Roadschooling

When people hear about what we are doing, they pretty much all have the same questions: How can you all live in such a small space? How do you and your husband have ANY alone time? Your traveling with a pet WHAT?!, etc. But the one I tend to hear most often is about how we school on the road full time. Well, aside from enrolling my children in a new school once every week or so as we move around, the only sensible option is homeschooling. Or as we full-time, RV-dwelling homeschool moms refer to it, "roadschooling." 

Roadschooling is fundamentally the same as homeschooling, only with the added bonus of seeing the entire country from the comfort of your home, visiting all of the major landmarks, and going on some of the most amazing field trips you can imagine! For example, this month we have been in Florida, and my kids have gone on an airboat tour of the Everglades and were able to pet live alligators, we've been in some incredible museums, been shelling on Sanibel Island, visited the Tampa Aquarium, explored the Tampa Zoo, seen dozens of historic homes and buildings, climbed the wall of a fort from the 1800's, and this past weekend we took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. Not to mention the adventures we went on last month, including touring the Alamo, The Natural Bridge Caverns, the city of Austin (the capital of our home state, Texas), etc. Then on to Louisiana, where we explored historic New Orleans and introduced the kids to Cajun food and culture, and even got to eat in a restaurant that once was a favorite of my favorite author, Tennessee Williams. Yes, I did have a minor fan-girl moment. ; )  

Through our travel, our kids are gaining a sense of the world outside of our little Texas community, and are learning so much along the way. 

Aside from field trips, I use a curriculum I have pieced together specifically geared to each kid's abilities and interests. This is our third year homeschooling, so I have learned which types of curriculums and learning styles work best for our family, and for me as a teacher. Our boys are in Kindergarten and Second grade this year. After doing tons of research, I decided on the following for our curriculum this year: 

Abeka for Language Arts, Reading, Phonics, & Spelling. 
Apologia for Animal Science
Horizons for Math and Penmanship
The Light & The Glory for US History 
I've also added several other store-bought workbooks I pull from occasionally to supplement anything we may need extra practice on.

Our daughter is in preschool, so she occasionally colors a work sheet or practices her letters and numbers while the boys and I work on book work, but she generally sits quietly on my bed and watches an educational video or plays with her dolls during school time. 

We start our day with Bible and a devotion at the breakfast table, followed by prayer and the pledge to the flag. Next we do "circle time", which isn't much of a circle since there are only three of us in it. But both of my boys are used to circle time from preschool, and insist on having it. During this time we discuss that day's weather, the weather patterns of the month, the calendar, days of the week, months of the year, etc. 

After circle time, I generally sit Annie Jane down in the bedroom to watch her "school video" as she calls it, or on the kitchen floor with a sensory bin, then I get started on bookwork at the table with the boys. I'm still learning how to balance both of their work and needs for one-on-one teaching, so there are times when I have to send one of them to play for a minute while I focus my attention on teaching the other their subject at hand at the appropriate grade level. 

We generally spread our school day out throughout the whole day. Most of the time I let the boys do their read-aloud time right before bed. And we usually take a long break during the middle of the day to spend time in the pool or riding bikes together to burn off some energy, then we pick back up in the evening after dinner. After trying for a year to force the whole school day to happen in the morning, like I was used to with "real school", even with the promise of the whole rest of the day off, I've learned that is not what works for us! A little work here and there throughout the day is how my oldest works best and happiest, and I prefer it as well. I don't necessarily recommend working this way, but I do recommend finding what works for your family, and doing that. If you aren't a morning person, don't start school until after lunch! If you hate staying up late, get all of your school work done early in the day! If neither of those options sounds like the right fit for you and your kids, make up your own option. Do half after breakfast and half after dinner. Whatever works! All I'm saying is please don't feel the pressure to have a public school schedule at home. You aren't teaching in a public school! You chose to school at home for a reason: freedom to do what works best for you and your children. Even if it seems crazy from the outside looking in, find what works for you. When we first started homeschooling, I would have told you that you had lost your mind if you suggested schooling all day long, all the way up to bed time. Fast forward three years and we don't think a thing of it! It's just how school flows most smoothly for us.

Another thing we have discovered lately that works wonderfully for us is having the boys do school work while we are on the road. Closed in the truck and bored out of their minds, they are suddenly a captive audience and are just happy to be given something to do. Haha! I'm also a HUGE fan of Time4Learning.com. On days when we go on a field trip and don't have time or energy to sit down and do bookwork, I'm able to pull up this incredible website, and my children have an entire years worth of grade-appropriate lessons at their finger tips, complete with quizzes and tests to make sure they are mastering the subjects. I can't say enough good things about Time4Learning.com. They provide lessons in History, Science, Math, Language Arts, etc., and provide printable reports for parents on your child's progress. So if you are a homeschool parent, looking for a great online curriculum or a supplement for your current curriculum, check out Time4Learning.com! 

