home schooling kids

Hui Wilsongirl,
Can I suggest you do a search on this site for home schooling & also speak to your local school &/or the state education office as they are the ones that will have the 'final say' dont let this daunt you as many people do it..... with great success.....broad experiance is always the best.
Re the van ....do a search also on this site & also have a look at carvanners forum.....heaps of info there. Maybe hire a different van or two over the next six months or so & get a feeling for what you want/require.
Hoping you will get further replies to this post... but you must do the ground work, dont rely soley on what others say... you must check everything out for yourself & be comfortable in your own desisions.
Have a wonderful trip... it truely is a beautiful country out there....

How long will you be travelling for? Often teachers can supply a few activities for them to do. Take lots of books and show them heaps.

If you are intending being on the road for more than six months then make inquiries with education authorties.

We've been on the road for 12 mOnths now and seen plenty of parents home schooling. It will be such an exciting adventure for them.
As for the caravan, I can only advise that make sure you can it up quickly and easily. Also, if you get a week of rain or heavy winds will it be suitable?
We are in a similar camper trailer (don't have kids though) and find the constant packing up a bit of a pain. Also when in bad weather for a few days, we struggle to find comfort in a camper trailer.
We didnt get a caravan cause we wanted to go off road in various places but We have been off road a few times and left the trailer behind anyway.
We are heading home over Christmas and hoping to buy a small caravan and keep traveling for another 12 months.

Just a few things to think about :)
You will love it on the road, such an awesome experience.

At those ages Distance Education from your home state should be quite manageable for you providing you get organised to spend some regular time at it and arrange for material to be posted to you as you go. You will not need many hours a week to cover the course - with one on one teaching you can go much quicker than in a classroom of 25 children! A lot of activities can be covered as you travel - tracing your trip on a map, reading signs, reading stories, visiting points of interest etc. Your kids will learn a lot from the trip if you involve them as you go.The main thing is to make sure they will be able to fit back into school at the right level when you return. Don't got too fussed about it- just relax and make lessons a normal part of the trip.
It is easier to use Distance Ed for a long trip than to try and do it all yourself. For a short trip your school will probably be able to give you enough material to enable the kids to keep up.
As for the van - remember you will need to be able to carry a reasonable amount of gear for the kids, including school stuff, and have it easily accessible. The weather will not always be good so you will need room for everyone to be inside sometimes in rain or cold. If you stay for a while at one place and use it as a base for day trips, setting up an annexe would give you a lot more living space for the kids. With kids you cannot keep moving all the time, you need to stay in one spot for a while to give them a break so take that into account when planning the trip - it might be more fun for everyone to cover less distance but do it in more depth so you all look forward to future trips to the bits you don't reach now. You should be able to have a great trip and give your kids wonderful memories. Lynne

Thankyou everyone for your help and encouragement. There are a few people ion our lives that are saying it is a bad decision, but we are sure it will be wonderful.

We are doing a lot of research, i love planning things so i am in my element. I think hiring some vans to test them out is a great idea. 2013 seams so far away, but i am sure time will fly by and it will be here before we know it.

We plan on going for just over a year, maybe longer if we like it.

We register as homeschoolers through Victoria using my mother's address. That is fine, and there are no problems with it at all.

We enquired about school of the air and distance education...basically it is only paper curriculums that you are sent if you are travellers because they are unable to provide you with the necessary satelitte dish for communicating online.

I would suggest that you go home schooling option. At that age, the only formal tuition that they need while you travel are English and maths. The rest they can learn on the road. May I suggest you read a summary I wrote today about what I do with mysix year old for school? They are only little, and the most important skill you can possibly give them is the 3Rs... the rest they will get from travelling.

Enjoy the trip, and if you need any help with the school or kids side of travelling, or want to ask questions, feel free to contact me. We've been travelling for nearly 2 years with four kids, so we're getting used to this now.