Hoteling-It Around the Country

What is Hoteling It?

You might be thinking, is this like when we go to the beach for a week? Not exactly…

This may not be something you ever need to do, but some people plan this type of trip occasionally while for others this is a daily way of life.

For those of you that might be new around here, my husband is known nation-wide as the Chicken Whisperer. A couple of times a year, he tours the country to speak at workshops and do book signings. These typically last 6 – 8 weeks. Normally, we do this in our RV. I’ve covered the Chicken Whisperer Tour a few times before: Florida Bound 2014, CW Fall Tour 2015, Chicken Whisperer Fall Tour Complete, CW Tour Update, and more…  

This time, things are a little different. About a month before the tour, my husband threw out the idea that we might want to stay in hotels for this trip. I made that face like, “You’ve GOT to be crazy!” He ignored me and continued sharing his thoughts about how it would be great on our gas mileage and since his events are back to back causing us to have to stay in a different place every night after traveling 2 – 3 hours every day to the next event, it might work better for us… this time.

I am NOT a hotel person, especially with kids. First, the last few times we’ve stayed in hotels it’s like moving a mountain of toys, snacks, books, shoes, computer bags, diaper bags, homeschool materials, clothes, a radio for music we listen to at bedtime, Lily’s eating chair, etc. You’re exhausted after rolling the cart where the wheels are always flat to your room.  Then, I feel like I have to keep them really quiet the entire time we’re visiting, which is like asking someone to keep a rooster from crowing all day long. It’s not possible without making them stew meat. Not to mention, there’s just the stress of being somewhere that’s not yours, night after night. Not your bed, not your shower, not your carpet, not your light that you can dim in the bathroom, and not your kitchen… which leads us into another issue. This trip is going to last 4 weeks round trip. Four weeks of not having our own kitchen to cook our own food. I really wasn’t looking forward to it, BUT my hubby had a point, so I said I’d give it a try, but we had to do things different. We made a plan on how to organize everything we were taking to keep things at a minimum. This is how we did it…

How we pack for multiple hotel stays

This hotel stay was going to be different. We were not lugging everything including the kitchen sink into the hotel room as we normally do. We were going to be organized, so we came up with a plan.

Packing the truck

We wanted to pack the truck to make things easily accessible when we needed them. Here’s how we did it from the front to the back.

What we bring inside the car:

In the seat between the kids, we always bring a toy bin of things the kids can play with. I have them choose their own toys they want to play with on their trip before we leave. They can only reach the toys on top, but it’s not too hard for me to turn around and hand them what they need when they ask.

Behind the toy bin is a red bag that holds some of our school materials including clipboards with blank white copy paper, workbooks, coloring books, and construction paper.

In the floor…

In front of Lily are 2 bags of snacks.

In front of Caleb is another box of schooling supplies.

What we bring inside the Camper Top:

Closest to the tailgate (See the picture above from Left to Right):

Box of shoes: We brought 3 pairs of shoes each. In the box we have our tennis shoes for times we needed them, but this box eventually made its way toward the back. We didn’t wear shorts often in the northern climate, so we just stuck with the boots we wore each day. We kept our sandals in a plastic bag in the hamper that we took into the hotel each day for showering.

Cooler: We brought a few cool foods that we would bring in with us to put in the fridge each night.

Computer Bag: This is my husband’s computer bag and it went with us everywhere.

Hamper Basket: This worked like a suitcase for us and went in the hotel each night. There were a few things that always stayed inside it like the medicine bag, diaper bag, and AED. We often stacked the bath bag and shower bag on top of it. Each time before entering the hotel, I would pull out clothes to wear for the next day from the black drawers, which we would talk about next.

Black Drawers: These drawers held all of our clothes. Each person in the family had a drawer. Additional drawers held swim suits, cold clothes gear (hats, scarves, & gloves), and pajamas.

Hanging Clothes: On the left are my husband’s work clothes and on the right we hung our heavy jackets.

The next section shown above includes these items…

On the left, is where my husband’s work box started out. It soon ended up under the dirty clothes hamper on the right because it was a frequently used item. We took it out at each of Andy’s events. We also kept his stool with the event box, since it would come out each time.

We brought a black bin that we filled with water bottles at the beginning of our trip. It was a lot cheaper than picking up a bottle of water at the gas station all the time.