I'm sure I've left a lot of roadschooling questions unanswered, so if I've left anything out, hopefully I'll get around to it in another post down the road. But for now, I hope I've made the concept of roadschooling and how it works for our family a little more clear. God bless! 

- M

The Keys to Happiness

It's been a full two weeks! I honestly didn't even realize how much we've done until I just now sat down to think about it. On the 4th, Molly, the kids, and her mom headed down to Sanibel Island for the night to stay in a little beach cottage and go shelling the next day, while I stayed in Tampa to get some much needed "busy work" done. After wrapping up a couple of conference calls, I toyed with the idea of going to play golf since I was surrounded by beautiful courses and the family wasn't around, but my responsibilities won out and I made the wise choice of finishing up some work I had been putting off. While it was nice to have some peace and quiet in the RV, I found myself missing the sound of the kids playing in their room, and I was ready to head toward Ft. Myers the next morning.

I arrived around 1pm, just in time for Mikki (my MIL) to offload Molly and the kids at the RV and head out. It was nice having her here to give Molly and I some much needed time away from the kids, not to mention chauffeuring the family around while I was out working. The kids were excited to show me all of the amazing shells they found, and they found quite a few. Sanibel definitely lived up to it's name as a world class shelling beach.

After spending Wednesday meeting with clients, we planned to visit a local church for service that evening. Not knowing anyone in the area, I googled local UPCI churches. The church we found was small, and as expected, we didn't know anyone. As is typical, they had us fill out a visitor's form when we arrived. When the pastor stepped into the pulpit I could tell he was probably reviewing the visitor's card. He promptly looked up and said "I see you're from Texas; I just have one question - are you related to J.R. Ensey?" (If you don't know, that's my grandfather.) Come to find out, he had attended Texas Bible College during the time that my grandpa was the President. It's cliche but true, it really is a small world.

After I finished working Thursday, we went and looked at motorhomes. (Now, I'll pause because most of you reading this are probably thinking we're crazy since we just got a fifth wheel! While it's highly unlikely we would upgrade anytime soon, we actually have a few good reasons to look at them. We love our fifth wheel and have no complaints about the size and space, the only downside is when I need to make a quick stop by an office, I either have to find a place to drop the trailer and unhitch or park the trailer and then take a cab. While that scenario doesn't happen often, it would be nice to have a tow vehicle to unhitch and drive while Molly and the kids stayed in the motorhome. It's also much easier to boondock (park overnight without hooking up) in a motorhome since they have an onboard generator. And the best perk would be that Molly and the kids could be "in the house" doing whatever they wanted or needed while I drove us to our next destination instead of all of us being cooped up in the truck.) So, we went and browsed, and ended up finding one we really liked that would work! Now to figure out how to upgrade... :-)

Friday morning we pulled out and headed to Ft. Lauderdale. One thing we've discovered is that moving days are really draining, both physically and mentally. Something about packing up your whole house, going through the process of loading up, hitching up, then rolling down the road at more than 25,000lbs and 60' long through urban areas in tight traffic, then resetting everything up is exhausting. With that said, we pretty much did nothing Saturday.

On Sunday we were able to visit The Pentecostals of Cooper City pastored by Mark Hattabaugh. Although we hadn't met personally, he knew my family and I was aware of who he was. As he was making his way to the platform, he stopped to introduce himself (you get good pastoring points for doing things like this). He and his wife ended up taking us to a local hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant after service, and the food was only topped by the company. The Hattabaugh's are fantastic, genuine people, and it's easy to see why their church is thriving.

Most of this week was fairly mundane - me working during the day while Molly and the kids did schoolwork and then went to the pool. (Yes, I failed to mention that Molly started the kids back to school last week). We forayed out to eat Cuban food on Thursday evening, and it was very tasty.

