What?  July 1 is the first day of school?  Well, yes, if you attend Road School. 

Road School is designed to replace 4^th and 7^th grade for the kids.  It is based on the Massachusetts standards, although we don’t have any MCAS.  And then it goes a bit beyond.

Since getting out and seeing the world is so important this year, we decided to limit the school to 10-15 hours per week and spread it out over the entire journey.  This will enable us to keep the classroom time down to under 2 hours per day (excluding French and journals at night) and just weekdays.

To make it fun, we made up school-style T-shirts nd sent Carter and Katherine each a welcome letter and a detailed syllabus.  To fit the format, we needed an athletic team name as well:  the Road School Globetrekkers.

There are three major courses for Road School:  (1) Understanding the World, (2) How to Be Math Ninja, and (3) Tell Your Story.    See Road School Curriculum.

The first assignments for both kids include grammar, geography, and introductory comparative religion (Islam first as we will visit the Blue Mosque in Turkey).  Carter has a geometry problem set and Katherine has a fractions problem set.  The first reading list books are historical fiction set in England to get ready for that visit.  Both kids will be keeping journals, and both are spending time with Rosetta French to get an introduction before our arrival in France seven weeks from now.

What’s missing?  Well, every year we take a picture of the kids on their first day of school and we decided we had to continue the tradition (see below).  The only difference is, this year the first day of school is July 1.