Go Jump in a Lake/Hyppää järveen 2

Last day of July.
Heinäkuun viimeinen päivä.



Happy Days..
Onnellisia päiviä..

First Grade Curriculum/Ekaluokkaisen koulumateriaali

After much agonizing thought and review we settled on the kindergarten/first grade book bundle from Critical Thinking Company for Little Miss (age 6). And the much anticipated box arrived today for our Miss Sunshine (Missy's old shirt).

Little Miss could not wait to dig into her box! It was quite heavy, and as we opened it, the books seemed thicker and bigger than expected, almost overwhelmingly so. Two thoughts from mom:
- yikes! what have we gotten ourselves into?
- do we have to haul all these books all over the country as we travel??

But I'm glad I didn't say anything out loud as Little Miss opened her first book, and wanted to get going. At one sitting she finished 23 (yes, twenty-three!!!!) pages of Mathematical Reasoning Level A book, moved onto Mind Benders Book 2, completed four puzzles (and would have kept going if mom hadn't needed a break). She also did the first page of Thinker Doodles A1, started on page 2, and started on the first assignment of Half'n Half Animals A1. She probably would have continued ever more, but it was time for mom and dad to go for a walk, so we decided to take a break.

Little Miss obviously loves her new books! Which makes mom pretty excited, too. These school books are nothing like what I have been exposed to before (we didn't start homeschooling until our older kids were in 5th grade), and I have to say - I'm in love with our first grade curriculum ((swoon)). Yes, traveling with all these books will be a pain, but at least the older kids' schooling is on their computers (AOP Monarch).

We are also planning to use The Jesus Storybook Bible Curriculum Kit and various other resources for first grade (Atelier Art, Starfall, Bob books etc.), and plan to review some of these on the blog as well, later on. We'll continues our weekly library visits, daily book readings and daily outside activities as well. Oh, and there are also three sets of manipulatives recommended to be purchased with this book bundle, which we also got. Some were cheaper on Amazon ;-)

We were not given any of the books or any discounts of this material for review purposes, we are just so excited with it we wanted to share with you all. I'm sure there will be a half year review again, at some point.

If you haven't read our page on homeschooling, I should mention that being excited about a homeschool curriculum is totally a God-thing. I never wanted to homeschool, and even though this will be our fourth year, there is still a big part of me who is moaning and groaning about the whole thing. I am very thankful there are such great curricula available even for moms like me, who got into homeschooling kicking and screaming very somewhat reluctantly.

I am joining Collage Friday with Mary at Homegrown Learners and Hip Homeschool Hop with this post. Click the buttons for other entries.

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Pikkuneidin ekaluokan kotikoulumateriaali saapui tänään, ja me olemme molemmat ihan seitsemännessä taivaassa! Pikkuneiti teki yhdellä istumalla noin 30 sivua eri kirjoista, ja olisi jatkanut jos opettaja ei olisi lähtenyt kävelylle. 

Aika painava pino kirjoja, mikä ei ole kovin kätevää meille matkaajille, mutta niin Pikkuneiti kuin opettajakin tykkäsi materiaalista niin paljon, että ehdottomasti pidämme tämän oppimateriaalin.

Meille ei maksettu postauksen kirjauksesta tai annettu mitään alennuksia, tein postauksen ihan omasta innostuksestamme:) Mikä sekin on ihan Jumalan ihme, koska minä en koskaan halunnut aloittaa kotikoulun pitoa - se vain toimii meidän nomadielämällemme..

Updates/Uudistuksia

Our Mothership Adventures has a Facebook page! After thinking about it for at least a year, I decided it is time. Often as we are mothershiping aka traveling, we don't get great internet which is too bad as our most interesting happenings are on the road, so even if we can't blog, we can at least send facebook updates from our iPhones.

So head on over to like us so you don't miss anything important:)

I also updated the Homeschooling page here on the blog. We are about to start our fourth year of homeschooling (really unbelievable - I wasn't so sure we'd make it through our first), and there have been small changes to our curriculum. We'll still use AOP Monarch, as it has worked great for us, and is perfect for roadschooling.

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Mothership-blogi löytyy nyt facebookista! Etenkin reissuilla, jolloin netti ei toimi ja on vaikea tehdä blogipostauksia, voimme lähettää reissupäivityksiä facebookiin. Kurkista tänne, ja tykkää sivuistamme, ettet vaan missaa mitään mielenkiintoista:)

Kotikoulusivu on myös päivitetty, muttei vieläkään suomeksi, harmi.

July in Pictures/Heinäkuu kuvin

July isn't all gone, yet, but it has been whizzing by, and Mothership Adventures is definitely due for an update. The first part we spent on Nantucket island with family (more here). Nantucket was enchanting, as usual.


After Nantucket, the girls, Captain and I drove back to our camp for a few days, and our boys stayed on Nantucket a couple of days longer. We met again at Grandma and Grandpa's house in southern Maine. Grandma and Grandpa headed out on a camping and jeeping trip, the Captain took our older kids to camp in New Hampshire, and then he drove back to our camp. Little Miss and I spent a few very productive days at my in-law's house.



