Homeschool Year 2015-2016

This year we have four 11th graders and one 4th grader. Plus a sweet toddler, who is helping us get very creative with our homeschool hours:)

Our teens officially started classes on August 26th, but they really didn't get a summer break this year, at all. They spent most of their summer working on Biology from last year, and took a summer Algebra II class with Mr. D Math, which they are still working on. And on August 17th they started Pre-Calculus with Mr. D Math.

We had planned to continue Sonlight with them this year, as we really enjoyed our Sonlight curriculum (Core 100) last year, but instead God lead us to a new opportunity: the teens are taking free classes at a local college, earning credits for high school and for college with each class they take. The classes started on August 26th. We arrived in Florida on August 25th.

We had learned about dual enrollment in St. Pete, and had seriously considered it, but it hadn't been the right time.

I love watching how God puts all the puzzle pieces of our lives together as we pray for guidance. With the adoption of Mei Mei, we needed to do less traveling anyway, so the timing was right in enrolling our teens at a local college this year.

Three of our teens are taking the same English I class, and four business classes (two now, and two later in the fall). Mr D is also taking an online Weather and Climate class, and Missy is taking a Drawing class. They have a friend taking one of the business classes with them, and when school started they discovered they knew some of the students from youth group!

Mr T chose different classes, and has a quite the work load with his English, Macro Economics, Financial Accounting, Elementary Statistics, Western Civilization, and Anthropology classes. One of his professors is in our home fellowship group from church:)




This has been a challenging change in our teens' lives. They have had co-op classes, and online classes before with other teachers than mom, and deadlines to meet, but college classes are a bit more serious... There has been quite a bit of homework, and definitely learning of time management skills. And already at least one all-nighter for the boys.

I am hoping we are still finding our groove in this, too. It hasn't even been a month, yet.

But their work load is heavy enough, we have not been able to add anything else to their schedule. I had purchased Apologia Chemistry books, but we are not starting that yet. If we have to, we'll add a summer semester or even an additional year to our high school.

Even with all the challenges we are excited about this new change in our homeschool high school. Our teens have found their classes interesting (for the most part:), and financially it makes a lot of sense for us as our quadruplets get closer to graduating from high school...

We are very thankful for this opportunity, and keep praying for our teens in this new chapter in their lives.




Little Miss started fourth grade about a week ago. Since mama and her do school together, we just needed to wait and get more settled after our move. Plus having come from China in August with a new toddler we were not ready for school. And there was the fact our school curriculum didn't arrive until September 10th:)

Little Miss is using Sonlight Core C with Math-U-See. On the computer she does Explode-the Code and daily math drills on xtramath.org. We also have Spelling-U-See and a handwriting book, but are not sure if those are keepers for us at this point. We really enjoy the books Sonlight picks, and enthusiastically dove into our school material.

There is a homeschool gymnastics class nearby we are considering for Little Miss, but we'll have to see if we can fit that into our schedule. Homeschooling her with a toddler takes a bit longer than it did last year, and Mr T has needed quite a few rides to school, since his schedule is different from the other teens.



Our new home is within a walking distance of a playground and a library, and within a short drive to the beach. Most likely Little Miss will be doing her schoolwork in creative places! She already has been doing some of the readings in the car as we've given rides to Mr T, but as she gets carsick fairly easily that probably isn't the greatest solution... :)

I am also researching making some busy bags for Mei Mei to keep her occupied during the home hours we do need to get school done. At least we have nap time as long as mama doesn't fall asleep beside Mei Mei:)

While we do have a full school year this year, I am thankful for the flexibility homeschooling gives us. We'll be able to work around the teens' schedule, and Mei Mei's needs, and still get our school done - even if it requires some extra creativity and scheduling.

A Quick Update (and Changes on the Horizon)

China travel posts will continue... soon eventually. But here's a quick update, to explain the radio silence on the blog.



Once we traveled back to USA, we had a week in New Hampshire at a rustic cottage before we headed up to our Maine camp. Once we got there, we pretty much realized we needed to turn around and head to Florida asap.



We spent a week in Maine, which in part was at Grandma and Grandpa's house, packing up a trailer. Mei Mei loved Grandma and Grandpa! She still talks (signs) about them, and offers kisses at their pictures.



