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Please note: this article is part of a series on the best homeschool curriculums for traveling families. This article is focused on middle school curriculums. If you have an elementary or high school student, check out our other articles in this series, Best Homeschool Curriculum for Traveling – Elementary and Best Homeschool Curriculum for Traveling – High School.
- Best All-Around Curriculum for Traveling: Calvert Homeschool Online Courses
- Best Christian Curriculum for Traveling: Monarch Homeschool Curriculum
- Best for Gifted Students: Moving Beyond the Page Complete Curriculum
More and more, homeschooling families are traveling and traveling families are deciding to homeschool! One of the beautiful benefits of homeschooling is the opportunity to travel whenever it is best for your family, not just when your local school goes on a scheduled break. Many homeschooling families plan their travels during low-peak travel times, when airfares are cheap and tourist sites are less crowded. Some families even travel for extended periods or year-round in RVs, a phenomenon known as “roadschooling”.
Whatever your traveling style, there are lots of resources to help you if you will be homeschooling while on the road. In this article, we’ll tell you about our three favorite middle school homeschool curriculums for traveling families. For further tips on how to make the experience successful, see our article Homeschooling While Traveling.
Best All-Around Curriculum for Traveling
Calvert Homeschool Online Courses
If you are looking for a secular and academically solid homeschool curriculum that your middle school student can easily complete while traveling, we highly recommend the online courses by Calvert Homeschool. Calvert has been publishing top-notch homeschool curriculums for many years, and all of its grade 3-12 courses have now gone completely online. The online experience with Calvert is just as academically engaging and rigorous as the print experience was, but now there is no need to lug around textbooks and school supplies. As long as they have a computer and internet connection, students will have all the materials they need at their fingertips.
Calvert’s online platform is user-friendly for both students and parents. It keeps track of schedules and assignments and does most of the grading automatically. Parents can log in to the Teacher’s Dashboard at any time to check on their kids’ progress. Overall, the program requires minimal parental assistance, and kids can complete virtually all of the work independently. The lessons are media-rich and suitable for a variety of different learning styles.
The middle school curriculum includes the four core areas of language arts, math, science, and social studies (consisting of a combined history and geography course). Four electives are also available at the middle school level: keyboarding, coding, career exploration, and health.
Kids thrive with Calvert Homeschool, and the online platform is especially good for frequent travelers. Because all of the curriculum is online, students can seamlessly transition between doing school at home and doing it on the road.
Although courses can be purchased individually, your best option is to go with one of Calvert’s subscription plans. There are different plan options depending on the length of the subscription and the number of students that will be using it.
Best Christian Curriculum for Traveling
If you are looking for an excellent Christian-based homeschool curriculum that your middle-school student can complete while traveling, we highly recommend the online courses by Monarch Homeschool. Produced by Alpha Omega Press (AOP), a leader in Christian homeschool curriculum, Monarch Homeschool is similar in content to the Lifepac series, also by AOP, but is a completely online program. Monarch’s media-rich interface and carefully structured design make it a fantastic choice for Christian homeschoolers who want a simple and seamless homeschool experience while traveling.
Monarch’s curriculum subscription packages provide five courses for each middle school grade. These courses are language arts, math, science, history and geography, and Bible. The Bible course is written from a non-denominational Protestant perspective. Numerous other electives are also available, including Career Explorations I and II, Civics, Earth Science, Essentials of Math, Family & Consumer Science, Health and Health Quest, Keyboarding, and Coding. Additionally, Monarch offers state history courses for every individual state.
The online platform itself is user-friendly and does much of the work traditionally done by homeschooling parents. It keeps track of calendars, assignments, and assessments, and grading is done automatically. The lessons are media-rich and engaging, and they are designed to compliment a variety of learning styles. For the most convenience, purchase the entire five-subject subscription (which includes the four core subjects as well as the Bible course) for Grade 6, Grade 7, or Grade 8.
If you are looking for a program that is similar to Monarch’s but does not require an internet connection, consider the Switched-On Schoolhouse series, also published by AOP. The main difference between Monarch and Switched-On Schoolhouse is that, while Monarch requires an internet connection, Switched-On Schoolhouse is on a USB drive and can thus be done on a computer without an internet connection. Some traveling families prefer the USB option so that their kids can work when they are on the road and don’t have internet access. It is important to note that Switched-On Schoolhouse is not Mac-compatible. Monarch, however, is compatible with both Macs and PCs.
Best for Gifted Students
Moving Beyond the Page Complete Curriculum
If you are looking for a less traditional homeschool curriculum that your middle schooler can use while traveling, a curriculum that is rich and engaging and specifically designed for gifted students, consider the curriculum packages offered by Moving Beyond the Page. This is an interdisciplinary, literature-rich, hands-on program that is excellent for creative and independent learners. Because it can be taken using print or online materials, it is also an excellent option for traveling homeschoolers.
Moving Beyond the Page offers a truly unique and interdisciplinary approach to homeschooling. Language arts, social studies, and science are taught alongside one another in units that relate and overlap across traditional disciplinary boundaries. At the same time, all of Moving Beyond the Page’s curriculum options are carefully designed to meet state and national standards.
The language arts curriculum is literature-based, and the literature selections correlate thematically with the accompanying science and/or social studies units. In the age 11-13 program, for example, students read The Hobbit at the same time that they study the Lithosphere for science and Australia and Oceania for social studies. In the age 12-14 program, students will study Antebellum America while also reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
This program is hands-on and requires students to use their creativity and critical thinking skills. Schedules and lesson plans are included in the program, but students are also encouraged to take the initiative in their own instruction. Students can read and follow the lesson plans themselves, so this is an excellent program for self-led learners.
Moving Beyond the Page offers three programs at the middle school level. The Age 10-12 program generally corresponds to grade 6, the Age 11-13 program to grade 7, and the Age 12-14 program to grade 8. There are several different package options that include paper and online materials. For traveling families, the Full Year Online packages will provide a student with a complete language arts, social studies, and science curriculum online along with a number of print materials and manipulatives, as well.
Moving Beyond the Page does not include math in its curriculum packages, but it recommends using the Life of Fred series. We are big fans of Life of Fred, which encourages kids to think critically to understand how math concepts apply to real life. Life of Fred recommends its Pre-Algebra set for middle school students. Students who have successful completed this program can then go onto the Life of Fred High School Set 1.
Conclusion
Can you successfully homeschool a middle school student while traveling? The answer is YES! You definitely can, especially with the help of a great travel-friendly curriculum such as those offered by Calvert Homeschool, Monarch Homeschool, and Moving Beyond the Page. Check out our article Homeschooling While Traveling for more helpful tips!