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“WorldSchooling, what is that?”

So, we have now begun our (long-awaited) two-year World Schooling years.

Before the twins were born, we decided that at some point in their childhood we wanted them to live abroad for a year or two. But we could not really settle on which country, and very quickly we realized we wanted it to include multiple countries and multiple years. The kids were not even 2 when we decided we were going to travel with them around the world for two years and home school them. Later, we learned there is a technical term for this — it’s called WorldSchooling. We settled on 7th and 8th grade for WorldSchooling, in part because job changes and sabbaticals aligned with those years and in part because who honestly felt 7th and 8th grade were the best years to be in a classroom with 20+ other 7th and 8th graders? No one I know. The kids will never understand what middle school hell we saved them from.

So, we officially began this summer! House and pet sitters were arranged and first plane tickets were purchased (using United miles! Before they devalued!! We are hewing to a tight budget on this venture.) As we get underway, we will be posting some more information about our WorldSchool philosophies and curriculum goals during the 2+ years we plan to be on the road. The general idea is to have 2-3 month modules in a particular country/continent. For example, we are starting with a New Zealand Module (Module 1), and then moving to Europe for Module 2. South America is set for Module 3. We will have several weeks at home in between to catch up on things like dental appointments and work obligations.

We have spent the past several years scouting out various countries and locations — aka vacations aka mini-world-school trial runs. The first year will be mostly a year of repeats, New Zealand, London, France, Chile. But also some new places for us too, Tahiti (stopover on the way to New Zealand), Italy as part of the Europe module, Argentina in addition to Chile.

Sixth grade graduation, let the WorldSchooling begin! (Don’t they look excited 🙃)

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It’s been a little while, sorry about that…

So, I know we probably didn’t have a huge following of our Axelrod Adventures, but we did have a few key important readers, and we have not been keeping our blog current. So we owe all of you who followed along on our adventures an apology. We have many excuses (no one took charge of it, laziness, burnt out etc), but one excuse we did not have was lack of adventures. Well, at least after the first 15 months, which was the longest I can remember in my life, and certainly since we got married and had kids, that I went without traveling somewhere. But eager to get back to traveling, we started back on the road in March 2021 with a trip to Hawaii, and followed it up in July 2021 with Iceland, Portugal in January 2022, back to Hawaii in March and June 2022, and the British Isles with Disneyland Paris thrown in (of course) in July 2022. We visited Chile in November 2022, Guadeloupe for Christmas, and this year, we got back to Japan almost as soon as we could once it opened back up. It sounds like a lot when I write it all but it just felt like a normal couple of years to us.

I will have a post from our visit to Japan shortly, and then will update everyone with our formal launch of World Schooling, which has just started, since the kids have formally finished sixth grade! We will be on the road for most of the next two years and hoping to keep our adventures on our blog updated as we go!