We left the Mothership in Maine, all eight of us squeezed into our car, towed a trailer full of furniture, and took two and a half days to drive to Florida. Once we got to our destination city we started having trouble with one of the trailer tires, and about an hour after pulling into our new driveway, the tire was completely flat (thank You, God, for the timing!).

Mei Mei was such a champ, every morning she signed "drive" and happily climbed into her car seat. There were times she had had it, and complained loudly, but we all felt that she was just vocalizing what each of us was feeling inside.



Oh, the happiness of being free of the car and the car seat!

Our new rental was completely empty, and it still echoes inside. We have quite a bit of work ahead of us to make it homier, and are still sleeping on the floor, but we'll make this a home, yet.



After arriving in Florida, the very next day our teens headed to school! A new chapter is starting here at Our Mothership Adventures. We are still homeschooling, but our quadruplets have started dual enrollment classes at a local college. They can earn high school and college credits from the classes they take. We are still continuing Mr. D Math as well (which everyone LOVES), they took Algebra II over the summer, and are now taking Pre-Calculus. I hope to blog more about our school year, but as you may have noticed, I have had less computer time now that we have a toddler in the house! (Plus all the traveling, too.)

Little Miss is waiting for her Sonlight curriculum to arrive, so we'll be starting her school sometime next month.

What all these changes mean is less traveling for these next two or three years. Mei Mei is going to need a surgery (or surgeries), and most likely speech therapy, too, so staying put for now makes a lot of sense. I am hoping to continue blogging about our adventures, even though they will be different from all our on the road adventures. A new phase in our lives!


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Pikainen päivitys, Kiina-postausten keskellä.. Isoja muutoksia Mothership-porukalle, neloset palasivat kouluun tällä viikolla! Ja sen takia jouduimme lähtemään Mainestä tarkoitusta aikaisemmin..

Eli nyt olemme Floridassa taas, jätimme asuntoauton anoppilaan, ja saavuimme muuttokuorman kanssa uuteen vuokrataloon tiistaina. Keskiviikkona alkoi paikallisessa collegessa koulu nelosilla, he voivat lukiolaisina käydä collegea, ja saada samasta kurssista pisteitä niin lukion todistukseen, kuin myös college pisteitä (credits). Ja ilmaiseksi niin kauan, kuin ovat lukiossa. Eli upea mahdollisuus maassa, jossa koulutus on ihan järkyn kallista. He ovat kuitenkin edelleen kotikoululaisia, ja kotikoulun matematiikan nettikurssi on alkanut jo.

Pikkuneiti ei ole vielä aloittanut koulua, ensi kuussa olisi tarkoitus. Hänestä on ollut iso apu Mei Mein kanssa, ja uutta kotia laittaessa.

Nämä koulumuutokset tuovat myös sen muutoksen, että meidän matkaseikkailupostauksia tulee olemaan vähemmän. Mutta eiköhän sitä materiaalia blogiin löydy muualtakin:) Hyvä rauhoittua pariksi vuodeksi, Mei Meikin tarvitsee leikkauksen ja todennäköisesti myös puheterapiaa.

Uusi jakso meidän perheelle!

365

Since leaving Virginia, a sampling of my 365 photography project. As you can see, we are back in Florida (except Mr T, who stayed in Virginia at my sister's), living the nomad life, and roadschooling.
(The picture of Baby L is from last week, but I edited on the 12th.)

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Viikko sitten Pikkuneiti ja minä lähdimme Virginiasta, ja nyt olemme melkein koko perhe koolla Floridassa (Mr T jäi siskoni luokse). Asumme taas asuntoautossa, leirintäalueella, pitäen kotikoulua (reissukoulua?). (Vauvakuva on viime viikolta, mutta käsittelin sen Lightroomissa 12. päivä.)

Our Travels Start Again/Matkaan taas

The Mothership has been loaded again with excitement (some sadness, too), lots of food, suntanned people (one is still missing!), good books (paper and audio), and the GPS is set for North.






As wonderful as Florida has been, it is time for us to get back on the road.




Aye, aye, Capt'n, we are ready to go.




You can follow our tweets and facebook updates while we travel.

