention to make it through our list, mixing up big places with small places, ruins with things still standing, ancient past with more recent past.

We did it again with nature centres, zoos, forestry centres and parks. And again with museums. And even with swimming pools! (Our kids are huge water lovers!) We tried to think of anything unusual or unique a visitor to our area might want to see or do! And we tried to think of everything we might possibly want to do while travelling, and then looked for a version of it near our home! We even played a game with ourselves of “if we moved to another country tomorrow, what could we NOT do any more?” and noted our results!!! We were surprised at the huge amount – and the variety – we came up with!

INSIDE YOUR FOUR WALLS!

Of course, there’s plenty more you can do inside your four walls! We dabble in learning other languages. We’ve got several “First 1000 words in …….” books for learning vocabulary. And YouTube is brilliant for finding cartoons in other languages – we’ve watched Pocoyo in Spanish, Masha and the Bear in Russian and Fun Fun Elmo in Mandarin! We watch animated films from other countries, to see a different perspective, and read books set in other countries. And every now and then we try food from other countries. (But not as often as we’d like due to a kiddo with some food issues!) Plus, we love looking at kid-friendly atlases and map books!

As you can see, with a bit of thought and planning, you can make a start with worldschooling right in your own metaphorical backyard! Whatever you do at home will be a contrast to whatever you do in a far-flung country in the future, and will provide endless comparisons for your kids! So get planning, and get going on those adventures today!!!