Worldschooling - A starting point

Hello world!

If you have ever learned any programming, you might recognise the significance of this "hello world" post,  the excitement of achieving the first step of learning a new language mixed with the "OMG there's so much more to learn" and the worry of "I'm never going to learn all of this..." Deep down there is a belief that if you stick at it you can succeed. Experience reminds you that many well-meaning projects don't get much past the "Hello World" post...

This is my "Hello World" for my journey worldschooling as a parent.

We've been on the road in South America for a 2 months now. It's not that no worldschooling has been done in that time, in fact a lot has, but I feel we have now saturated the "we are on holiday" mode of our travels and our search for meaningful routine existence on the road has well kicked in. Including the little parenting voice that nags about maths, writing, reading and (dreaded) schooling.

So I'm making a start here on documenting what we are trying as parents to create, build and capture learning experiences for our 7yo, T, on the road.

Yesterday a few things happened:

• We decided as a family that we would try to have around half-an-hour focused time everyday. We agreed to calling this "Office time". This time would be used to focus on reading, writing, math and projects that require regular focused time (ie in contrast with "touristing")
• We attempted to have "office time" in the afternoon having just arrived in Banos, Ecuador, and having found a hostel and having walked around town.
• For our first office time T and I would make strawberry jam. T was going to write the recipe and we would document our jam making process.
• We got half-way through the recipe and cooking when the smell of strawberries cooking was not agreeable for T, and therefore that set off a "fuss" (I hope to talk about Mr. Fuss in an upcoming post) and that sabotaged our office time...We made yummy jam though.
• After shooing Mr Fuss away, I engaged T in helping find ways in future to build in more writing. T reminisced on structured writing from the classroom in grade 2, and how she was looking forward to certain types of writing in grade 3. We agreed that perhaps some more structured writing / focus on writing as a process, rather than trying to build in writing to match some of the things we were doing would be a way to go (someone smelled a fish in the "let's write a recipe for the strawberry jam we are making" directive... apparently writing didn't fit the flow of the activity as naturally as licking the spoon does...)

Therefore my current focus will be to see if we can get T started on a "writer's notebook" (another notebook to add to our suitcase!) and look at semi-structured approaches to the writing process (the classroom-style worksheet that T is asking for). I'm hoping that I can find the time to help build this in and that the fact that T is taking on responsibility and choice in this (she's asking for it and agreeing to do it) will go someway to increasing writing on the road... 

How do you build in writing routines that are natural, enjoyable and meaningful while on the road? 

Hello world, I'll take a crack at this question...

If you've got an answer or suggestion, please don't hold back!! Comments welcome!