Some days we were in the car early and travelled until we reached our planned destination. It wasn’t uncommon for this to be a 600km trip, especially in the Northern Territory where the open road is vast and seemingly never ending.   It was imperative to have a variety of activities to keep us amused on these long drives and it was a good opportunity to dig into the schoolwork.   Caleb would read his book to himself, we would read to him, he would read to us and we would all discuss the themes in the book and how the author constructed the different characters. Discussion around the texts was so valuable and we would predict what was going to happen next in the story. I found using a variety of questions about his understanding of the text helpful and as a teacher I had a huge range of resources to draw on.   After reading, Caleb worked on his writing and spelling which was his daily diary. Not his favourite activity but recording it in an app on his iPad was always a bit of a motivator. the words he incorrectly spelt in his writing became his spelling words for the week along with a few others which we thought were important. Next we would do a bit of maths. Caleb’s school used the online “Mathletics” program and we had a lot of success with it. For the year that we travelled we decided to pay for access to it ourselves so that we could continue to build upon his developed concepts when we had access to the internet. This worked most of the time with the Telstra “dongle” but for car rides we focused on number facts and times tables. We played the “Times Tables” songs through itunes and we all sang along, it still remains on my playlist but now Caleb groans when he hears it, assuring me that he no longer needs to listen to it.   Once ‘car school’ was over we would most likely have morning tea and a leg stretch. This commonly included a fossick for rocks or fossils around the area we had pulled over in or chasing lizards around. I wasn’t keen on extra passengers in the car with us ever! Once back in the car I usually put a CD in the player or a favourite playlist on iTunes and we had a singalong. Caleb always requested Kenny Rogers’ “Coward of the County” and as long as we played it a few times we could usually get away with a bit of Lionel Ritchie and Simon and Garfunkel too. I told myself that this covered the music component of his education. Caleb worked out that when he had heard enough of our singing/screeching he asked for a humbug (a boiled lolly). I kept a supply of them in the glove box and we would suck on them on long trips, having competitions to see who could make them last the longest. If you are going to do this too be warned; in high temperatures your humbugs will become one great big glob of black sugary mess. It will still taste the same but is much harder to share around and needs to be broken into pieces with a sharp object!   We always kept an assortment of activities in the car for longer trips. Things like a pack of cards, counters, ten frames, dice, textas, cardboard, scissors. We could create impromptu activities based on our discussions by writing words and tracing them or playing maths games. Caleb had a stable table that he used to “play with his guys” (super hero figures) which also came in handy for these activities. I would often sit in the back of the car with him and we would play games and practice his skills, leaving the job of driving up to Ray.