Challenges to Full-Time RVing with kids

Although I have nothing but positive things to tell people about this change, there are challenges.  Most are pretty minor and just require some creative solutions.

Fewer storage areas

Obviously downsizing toys, books and clothing is a necessity, but even when you've done that, finding a convenient place to store the necessities is a challenge.  

• Toys and Books:  We have a green basket for the toys and books.  It moves to the dining area at night and moves back to their bunk during the day, because we haven't found another place to store them permanently.  

• The cabinet in the bunk area is not easily accessible enough for me to hang their clothing in there.  As a result, I have their clothing arranged in plastic tubs and pull out the ones I need each day to access clothing.  Since we all know "Winter is coming", we have just made room for winter clothing and extra blankets.

• Holidays such as birthdays and Christmas will require some planning and communication about gifts.  Most of our family is already sensitive to our situation and the lack of extra space and are planning accordingly.  We will be encouraging family and friends to gift small items (such as dvds, books, and digital media), monthly subscriptions to services or programs, passes to local attractions,  contributions to their current lessons and activities (fees or gear), or tickets to special events/time with the kids (for local friends and family).  There are a surprising number of monthly subscription options for preschool, from a monthly craft box called Kiwi Crate to digital book subscriptions with thousands of children's books (Meegenius).

• While the high cabinets make it easy to keep dangerous items out of little hands, there is an issue about where to store the things they use on a regular basis.  J-Bear has a favorite car that needs to be easily accessed and CANNOT go in the toy bin.   E-Roo has her own hairbrush and play jewelry that she uses from time to time.  We have a hanging shoe organizer on the door near their bunks.  The girls have been given 1 row of pockets that they can use for those types of items.

Limited indoor play areas

• The dining room quickly becomes the easiest place to play, limiting the area I have to work on craft projects or school planning.  It also means that we have to clean the table before every meal so that their favorite doll's hair doesn't get a ketchup mask or a new dye job on her clothing from berries.

• Sometimes the girls play in their bunk, but it is cramped and barely has enough head room for the girls to sit back there.  Most often, the bunk is used to role play being in a cave or hide from the fighter planes that occasionally fly by our house to land at the nearby airport.

• The kids occasionally play on the floor, but only if no one is working in the kitchen or moving around the RV.  There is very little room for cars or trains on the floor.  Larger play sets are out of the question, but luckily, there's still enough for J-Bug to play, learn to crawl, and begin pulling up on the benches.

Cleaning takes some adjustment

• More of an all day activity rather than a set time for chores.  The floor of the RV is swept at least once a day, since everyone is walking the same path all day long.  I sometimes struggle with finding a time to clean, since it's hard to restrict the kids to one area while I clean the others.  When we lived in a house, the kids could be corralled in the play room while I took care of cleaning the other rooms.  Now, I have to find an activity that will keep them up on the dining benches or in their bunk so that I can sweep the floor.

• We have really tried to enforce the expectation that the current activity has to be cleaned up before moving on to the next one.  The girls quickly discovered that it's hard to start something new when the previous activity is taking up your play space.

• The good news is that a smaller RV can be cleaned in about an hour.  Deep cleaning might take another hour or two, especially if you find that your current organization system isn't working.

Homeschool organization

• Currently, the girls are doing preschool level activities.  The only problem that I've found is that I don't have room for all the different theme related items that are useful in teaching young children.  For our dinosaur unit, I bought dinosaur figurines that were used in multiple activities.  For the upcoming fall season and halloween units, I purchased tiny plastic pumpkins to be used in counting activities.  If I do this for every unit, we will quickly run out of space.  

E-Roo is matching the "baby" dinosaurs 

to the correct "Mommy" dinosaur

J-Bear has decided all dinosaurs are carnivores.

• Currently we work at the dining table or outside.  I have always loved the idea of a dedicated homeschool room or space.  Obviously, that is not possible in our current situation.  One option we've discussed is finding a cheap office space and running a home-based business for supplemental income.  That would give me the option to set up an area in the office for homeschool work.  Another option is finding other places to escape to.  The libraries here have private study rooms we can rent and the local coffee shop will provide us a change of scenery, if needed.

Color matching activity using an old egg carton and craft pom poms.

Perhaps families with older children won't run into some of the challenges we are.  Some of the problems we've had are age-specific, and I look forward to the time when their toys and entertainment become more compact.

For example, knowing that he would grow out of clothing quickly, most of my amazing family members sent us clothing in larger sizes.  He was in 6 month clothing when we moved in, but quickly transitioning to 9 month.  He will probably be moving to 12 months in the next month or so.  So we've been storing the 12 month clothing that was neutral enough to pull from the girls' collections and the clothing we were given by family.