Which Grade to Homeschool Travel?

[bee20]

This probably will never happen but it's Friday afternoon and I'm curious.  I was talking with a friend who has a kid about how she can never go anywhere now that her kid is starting kindergarten.  Her kid is well beyond the "pre kindergarten readiness" checklist on the school website, and is doing well socially and "academically" in preschool. She has a degree in education but has since transitioned into a different career. 

Assuming the child is learning well, she is considering taking him out for a year of homeschool travel.  The kid's dad is not from the US, so the idea would be language immersion in home country for several months, and then a few months of round the world travel. 

If you were going to consider or suggest this, which grade would this be best for?  She was thinking maybe 4th or 5th grade.  Schools here are K-6, 7-8, and then 9-12.  Anyone do this themselves as a kid or parent?

[nancybotwin]

As someone in education, I’ve seen parents do it at almost every age and there are pros and cons of each. I think it can work at any age (and briefly considered doing it next year when my kids will be in 2nd, 4th and 8th). I work with kids who are in preschool through 8th grade, so I have never seen it/experienced it with high school and I’ve heard it is much harder to do then (which is why I considered doing it next year, before DD1 enters HS).

[jinkies]

I think earlier is better, but anything before 9th grade is probably fine. I personally would not do it during high school.

K-2 would be ideal, for me.

[dale]

I would choose to do it before 7th. In 7th grade my DS was in a program where he was on track for a few high school classes. 7th was the start of US History, and in 8th he was doing the other core classes at high school level. He wouldn't have been able to do the right labs for science if he was homeschooling and it would have screwed him up.

[gretchenindisguise]

Not an educator, but as a parent I would say 3rd or 4th grade would have been ideal for my kids.

They learn to read and get lots of the baselines in K-1. Then things start going more social in 6-8. Our school is K-6th and 6th grade (sans-COVID) is pretty magical.

[Jalapeñomel]

Definitely before middle or high school.

[notsopicky]

I agree w/ dale--def before 7th.

Anecdata, but my kid did virtual learning in 4th and it was ideal. I feel the same way about international travel/homeschooling. Feels like that age is the sweet spot.

[sandandsea]

I would do it before 5th as 5th can determine middle school class placement which determines high school class placement. We had distance learning part of 2nd and all of 3rd and it was absolutely awful for ds, but he’s mostly caught up halfway through 5th.

[mcsangel2]

3rd or 4th. I *might* consider 2nd if the kid was established as a solid/advanced reader by then. I'm not an educator, but over the years in my daily life, as I meet new people, I have occasionally met a few that have struggles (as adults) with reading and writing. Most of those people had a disruptive move or other life event at ages 6 or 7. Based on my own experiences of what happened when my family moved to a different city in the middle of 5th grade, and how it messed up my math education, I always wondered about the reading challenged adults and if the disruption in their lives right when they would have been learning to read was responsible. It took me a year to catch up on my math education, but reading difficulties can be harder to catch up on.

[redheadk]

I’d say 3rd or 4th, with 4th being my top pick. Young enough to be a good candidate for homeschooling without intense work and to enjoy lots of family time but old enough to enjoy traveling, learn some life lessons, and have lots of forever memories from the trip.

[quesyrah]

Well I homeschool full time so my opinion is that any year is a good year to homeschool.

However, if she plans to return her kids to a formal school, I would do it before 6th grade.

[Susie]

My cousin did it when her daughter was in 2nd grade, about 15 years ago.  She (mom) was an elementary teacher, I think for 2nd grade, so the curriculum was already there for her.  They sold their house, bought an Airstream, and traveled the country for a year.  A lot of their focus was on the outdoors and national parks.  They all remember it really fondly.  

[minzy]

A friend just did this with her four kids - the oldest was in fifth grade at the time. I have a sixth grader and I don’t think I’d go later. I agree that fourth grade is probably ideal - there’s a reason why they pick that age for the National Parks pass (they call 9-11 an impressionable age). everykidoutdoors.gov/how.htm

[spindle92]

My friend basically did this from k thru 3rd grade with her daughter. They traveled all over the place on cruise ships.

She started 4th in a classroom setting and did just fine adjusting.

[basilosaurus]

My aunt did this for my cousins around k-2. They're successful now.

What probably doesn't apply to your family is that they are nationals of a country with pretty minimal educational standards that met one cousin's dyslexia with basically a shrug, and the public school used a beka fundie curriculum.

Regardless, I think cousins were better for that travel. It was hard on my aunt, though, to be mom, teacher, disciplinarian.

[plutocherry]

We're doing it next year, and the kids will be 1st and 5th. Would have liked to do it earlier but COVID intervened. Our principal is encouraging us to go. We won't follow a curriculum - just read, journal, do some math, and soak it all in.

[sonrisa]

If she is going for language immersion:
(1) younger is better.
(2) longer is better.
A month or two in a country (especially not enrolled in school there) won't make much impact. I'd say do a full school year there for a fairly early education level (1st or 2nd. 3rd at the latest), and enroll in a local language school. By 5th grade, the differences in education styles between countries plus the lower natural fit for new languages will likely leave them struggling more. I moved around a lot as a kid and the small but significant differences in teaching/education styles really add up over the years. There will be two "languages/cultures" to learn - the basic one and the school specific norms.