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Tien päällä taas, suuntaamme kohti pohjoista. Niin ihanaa, kun aika Floridassa on ollutkin, on aika taas lähteä. Matkaamme voi seurata Twitterin ja Facebookin kautta.

Getting Ready/Valmistautumista

Wind is in the east, mist is coming in.
Like somethin' is brewin' and bout to begin...

Yes, it is time for our family to take another road trip, and we are getting super excited!

It is so freeing not to have to be tied to a vacation schedule set by a school! Definitely one of the perks of homeschooling.

We often get asked how we are able to just leave, and never sometimes seem not to have plans set in stone.

There are a few variables, but there are two main life decisions we have made.

The Captain is self-employed, and I am a stay-at-home travel-in-the-RV homeschooling mom. Five years ago we made the decision to pull our children out a great Christian school to educate them at home. It was such a difficult decision. Honestly, I didn't want to do it! Finally agreed to give it a try. (You can read more here.)

We used Switched-on-Schoolhouse for 5th grade, and were amazed at how much we loved homeschooling. Alpha Omega Publications came out with an online curriculum Monarch the following year, which worked so much better for us mac users.

As long as we have a computer and an internet connection, we get our schoolwork done! On the road, at RV repair shop waiting rooms, on the beach, in the sticks, overseas. We love it! And as I am making plans and lists, it is such a relief not to have to pack crates and crates of school material to fit into our cozy Mothership motorhome. Storage space is pretty much all used for food and clothing.

And yes, there is a lot of learning that happens as we travel and visit various places, but we like having a traditional school curriculum to fill in the gaps.

You can check out our Monarch curriculum here.


Alpha Omega Publications is a sponsor of Our Mothership Adventures. We have been given free curriculum in exchange of our honest reviews. You can read our disclosure here.


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Alamme valmistautumaan uudelle asuntoautoreissulle, jee!!!

Meiltä usein kysytään kuinka pystymme matkustamaan niin paljon, eikä meillä koskaan joskus tunnu olevan varmoja suunnitelmia minne ja milloin. Pelkistettynä vastaus on: Kapteenilla on oma yritys, ja minä opetan lapsia kotona/tien päällä, mikä vapauttaa meidät koulujen tiukista aikatauluista. Teinien kouluohjelma Monarch tekee matkustamisen helpoksi, emme tarvitse laatikoittain koulukirjoja ja tarvikkeita, riittää kun on tietokone ja nettiyhteys, ja saamme koulutyöt tehtyä.

Ja matkustaessa oppii tietty myös!

Kohta, kohta:)

The Flexibility of AOP Monarch

Monarch teacher dashboard


As most of you already know, we have been using the online curriculum Monarch, by Alpha Omega Publications, for our teens' homeschool curriculum for almost four years now. Independent online learning works really well for our family.

We have tried various other online programs for an occasional subject, and really appreciate the way Monarch works. The gears behind Monarch are well oiled.

Unassigning a project

February is a good month to evaluate what has been accomplished in the school year, and a time to make adjustments, as needed. So we have done this year, also.

We had a four day school week most of the fall semester, as we attended a homeschool co-op at our church. This was a wonderful experience, but it did put us behind on Monarch work. We have spent December, January and February catching up.

Monarch is set up with a calendar for the student to follow, showing what school work to do that day. They don't have to do it that way, they can ignore the calendar and work on what they want to work on, when they want it. As my students like to do.

The calendar is a great tool for the teacher as well, allowing you to take days off, extend the school year, make adjustments as needed, then reschedule all remaining lessons for the rest of the school year. You can do this as many times as you need to. I use the rescheduling lessons and calendar as a way to see how much work we still have.

As I sat to take a look at our school work last week, I was happy to see we weren't as behind as I had thought. In fact, Missy in Finland has been ferociously going through her 9th grade work, and will likely finish ahead of schedule.

Yet, there is still a ton of work to do. I went through the various assignments Monarch has for the five, six subjects each of my students have. There were a few I thought we didn't need to do, and some review we likely won't get to. Monarch has an easy way to unassign a lesson or project so the work not done won't count against their grade.