Something else we've discovered is that living in a 450sq ft space and only having one vehicle means that we all need breaks. Molly and the kids need a break from the RV and RV-parks since they're stuck during the day when I'm not there, and I need mental break after spending several days in a row on the road visiting clients during the day then often continuing with my weekly workload in the evening. Since we were this close to the Keys, we headed out around noon on Friday and made the trek down to Key West. I had booked us a room at a small resort there, and we arrived around 5pm. It was a beautiful little place, covered in tropical foliage. We took the kids down to one of the four pools on site and let them swim for a bit while we lounged poolside in the shade. We had a little bit of excitement when Annie, who normally wears floaties but didn't have them, stepped a little bit too far into the pool. I had just told her less than a minute before to come back closer to the steps, but in-between the time when I said that and the time she stepped off, I had gotten a little distracted by Jack dunking Grey under the water. Sure enough, she went up to her eyeballs in the water; fortunately Molly saw her immediately and jumped up to snag her. Annie was fine, just a little shaken up. And hey, a little healthy fear is good. We wandered around Key West for a while, grabbed some food, then went back to the hotel to relax. We didn't want to waste any time since we weren't staying long, so we headed straight to the beach when we got up yesterday. After letting the kids play for a while, we packed up and headed to Bahia Honda, a beautiful state park. Our next stop was the Islamorada Fish Company. We ate out on the patio overlooking the ocean - alligator, conch, crab, grouper, and clam chowder - it was fantastic.

As we drove back home yesterday, I was drawn to the fact that in-between the work and play and church services and fun excursions, memories are being made, experiences are being had, and lessons are being learned - we're all growing. The kids are growing literally, both physically and mentally as every child does, but they're also learning some things locationally that they probably wouldn't have if we weren't traveling. Molly and I are truly learning patience (you try dealing with three kids under 7 for hours on end in the cab of a truck!) We're also learning how to depend on each other more than we ever have before; being "alone" forces you to do that. I'm also getting to spend some amazing quality time with my kids. Yes, I would still have spent time with them at home, but we had many obligations there that took our time; this journey is breeding a sense of closeness in our little family I doubt we would have otherwise. They say travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer; I would add that traveling with the ones you love makes you a wealthy man indeed.

~J

There's No Place Like Home...

We've had a wonderful time in Tampa, Florida this past week. The 7 hour drive here from Destin almost made us all rip our hair out (because that would have been more fun than the fighting in the backseat and the grumpiness in the front seat..just being real y'all!). But once we got here and got settled, we discovered that the park we are staying at is gorgeous, with sprawling live oaks dripping in Spanish moss covering the whole place. If you know me, you know that trees, especially huge old oak trees with hanging moss, are my favorite thing ever - that or a good sunset; the combination of the two every night here at this park has been amazing. Unfortunately 10 jillion mosquitos also wanted to enjoy the view of the sun setting behind the trees, so I had to do nightly battle with them from my folding chair on the porch.

My parents were able to drive to Tampa this week to spend some time with us, and we've had a great time. My mom surprised the kids with a mini Christmas in July the first day she arrived and has continued to surprise them with goodies while she's been here: shoes, bikes, toys, and field trips to all the best places in Tampa! We've had a lot of fun exploring the area with my parents and will be sad to see them go. It's been nice to see familiar faces! And so SO nice to get a few date nights alone with my husband while my parents kept the kids! You don't realize how wonderful quiet, alone time is until it's not an option. 

  

  

Today - in just a few minutes - my mom and I will head to Sanibel Island with the kids while Jonathan stays here in Tampa to finish up some work. There are supposedly really amazing shelling beaches where we're going, so the kids are really excited to go explore them. We'll miss Jonathan, but I'm sure he'll appreciate a couple of quiet, uninterrupted days to get some work done.

The last few days have been a little tough, homesickness-wise. I think knowing once my mom leaves this week it will be another few weeks before I get to see any of our family and friends again has made it a little harder. We are having such a good time, and I'm really enjoying just spending the one-on-one time with my kids, but I do find myself lately missing our home church each Sunday and Wednesday, and missing my family and in-laws more than I have so far on this trip. I thought it would take longer for homesickness to set in, but it looks like it's found me and the kids on week four. They have all asked to stop by their aunt Amber's house, to please go to their Sunday school class, or to just "go to our regular old Target" this week, clearly not understanding the distance factor at play here. I will be beyond ready to head back home once this trip is over. It's been an amazing adventure, and I know we're having  the experience of a lifetime, but at the same time, it would be wonderful to sit down to dinner with friends and laugh at all the same nonsense we've laughed at a thousand times, in the same restaurants we've been to over and over, where the waitress knows my kids and knows exactly what we want to order. Or to walk into "my" Target, and have the lady at the counter say "Hi Mrs. Ensey! Where are the kids today?!" (Yes, I know that means I go WAY too often! : ) Haha) In all seriousness though, there's really no place like home. And cue the theme song to Cheers.... 

Keep us in your prayers! 

- M