We have been living and travelling in our RV since January. We’ve tried to ensure that all the educational resources we carry are not too heavy and that they get good use.
Here’s a list of those we have found to be the most useful and probably could not live without:
Laptop
We now all have a laptop each. When we started our travels only George and I had laptops. Olivia used mine so much that we have bought her one of her own. She uses this for most of her educational work. As well as writing stories, making powerpoints, researching information, contacting her friends by email and more.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S-14IKB 14″ Laptop
A3 Whiteboard and Pens
We love our whiteboard. We use it for doing workings outs in maths, brainstorming, drawing diagrams, taking notes, practicing spellings and loads more. It means you are not wasting paper, and if you need or want to keep what is on it you can just take a photo.
Whiteboard with Dry Erase Markers
Over-ear Headphones
Headphones have been a great item for us. Olivia uses them to listen to movies and music in the car on long travel days. She also uses them on audio tours, though it’s nicer to take your own earphones anyway. Most audio tour guides are provided with in-ear headphones which are not great for young children. Olivia loves and is much more comfortable wearing her own headphones. We bought a set of foldable over the head wired headphones, they fold up small and are lightweight for carrying in a bag.
Sony MDRZX310 Foldable Headphones
Watercolour Paintbrush Pen Set
These paints and paint brushes are amazing and create little mess. You fill the pen part of the brush with water. This means there is no water to spill. They are lightweight and can easily be put in a bag and carried with you on a hike or to a museum.
Water Paint Brushes and 24 Colours Watercolour Paints Pan Set
Bike/Scooter
Most campsites allow children to ride or scoot around the site. We have found that most children have one or the other and it’s a great way for children to meet others. It’s also great exercise and a good way to get out and explore the local area.
We personally love the Isla Bikes range which are well-engineered for kids.
Printer
We have bought a printer with us. It’s perfect for printing out educational worksheets, colouring and materials for Olivia. It’s also essential for printing tickets for tours and places we visit. Our Canon printer is relatively light at 3.5kg and as it is canon, cartridges can be found in most European countries.
Canon Printer
Sticker/Activity Books
We use fun and educational sticker and activity books. They are fun and interactive, perfect to keep little ones busy on travel days. They are also easy to use in the car and kept Olivia entertained for some time.
Lego
We have around 14kg of lego in drawers along with a lego table in the bottom bunk of our RV. Olivia uses this most days for fun. We do also use the lego for educational purposes such as building monuments we have been to like the colosseum, STEM projects like building spinning tops, compasses, working aqueducts and for maths.
Magformers
Magformers are another great engineering and building resource. We use these for STEM projects and maths as well as fun. They are great for learning 2D and 3D shapes, counting and building.
Magformers Construction set
Amazon Fire for Kids Unlimited
We have Amazon Fire for Kids Unlimited. It is the first-ever all-in-one subscription that brings together all the types of content that kids aged 3-12 want, with thousands of books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, games and Audible audiobooks. You can manage and customise your kids’ experience. Set bedtime curfews and employ tighter controls on screen time and content. With Learn First, you can block access to videos and games until educational targets such as reading goals are met.
We set a 45-minute educational target which means Olivia has now got used to reading with breakfast most mornings. The Kindle app allows you to download books to read anywhere making it ideal for travelling. It can also sync with Audible, allowing you to combine listening and reading. You have to buy both a subscription to the service, as well as a tablet to use it on.
We bought the 8″ Kindle Fire for Kids tablet, which, while it’s not as good as an iPad or similar, has certainly survived everything Olivia has thrown at it so far!
Amazon Fire for Kids Unlimited Free Trial
Amazon Fire for Kids Tablet
Reading Books
Olivia is a book worm, she loves books and reads them very quickly. Every time we come back to the UK we swap out Olivia’s books. She has a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. We try to plan the non-fiction books to relate to a topic or theme we will be learning about. Together with a few Nature, poetry, science and history books. She then has a large amount of fiction from her favourite authors. She does read digital but prefers to have paper in her hands.
Ipad
We have an iPad which is mainly used for watching TV, Movies, Documentaries on travel days in the car. Olivia also uses the Kindle app for reading and a few other apps.
Water shoes
These are a must. They are lightweight and easy to fit into a bag when going out for a hike, drive or explore anywhere. We regularly find ourselves near water that Olivia wants to paddle in so being able to carry these shoes with us is great. They are also ideal on boats or in canoes. They have lovely rubber soles which mean stones are no longer sharp underfoot and they are non slip. They also dry quickly.
Lakeland Active Children’s Eden Aqua Shoes
Small microfibre Towel
We have a small microfibre towel in a bag. Perfect for carrying along with the wet shoes for drying off after paddling. Being microfibre, it is extremely absorbent meaning just a small towel can dry a large area. Also lightweight and washes/dries quickly.
Large Microfibre Towel (120cm x 60cm)
Structured Work Books/Online Applications
We use structured workbooks for Maths and English. This helps us to guide Olivia in the right direction with the key subjects. It also helps us ensure she is at a good level so if she needed to attend school she would not be behind. We use CGP workbooks for Maths and English and Reading Explorers workbooks for comprehension. We use the Maths-Whizz online maths programme and Khan academy for computer programming.
Twinkl
I use the educational website Twinkl loads. It is a resource that I pay for that provides me with Teacher-created resources of entire schemes of work, lesson planning and assessments right through to online educational games, augmented reality and so much more. If there is something Olivia wants to learn about, 9 times out of 10 I will find great resources here. We use Twinkl for lots of our history projects as they have full lesson plans already created. If there is an area of Maths or English she is struggling on, then I turn to Twinkl for extra resources. You can print out the resources or edit them in PDF which means you don’t have to have millions of pieces of paper lying around, which is perfect for travelling.
Twinkl website can be found here.
What are your Top Resources?
I would love to know what your top resources are and how you find World Schooling.
To find out how we are finding World Schooling click here.