When I had gone through each students' each subject, unassigning projects, and rescheduling their remaining lessons, the last item to do was checking their grades. I do check over everyone's work at the end of the school day (a very quick process thanks to Monarch's automated grading), so I shouldn't find any surprises in their grades. But nevertheless, I generated report cards (another simple process with Monarch), and with renewed vigor we are ready to keep trucking on our school year.


Making today a Non-School Day

As I have been writing this, today turned out to be an unexpected PE day for my boys. They are skiing with our guests, so as I hit publish with this post I will go to Monarch's calendar to take the day off. Love the flexibility of Monarch!


For these last two days of February Alpha Omega Publications has a sale going on. Check out the details here how to get up to 15% off of your purchase.


PS. Monarch is Mac/Windows compatible, but does not work on the iPad. For the sake of getting images for this blog post I brought up the teacher version of Monarch and took screenshots with my iPad.


Alpha Omega Publications is a sponsor of Our Mothership Adventures. We have been given free curriculum in exchange of our honest reviews. You can read our disclosure here.

Looking Ahead (Year 2013 - 2014)

It's that time again! Researching and planning has been done, and the new school year is just around the corner. This week we made our final choices, and the upcoming homeschool year is all mapped out. Some changes, but a lot of the same. The biggest change is HIGH SCHOOL! Yes, our four are entering 9th grade this fall (insert fear and trepidation here).



We will start our fourth year of using Monarch (by Alpha Omega Publications - AOP) for our teens. Our fifth (!!) year of homeschooling. Monarch has worked for our family so well. We love the freedom and flexibility of being able to homeschool and roadschool, only needing an internet connection.

This fall we will be attending our local homeschool co-op, as well. The classes haven't posted yet, but as soon as they do, we hope to pick a mix of fun and educational classes to supplement our home curricula.



Our core subjects will be ninth grade New Testament, English, Algebra, World Geography, Physics and Integrated Chemistry.



We are planning to work on Finnish as our foreign language this year. Mr. T has his Finnish books from last year, and Missy is hoping to go to Finland at some point to take language classes there. And we found a free foreign language resource Mango through our library for online foreign language lessons (they offer other languages as well).



We also have three electives for the year: AOP Monarch Small Business Entrepreneurship, An Introduction to Policy Debate (and workbook) by Christy Shipe (from HSLDA), and Dave Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance.

Throughout the summer, and continuing into fall three of our students will be working on finishing their 8th grade language arts curriculum One Year Adventure Novel. It has been a good exercise in writing, but we weren't able to get through the entire material before summer.

So a full year coming up, for sure.



We are super excited about Little Miss' new second grade curriculum. Have you heard of the brand new online curriculum Dew Learning? That is what we'll be using. Little Miss can't wait! Stay tuned for more updates as we get started, and for a discount code through Our Mothership Adventures!

Little Miss will also attend our homeschool co-op in Florida this September. First time for her! Even though she'll be working on second grade at home, at co-op she'll be attending the first grade class. This past year we worked on K-1st material, and I think it will be a good fit for her to work on 1st and 2nd grade classes this fall.

But before we start another year, we need a few more weeks of summer fun!!!

All opinions expressed in this blog are purely our own.  Occasionally sponsors and advertisers will provide products at no charge so they can be reviewed on this site.   We only agree to feature a product that the Our Mothership Adventures crew wants to use personally and that we feel would benefit our readers.  No exceptions!

At this time we would like to especially thank Alpha Omega Publications, Dew Learning and WebFones for their sponsorship of this website.

In Pennsylvania/Pennsylvaniassa

On Tuesday the Captain and I made plans to head south on Thursday evening.

On Wednesday the Captain asked: "Do you think we could leave today?"

After a few panicky moments we got to work, and left Maine that evening.

We drove to New Hampshire, but couldn't quite get to our friends' house, so we pulled over at Flume Gorge parking lot, and spent the night there, and continued on Thursday morning. We picked up Missy from our friends' house, did some errands, and homeschooling.

On Thursdays the boys attend a live online class, so this week's roadschool class turned out to be at a book store cafe. Which worked out fine, and after class we continued our travels.

We drove into Pennsylvania, but again couldn't quite make it as far as we had hoped, so we spent a very restless night at a Rest Stop. (Ha!)

Friday mid-morning we got to our friends' in Pennsylvania, and we have been having a wonderful time visiting. The plan is to continue driving today, and trying to get to Florida Sunday night or Monday morning.