Beyond that on the left are boxes of extra books, magazines, and pamphlets that we would use for Andy’s events over time, but we didn’t need all of them every time. For each event, I would pull out one box of each so I had them stacked with that in mind.

On the right, you’ll see the filled gas can, which we always carry with us on trips like this. You never know when you’ll be traveling in the middle of nowhere and need gas, but none of the stations are open.

Further back, are tools that always stay in the truck. Better to be prepared.

Once we checked into the hotel, the right side of the bed next to the black drawers was empty, so we brought Andy’s work stuff that he would need for his event forward for easy access.

After his events, we put all Andy’s work stuff back where they started and we’d return to the hotel.

The next morning everything we took into the hotel was returned to its place in the truck, but all the dirty clothes would be placed in the dirty clothes bin and would be replaced with new clothes for the next day.

Every couple of days, we tried to reserve a hotel that offered coin laundry, but occasionally we had to find a laundromat.

What do we take into the hotel?

Not the kitchen sink. I mentioned most of the items earlier in this post. Our list is much more streamlined and efficient. We quickly figured out a Tetris method of how to fit everything on the cart each time we roll it into the hotel. 

What homeschool materials did I chose to bring?

I minimalized my homeschooling materials for this trip, not because I didn’t plan on working with my kids, but because we didn’t have a lot of space. With what I know how, I could have weeded out even more. Here’s a list of things we actually used…

Markers

Dry erase markers

Eraser

Dry erase board

Workbooks

Glue

Scissors

Clipboards with blank copy paper

Smocks

Before leaving, I found some worksheet resources I thought would benefit my kids on Teacherspayteachers. They have a lot of great products for all price ranges, even FREE!

I actually created a new product while on the road, so I used the business centers at various hotels along the way to print out the pages as I completed them for my kids to test out during schooling time. You can check out Veggie Themed Basic Math Activities at The Learning Wagon Store!

How and where do we fit in time to school?

We were able to fit in a little homeschooling every day. I tried doing things at various times during the day, but on event days, we had fun carschooling. After getting Daddy all setup, we went back to the car got down to work. Sometimes, we just sat in our seats and used our clipboards to practice writing our last name, write numbers, or do basic addition. I used the dry erase board to practice reading letters, blending, sight words, and sentences. Other times, we had fun in the back of Daddy’s truck. With the hotel items dropped off and Daddy’s work stuff out, we had some space to have some sensory play with kinetic sand and play dough. When we had a day off, we homeschooled in the hotel or even better, we roadschooled. We found some awesome places nearby to learn from. The most memorable was seeing one of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan. This was a first for our whole family! We had a great time playing at the beach, but we also enjoyed our trip to visit the De Zaan Windmill at Windmill Island Gardens. It’s the only authentic Dutch windmill still working in the United States! These were just a few of the great adventures we had traveling around from state to state.

I hope you found this post helpful or at least interesting to see a different way people live. In a future post, I'll be sharing some of our hotel traveling hacks! I hope you come back and join us! 

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God Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~

3 Reading Practice Activities

3 Reading Practice Activities

We love playing games during our learning times. These 3 reading activities make it fun to practice letter names, sounds, sight words and blending words.

Reading is fun!

Peek-A-Boo Letters

For this activity, I folded a sheet of copy paper in half 3 times so that when you open the sheet up there are 16 squares. Then, I cut across the3 folds going across the short side of the paper. Each cut strip should have 4 squares.

Then, I wrote a letter inside each square. You can use painter’s tape to cover the letters yourself or like me, you can allow your little one to tear the tape and cover each letter herself. Once they’re covered, the student can choose one to uncover and say, “Peek-A-Boo (letter name)” or “Peek-A-Boo (letter sound).”

Then, the student can recover the letter and choose another one.  

Peek-A-Boo Blending

This activity is just like Peek-A-Boo letters but instead, I wrote words in the squares for my son to practice blending. First, he covered the words with painter’s tape. Then, he chose one to uncover and sound out. Once he figured it out he said, “Peek-A-Boo (word).” Then, he covered the words back up and chose another one. The game gets more and more fun because the next time he uncovered the word, he was already familiar with them and could figure out the word much faster. 

Sticky Letters & Sticky Words

For this activity, I tore short and long pieces of tape and placed each on the ground randomly. Then, I used a permanent marker to write letters and blending words. Each child took a turn. Lily Anne chose letters to name and Caleb chose words to read. Once they read them, they could peel them up.