We stayed with Captain's grandmother, watered Grandma's bushes, picked out a trailer-full of our boxes and belongings from my in-law's basement to go up to our camp, spent time with cousins (next door!), Little Miss learned to ride a scooter, baked a delicious blueberry pie (recipe here), and got some homeschool organizing done, also. (I ordered first grade material for Little Miss, more on that later.)



Meanwhile our big kids had a fun week at camp, making memories and new friends, meeting old friends, and being challenged in their walk with God. We brought our happy, tired kids with all their dirty laundry back north with us.



Little Miss, Captain and I had to wake up early on Saturday to go get the big kids from camp. I am so not a morning person, but we had a beautiful drive down. On our way back north we saw a bear, and it apparently made such an impression on me I didn't realize I added the picture twice in my collages:)



We enjoyed having Uncle B, Aunt P and Andy at our camp this weekend, and of course having our family together again. Uncle B helped all the boys and Little Miss put together a fantastic video, which I might try to link here.

And if you are still with me after this long post, I am happy to report we finally wrapped up our homeschool year! Mr. A and Mr. D finished their last assignments on Sunday and Monday, and we had a great evaluation interview on Tuesday with Carleen from Evaluation Station in Florida. I had worked on a private blog with my students portfolios, Carleen had reviewed all the material before our video iChat evaluation, and yesterday she interviewed the kids, and we had a wonderful chat. She is so great to work with, very helpful, and so encouraging. The online evaluation makes it easy for our traveling family - we are in Maine and still able to get our evaluation done!

It feels great to be done with our year!

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Heinäkuu ei ole ihan vielä ohi, mutta blogi kaipailee jo uutta postausta:) Aloitimme heinäkuun Nantucketissa, sieltä tyttöjen kanssa Kapteeni ja minä ajoimme pohjoiseen muutamaksi päiväksi poikien jäädessä isovanhempien kanssa saarelle vielä hetkeksi aikaa. Kohtasimme uudestaan isovanhemmilla etelä-Mainessä, josta kaikki lähtivät eri suuntiin: isovanhemmat jeeppiretkelle, teinit leirille ja Kapteeni takaisin pohjoiseen. Pikkuneiti ja minä jäimme isovanhemmille Kapteenin isoäidin seuraksi kastelemaan kukkia, pakkaamaan peräkärryä pohjoista varten (meidän kamat ovat edelleen anoppilan kellarissa viime vuoden muuton jäljiltä), kotikoulujuttuja organisoiden, ja Pikkuneiti vietti aikaa naapurin serkkutytön kanssa, oppien potkulaudan käytön. Teinien leirin jälkeen ajoimme takaisin pohjoiseen (näimme karhun!), jossa meitä odotti B-setä, P-täti ja Andy.

Ja loppuun onnellisia uutisia: saimme vihdoin kotikouluvuoden loppuun! Jokaisen koulutehtävän, sekä arvioinnin opettajan kanssa myös. Iso työ, ja mikä suuri helpotus kun vihdoin kaikki on tehty.

Nantucket

One of the highlights of our summer, every year, is a trip to our favorite island: Nantucket Island.

Nantucket is in the Atlantic Ocean, off of Cape Cod, and to travel there requires heavy traffic and long hours on roads, parking in Hyannis, and taking a ferry ride to Nantucket. Once we arrive to the island, usually Grandma & Grandpa are there to pick us up, and this time Aunt C, Uncle P and cousins were there, also. And all the travel is so worth it, Nantucket truly is a special place.

In the collage above, I have random pictures from the ferry, from our walks, from Fourth of July celebrations, and from kids helping Grandpa sand the fence.



A trip to Nantucket Island would not be complete without a trip to the beach! Swimming, boogie boarding and seaweed fights were so much fun with cousins!



Grandma and Grandpa's attic on Nantucket is a fascinating and fun place. On one side you find Lionel trains midst of mountains and villages (not pictured here), and on the other side is a puppet stage made by Grandma when she was young, including marionettes.

The cousins put together a fantastic marionette puppet show called Independence Day. Well done, all!!

And a special treat in the end. A short video of Missy devouring her watermelon piece. This shows why she was able to bring the watermelon prize home from the festivities:)



Ps. You can make the video larger by clicking the arrows on bottom right.

Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for the wonderful time we all had!

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Perheemme vietti upean viikon isovanhempien kesäkodissa Nantucketin saarella Atlantin valtameressä. Oli itsenäisyyspäivän viettoa, rannalla olemista, kävelyreissuja ja marionettinukke-esitys, paljon aikaa serkkujen ja isovanhempien, tädin ja sedän kanssa. Videossa Missy voittaa vesimelonin syöntikisan Usan itsenäisyyspäivän juhlinnassa Nantucketin pääkadulla. Upea viikko lempisaarellamme!

Happy 4th/Hyvää Usan itsenäisyyspäivää!!

Happy Independence Day from Nantucket Island!!