What is your Homeschool Emergency Plan?

So this is in part with the Virtual Homeschool Assignment #4 of the 2016-2017 Collaboration Series.  If you have not heard of the VHC, then check them out at www.virtualhomeschoolcoop.com

So if you don't know, The Virtual Homeschool Coop is a pet project that I created to help us homeschool families to learn from each other and enjoy our differences.  So please take the time and meet everyone there.

My Homeschool Emergency Plan!

So I am not giving advice or recommendations for medical type emergencies or hardships.  I am thinking more of an Emergency Plan for your homeschool during a disaster, but you can totally use this as a kick off to starting homeschool or during hardships.  This is literally my plan and not a hypothetical one either.

Living in a Disaster Right NOW!

If you are keeping up with us on youtube, you know that we have been flung into a minor disaster.  I say minor, because compared to my friends around the nation, I realize constantly, we do not have it too bad.  With the hurricanes and floods, I am reminded that our disaster is so minor than what it could always be!  Perspective is everything.

So last week, we woke up to find the house soaked.  We still haven't figured out how the water came in.  We knew we had roof problems, but that bad of damage was crazy unexpected.  The result, everything touching the floor or near the floor was soaked and ruined.

Thankfully, we have a school house and our current year school curriculum was safe!  

Well, my friend Abby @ Full Time Wife Life had to evacuate from Hurricane Matthew, so we had a hurricane party at my Mom's House.  As 2 homeschool moms talking and brainstorming the events, we realized neither her or I had ever thought about an Emergency Plan for our Homeschool, until we were in the emergency! (You can see our talk here.)

Homeschool Emergency PLAN  A

So this is my perfect conditions!  I can take it all!  Okay, with 6 kids, how in the world can I do that?  Well, a simple curriculum is the best bet!  So in order to keep things simple around here, we are using the ACE Curriculum that is contained in 12 PACE booklets per subject per student.  It does not have textbooks.  Each Pace has a corresponding answer key.  Okay!  This could be a lot of stuff.  At this time with the 4 of them, it takes up two drawers in the filing cabinet. I think I can fit it in a 18 Gallon Tote like this.

Note: I love buying ACE Curriculum from Christian Book, because I can buy it by the piece at no difference in cost than buying the entire year!  Plus, it means we have less on hand!

But if, we couldn't take it all, I would just grab their Homeschool Notebook that has all their current PACE work in it.  This can give us anywhere from 1-3 weeks of school work per subject.  A new practise I will be implementing is keeping a folder of the next PACE booklets in a folder for all the kids.  This will give me now 4-6 weeks worth of school work already on hand.  By then, I can have enough time to order new.

In a time of disaster and you purchased your curriculum from a publisher, call them and let them know what is going on and what you lost.  You should be in their records and they can see just what you bought.  Plead you case, you never know what they will be willing to do to work with you.  

Homeschool Emergency Plan B

My plan B!  Okay, sometimes none of your first plan works.  And it is always great to have a back up plan!  

My immediate reaction on what to grab to get out of our house in a disaster is our electronics.  Call it the life of a blogger/youtuber, call it today's society, call it a business owner, but electronics are vital to our day to day life.  I know for certain that the electronics will always come first on what to grab before the curriculum.  So the best bet is to have a back up plan within my electronics!

For this method, I lean back on my love of the simplicity of the Robinson Curriculum!  If you never heard of it, I can tell you more about it here.  Robinson Curriculum, referred to as RC in its community, is based on the 3 Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Have a good math book, most times saxon, get the book list, and write a page a day, DONE!  So Having the a great ereader is a big part of this plan.  We have the old Nook Simple Touch ereaders.  I love how simple they are and that a single charge can last for weeks.

So with ereaders,  a notebook or 2, we are back in business until we can get back to our old normal again and get to our original curriculum.

Homeschool Emergency Plan Z

Okay, this is in last resort conditions and we have NOTHING!  Am I expecting nothing? No.  But it is good to know the plan if it ever happens than to be trying to know what to do in a moment of crisis.  The less decisions you have to make, the better.

PLAN Z is the good and faithful EASY PEASY HOMESCHOOL!  It is free. It is all online.  Get a notebook of paper, get on line and you are good to go!  So my thoughts are, if we lose it all, we will become everyday library users.  So armed with borrowed Internet and computer, a pencil, a notebook, my kids will be back to learning!  You can see my review and opinions of Easy Peasy right here!

So you can see it all that I covered here!

I hope this gets your mind thinking on what you will do!

My goal is that this will help you have a plan in place.  When you are in a time of emergency or natural disaster, making choices are emotional and stressful.  If you already have a plan in place, it will give not only a peace of mind, but the stress lower.

Peace out my friends!

~trish