Our New Adventure

Thank you for checking out The Learning Wagon and reading my new blog, The RV Classroom. If you haven’t taken the time yet to read the All About Me page, I encourage you to click on the About button to the left of the page and get to know me so you can better understand my adventure. The short version of my background is that I am married to my awesome husband, Andy Schneider, and we have two beautiful children, Caleb and Lily. I have taught for the past nine years, but this year, we decided to do things a little different… 

This year, I am going to begin my homeschool journey with my children and not that any homeschool situation is “typical,” as each homeschool classroom is different from the next, but I believe our homeschooling style may be on the more unique end. Although I could be wrong…

Andy and I recently bought a 24’ RV as we travel a great deal for his work and packing and unpacking to stay in various hotels each night with two small children was a pain, so we felt that if we packed everything one time and then just hauled it from one place to the next it would work better. It has! We really enjoy our RV and after each of Andy’s business trips, we’ve been stopping at fun RV campsites to enjoy ourselves as well. 

Since we are on the road/camper so much, it has become my classroom to homeschool my children as well… Hence the title: The RV Classroom.

Right now, Caleb, my two year old, is working on his alphabet, singing nursery rhymes, rote counting, counting objects, colors, shapes, and various other skills and concepts as they come up in our environment. He loves to read and be read to. He’s very eager to learn and apply what he’s learned to new things. For example, he’s learned the letters O and I. Now he points them out anywhere he sees them; Ingles, Food Center, Pool, etc…

Lily, my five month old, is learning new things every day. She is rolling around like a little ball, starting to push with her feet to propel herself forward, although usually on this slick floor she moves backwards, and talking up a storm. Her determination to sit up is amazing. It won’t be long now. She dazzles us every day with new fetes.

Living in the RV does have its challenges. Four people in 240 square feet of living space taken up with beds, tables, a kitchen, bathroom, cabinets, and more gets quite small on rainy days when we’re stuck inside, but we always manage to find something fun to do as a family and no it’s not watch TV. We don’t have one. We try to be creative. Have I mentioned there have been many rainy days lately? In fact, at a time we are normally in drought 19 inches, we are in excess of 24 inches so far! Some of the things we’ve done on these days are listed below.

1.       Sing Rain, Rain go away! & It’s Raining! It’s Pouring! The old man is snoring! In fact, we have music playing constantly pretty much the entire time we are in the camper. Caleb loves music and the first thing he does in the morning upon waking is say “Susic,” which is "music" and turns the player on. We also do a lot of dancing as you can’t have music without dancing! 

2.       We punch up in the air as we say each of the letters in the alphabet. Then, we stomp each letter. Then, we clap each letter.

3.       We read books in his bunk bed together.

4.       I make up stories and act them out with his toys. This is one of his favorites!

5.       We practice our animal sound… What’s a cow say? Mooooo! What’s a owl say? Whooo! Whooo!

6.       We find shapes in the camper. Today, he found circles on the sides of the drawers where holes had been drilled for screws and the wheel that makes that drawer move in and out of the cabinet. He found squares and rectangles on the floor and the rectangle vent cover. 

7.       We take pictures of Caleb and Lily playing together with toys, because I don’t want to forget these sweet moments.

8.       We play with puzzles.

9.       We line monster trucks up and count them as they go zoom across the floor.

10.   We do go outside in the rain sometimes. Caleb has large metal Tonka trucks that he likes to catch the rain water in and then dump out. I also give him a paint brush that he uses to paint the rain water on everything.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my first blog post. I will keep them coming as maybe some of our experiences will inspire you to, “Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy!” just like Ms. Frizzle always said. I always wanted to be a teacher like her. Now, if I could just find that magic panel on this RV…