 

Letter Bash & Sight Word Bash

Lily Anne played the Letter Bash game. I used painter’s tape to tape a letter to a paper cup. Then, I created a small tower. Lily told me the letter name and then got to throw a ball toward the tower to knock it over. She had a blast!

Caleb played the Sight Word Bash game. I taped a sight word to each cup and created a tower. Caleb read each word and then through the ball to knock down the tower. I love it when they get so excited they jump up and down all over the place when they’re learning! I know I’ve got a winner.

I hope you have as much fun with these games as we did. I’d love to hear how they went! Feel free to let me know in the comments below or find me on Facebook or Twitter! I always love to hear from my readers!

God Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~

Are you interested in more ways to practice sight words? Check out my post on Sight Word Games.

I also have several great products that you’ll want to check out! Just click the images below.

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Wrapping Paper Fine Motor Activities

If you’re like me, as you’re wrapping Christmas presents, you keep little scraps of wrapping paper because you MIGHT use them later. Well, if you didn’t use those little scraps up, check out these fun ways to let your children play and learn with them all while building fine motor muscles.

Wrapping Paper Fine Motor Activities:

Ripping & Pasting

Ripping wrapping paper (even the cheap stuff) can be difficult if they don’t do it right. Initially, Lily, my 2 year old wanted to grab a fist full in each hand and pull the paper apart. Even my 4 year old, Caleb, wanted to rip the paper by pulling it in opposite directions. After a little instruction and some practice, they got the hang of it. I told them to pinch the paper front and back making their thumbs kiss in the front and their pointing finger kiss in the back. Then, I had them hold one hand still while the other twisted forward and down. Ripping is definitely an important skill to learn. Even as adults, we rip paper out of notebooks, checks out of the checkbook, and when you don’t have scissors around (and let’s face it… you can never find a pair when you need it) you rip coupons out, a phone number off a paper, the wrapping paper off a present, or a package of chicken nuggets out of your freezer.

Have you ever ripped the bar code off a coupon or ripped right through the phone number you just wrote down? Frustrating Huh? At this point, I’m just having my kids rip, but eventually, they’ll practice ripping in a straight line or later around objects. It’s a helpful skill to be good at.

I had my children keep their ripped paper in a small basket. When they were finished, I gave them ½ a piece of construction paper and encouraged them to make a picture. Their picture ended up more like a collage, but it was still a lot of fun. If you have older children, you might encourage them to rip around the images on the wrapping paper you provided them. For example, our paper had pictures of snowmen, snowflakes, candy canes, and Santa Claus. Children could practice ripping around those images without ripping through them and then glue them to the paper to make a scene. They might glue a family of snowmen with snowflakes falling around them and Santa Claus handing out candy canes. When finished, it would be fun to have your children turn their artwork into a story. Encourage them to write about what is happening.

Cutting

It’s not necessary, but the best paper to use for this activity is the paper that has the dotted lines for cutting on the back. If your wrapping paper does have the lines, encourage them to follow the lines across. Initially, Caleb wanted to cut straight and then turn to cut out each square. To make things easier, I taught him to cut all the way across in one direction and then cut the strip in the opposite direction to create the squares.

If your paper does not have the dotted lines, I recommend encouraging your children to cut around the images on the front. Have them cut out the snowmen or birthday cakes or dinosaurs. Again, you could have them paste the pictures to a piece of paper to create a scene that they can write about in their journals. If you wanted to do something different, you might have them create a pattern with the pictures that they cut out.

Hole Punching

Hole punching is tough for little hands, but with practice it can get easier. I can already tell my two are getting better and better, which means their little hand muscles are getting stronger and stronger! For our hole punching activity, I had my children cut the wrapping paper (that had dotted lines on the back) into strips of about 6 squares. Then, they used the hole punch to punch one hole in each square. This is good for learning one-to-one correspondence as well!

A fun activity for older children would be to have them roll a dice and then punch that many holes in the first square. Then, they would repeat the process for the other squares on the strip. From there, students could count or add up how many punches they made in all and compare their total to a friend’s to see who had more, less, or equal!

Do you have lots of extra wrapping paper? It’s a pretty cheap resource that you can use in many ways. Check out10 Creative Things to do with Wrapping Paper for more fun ideas to learn! Also, feel free to share what you do with others in the comments below or find me on Facebook or Twitter! I always love to hear from my readers!

God Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~

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