Yesterday was a very special day for us - six years ago we received our referral call about Little Miss! She is such a treasure! Happy day!!! And yesterday my sister gave birth to her daughter! They survived the storm well, and this little princess waited until after the storm to be born.

Updating the blog has been a little challenging as I have been following the Mothership in our car, and at night we've been crashing a few hours before driving again. But we are now leaving our car behind, and I am turning into the Mothership Barista again, and hopefully can blog a little more often:)

You can also check for quick updates our Twitter feed and Facebook feed. Please join us on our adventures!

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Pikaisesti: olemme Pennsylvaniassa! Lähdimme keskiviikkoillalla, minä seurasin asuntoautoa omalla autolla, mutta nyt jätämme auton tänne ja minä hyppään asuntoauton kyytiin. Olemme olleet ystävien luona eilisestä, mutta tänään jatkamme matkaa.

Eilen, kuusi vuotta sitten saimme Sen Puhelun, että meitä odottaa pieni tyttö Kiinassa. Ja eilen, täällä Usassa, siskoni pieni tyttö syntyi! Ihana päivä:)

Matkapäivityksiä voi tsekata myös Twitteristä and Facebookista.

Busy Beavers/Ahkerat majavat

Beavers Photo credit


We have been busy beavers here, at our Maine camp. After taking the summer off from our Mothership adventures (motorhome edition), we are almost ready and very excited to head south, again, in our Mothership. A lot to do, for sure before we can take off, which is this week!!



We've been preparing our camp for winter, as when we return, there will most likely be snow on the ground. Yard work is always a must at fall time in New England.

Wait. Did you see that? Something odd in the picture...

No, it's not the teens and their yard work methods.

Let's look closer.



Do you see that?



We are about to lose a tree! The local beaver does not seem to care about the shoreline zoning rules!

**** When we asked our local friends how to protect our trees from beavers, we got multiple people telling us we need to pee on our trees! What?! Apparently the beavers don't care for human urine. Their sense of smell is excellent.

So, any volunteers?



These pics were taken on October 10th, around the time we discovered the evidence.



So freshly cut there was sap everywhere, and flies buzzing around it. No sign of the beaver, but we would need to sneak up on him during the night, if we wanted to see him - no thanks.



We kept an eye on the tree, but not much seemed to be happening for a few days.

Until one day, we heard a crash, in the middle of the day! So Little Miss and I ran out to check (the teens seemed less enthusiastic about bundling up to see what was happening - they probably figured out they could just check the blog, tee hee.)




The tree was felled! Again, we kept peeking at the tree here and there, and it did look like the beaver kept coming back to work on the branches. I would see loose branches floating near the dock, too. But slow progress.

Today we checked again.



We realized the old stump looked like it was work of the beaver, also!



At first it didn't look like much had chanced, but when we took a look at the branches, there was a big difference.



Interesting how the beaver is chewing on a part, then seems to give up and move a few inches over?



Good thing their teeth grow continuously - that wood looks to be very tough!



Pretty neat homeschooling discovery, right in our own backyard! Little Miss and I have been learning more about beavers, thanks to this discovery. We really enjoyed this Kratt Brothers episode on beavers.



After we get back from our adventures on the road, I'm sure we'll be checking on our 'beaver tree', first thing. Will it be gone by then?

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Me olemme olleet ahkeria majavia täällä Mainen mökissämme. Tällä viikolla alkaa syksyn asuntoautoreissumme, ja paljon on vielä tekemistä.

Löysimme takapihalta majavan jyrsimisen merkkejä yhdestä puusta, ja sitä olemme nyt seuranneet parisen viikkoa. Yhtenä päivänä kuului iso rysäys, ja puu oli kaatunut.

Kuusi alinta kuvaa on otettu tänään, kun kävimme katsastamassa Pikkuneidin kanssa kuinka majava on jyrsinyt oksia isosta puusta. Yllättävän hitaasti on edennyt puuha, mutta sitä on ollut kiva seurata, ja Pikkuneidin kanssa olemme opiskelleet majavien elämää.

Saa nähdä onko puuta enää rannassa, kun tulemme reissulta takaisin?