IF they are planning to move and not integrate, later is fine. But don't expect the kids to learn the language. I've known a number of kids who lived abroad for a stint 4th grade and later and learned none of the language.

[sonrisa]

Dec 30, 2022 18:36:00 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

 my family moved to a different city in the middle of 5th grade, and how it messed up my math education,

Yep. If you go 4th and up there is a good chance it'll mess up math. More parents are ready to supplement reading at home and catch a kid up than math. So they should go planning to lean heavily on whatever the kids should be doubling down on at that age. 

I moved, usually between countries, at ages: 3 years, 3rd grade (mid year), 4th grade (only same country move), 5th grade, and 7th grade.

I was a strong reader and the US had lower standards for math education compared to other countries. Landing here in 7th was easy. Leaving here for somewhere else during any math centric year would have been hard.

[sent]

My kid is in 4th right now. She started public school in 2nd grade during the COVID year and it seems like they didn't do much of anything important in 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm not sure they do much this year either. DD has to be behind any world standard for math right now. They have no books, no homework, and I seriously don't know how they learn. I only know they probably do learn something because I've seen DD's handwriting improve over the years. So I'd say any grade between 1 - 4. There is a family in my practice that was going to do this as part of the parent's sabbatical year and the kids are in 8th and K. They couldn't get their kids enrolled in a school overseas in time so they just unschooled them for like 5 months and traveled a lot. They finally came back home with the other parent to re-enroll back in their regular public school. The 8th grader was talking about the adventures and seemed to think it was cool she got to do all those things.

[stemmie]

I would do it by 4th. Language immersion would be easier for the child at that age. Also, tracking for high school here is based on 5th grade placement/test scores. Whether a kid can complete calculus is decided by May of 5th grade. RELA tracking is also determined at that age and can factor into how young a student can take world language (less of a big deal in this scenario) if they meet benchmarks for reading/writing.

[abs]

Dec 31, 2022 8:46:26 GMT -5 stemmie said:

I would do it by 4th. Language immersion would be easier for the child at that age. Also, tracking for high school here is based on 5th grade placement/test scores. Whether a kid can complete calculus is decided by May of 5th grade. RELA tracking is also determined at that age and can factor into how young a student can take world language (less of a big deal in this scenario) if they meet benchmarks for reading/writing.

Not the point but this blows my mind.  It is that way here, too.  Tracking for math starts in 4th grade and your 6th grade course selections determine what you can take in high school.  Insanity.

[nicolewi]

I think I would vote for 4th, with 3rd second on my list.

We have never done this, but my kids are currently in 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th. Middle school starts in 6th for us. I just think it gets harder to miss school/miss typical math, science, etc as they get older.Still, 6th would maybe still have been okay, but I think it would make a tough transition to 7th.

I feel like my 2nd grader is still really little...I don't know that she would fully appreciate the opportunity, and I think she would still be a little harder to travel with. I.e. on a recent trip, mine is anxious and was still scared of a lot of things. She is slower, can't carry as many bags, just still a little less reasonable/flexible as compared to the older kids.

Fourth grade to me is a perfect balance of maturity, independence, old enough to try to take advantage of the opportunity, and still being very open to everything new, and also still loving being with mom & dad; not "too cool" for everything yet. My fourth grader has grown up a lot in the past year and is really fun to do things with.

[erbear]

Dec 31, 2022 8:46:26 GMT -5 stemmie said:

I would do it by 4th. Language immersion would be easier for the child at that age. Also, tracking for high school here is based on 5th grade placement/test scores. Whether a kid can complete calculus is decided by May of 5th grade. RELA tracking is also determined at that age and can factor into how young a student can take world language (less of a big deal in this scenario) if they meet benchmarks for reading/writing.

This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I am floored that a school district in 2022 still operates like this.

[Leeham Rimes]

We did homeschool during COVID for a year. They were in 2nd and 5th and the program we used (FLVS) was head and shoulders above what we have at a district level. They were testing a grade level ahead at the start of 3rd and 6th but lost the advantage by the end of the year after traditional schooling.

I feel confident that they’d get an excellent education no matter when, so for me I always give the kids the option. I honestly wish they’d want to do flvs bc it’s just infinitely better than what we have now.

I think it’s more the program you have and how well you use it. With our program even though it was “home school” they still had a teacher to help them when they needed it, it wasn’t all on me. They just had to schedule the help.

[jg183]

I'd do 4th or 5th. I'd want them to have one year back with friends before middle school. Sports, activities, etc seem to be picking up more in 5th.

[waverly]

I would say K-3rd would be best. My kids are getting more socially aware with their friends starting in 4th for my daughter and 5th for my son.

[mustardseed2007]

A friend of mine is talking about doing this with her daughter. I think she's going to do it in 4th grade based on some things related to our school specifically. 5th grade is a bridge year at our school for middle school. They are housed in the middle school and changes classes like middle school but the grading is elementary school level. It will give her an opportunity to travel, but them come back in the middle school building and see if they like it enough to actually stay through middle school at our school or see if she wants to go to a new school.

Additionally I think even in our school there is a placement factor that happens with math in particular.