The First Six Weeks Shape the Year

In education, the first six weeks of school are considered the foundation for the year. Masterful teachers know that the time spent establishing clear routines, expectations, and classroom community during these weeks pays off all year long. Skeptics often claim that when we spend too much time forming these habits, we lose learning time. As a former teacher and principal, I disagree strongly. The teachers who are willing to focus on these important classroom tools and skills gain back time later in the year when other teachers are struggling with classroom behavior and lack of student engagement.

Why We Started Fast, Then Slowed Down

This knowledge served as the basis for how my husband and I set out to plan our first two months of travel. Often, the first question someone asks after hearing about our year of travel is something akin to “Did you plan the entire trip ahead of time or just go with the flow?” Yes… and also yes. Some of our children are neurodiverse, so I knew the beginning of our adventure would need to feel novel before we could settle into a routine. This is one of the reasons we moved so frequently during the first three weeks of our trip. Building momentum and maintaining it was critical to a positive beginning.

Although the boys were already learning on our first day, we formally began our home school year on the same day as the boys’ friends started school. This way the boys had a concrete start to the more traditional parts of their homeschooling experience. It is also why, after moving so much, I knew it would be important to settle into one city for a few weeks and that these weeks would need to be treated like the first few weeks that shape the year. We chose Prague for this kind of foundation building because it had museums, parks, playgrounds, and history at every turn. The gorgeous weather was a bonus.

The Classroom Lesson That Shaped Our Travels

On our “first” day of school, the boys woke up to find a clearly defined schedule written on color-coded sticky notes and posted to our Airbnb’s living room wall. We began with a morning greeting, then a morning meeting, and morning prayers as the boys would have done at their school. We moved on to different subjects, finishing by noon so that we could enjoy a homemade lunch before heading out for a field trip. Just like in a team or community-focused classroom, everyone had assigned chores for which they were responsible daily.

Building Our “School Away from School

I’m not exactly what you would call a routine-based person, but in Prague we made sure to stick to the routine as closely as possible because we knew that it would only benefit our boys’ sense of structure, calm, and grounding. Although we had to remain flexible to accommodate scheduling constraints

beyond our control, those three weeks became our family’s default routine whenever possible. This meant that after just three weeks of following the routine the boys had built enough muscle memory to fall right back into the routine despite the special schedules, holidays, and travel time that permeated our year in what sometimes felt haphazard ways.

Those first six weeks didn’t just set the tone for our travels. Just like in a classroom, they gave our family a rhythm we could return to again and again, no matter where our adventure took us. It turns out that whether you’re running a classroom or traveling the globe, the first few weeks really are everything.