Posts by Joan Concilio

29Apr
8

In which we become the owners of a VERY large map and an elephant

You know, when most people go to used book sales, they buy books. Books, which even en masse, are fairly small in size.

We seem to have… other ideas.

You might remember that last year, we went to our homeschool association’s curriculum fair and came home with a gigantic blank timeline.

Or, at the time I thought it was gigantic.

I’ve since changed my perspective after going to the “we’re closing the library” sale at, of all things, a local church, and having Ashar, who wasn’t super-interested in most of the books or CDs there, spot something fairly ginormous leaning in a corner.

“Is THAT for sale?” she asked Emily, the woman from the office helping organize the sale. Emily wasn’t sure, but she said she’d put our name on it as interested, and someone would let us know.

The “that” in question?

Gigantic map of the world mounted on foamboard

Yes, that’s a six-foot by four-foot National Geographic map of the world mounted on foamboard.

And yes, that’s Ashar sitting with it in the lobby, where, after finding out yesterday that it was ours for the taking, we waited for a bit after the service until our friend Dustin could come by in his pickup truck to haul it home. (After, of course, we tried several unsuccessful ways to get it into our car!)

This thing is HUGE.

So when we got it home, we couldn’t even begin to figure out where to go with it. We didn’t have a place that was both big enough to fit AND prominent enough to suit Sarah.

That is, until I said, “Uh, Ashar, what if I try to put it on the wall along your bed?”

Gigantic map of the world mounted on foamboard

That was a huge undertaking, especially since it’s pretty hard to hang ANYTHING on our not-super-well-built walls, but we made it work, and here it is in all its glory! (Some of you have seen a snapshot of this on our Facebook page already; now you know “the rest of the story.”)

Gigantic map of the world mounted on foamboard

I should do a post in the future on Ashar’s entire room. It’s small, and tucked into the eaves of the house, so we get very creative with space. (As you’ll see in some of the pictures, there’s a table at the foot of the bed with Legos, and you can just glimpse a painting of Ashar’s hung on the eave at an angle over her head; let’s hope I attached it well enough!)

Meanwhile, Ashar also received her birthday gift from good friends of ours who had been carrying it around for a while. Meet her new elephant (not life-sized, but still pretty big!)

Stuffed blue elephant

Best part? When we went up to bed last night, Ashar and I spent easily 45 minutes sitting on her bed, examining the map, the countries, the capitals, the time zones and more. We found places where movies were set, places we wanted to visit, places whose capitals we’d heard of, places with funny names, places where our virtual friends are living, places where some of our favorite books and historical events took place, and more.

And that’s when Ashar found the perfect name for her new elephant.

He’s Cairo.

And we’re glad he’s found a home in the shadow of the Great Map.

25Apr
3

Living-room yoga at midnight

Teenage daughter doing yoga in the living room

Ah, the perks of being a night owl… and of using video games as a big way to get our exercise!

Yes, I’m talking about last night, when I decided to get out the Wii Fit after a stunning hiatus from it. (In fact, it TELLS you how long it’s been since you last let the virtual scale tell you your not-so-great weight, and I was in the 400-some days range!)

I was going for a half-hour of activity, which I did by doing some step aerobics, some balance exercises and a few other things. One of the last games I chose was “Island Cycling,” in which, essentially, you move your feet up and down alternatingly and use the remote in your hands to “steer” your bicycle. This is not only harder than it sounds, it’s terribly silly-looking to anyone watching you, but it’s fun anyway.

Well, Island Cycling is one of Ashar’s favorite of the Wii Fit games. She hasn’t played it for probably several months, but all it took was me doing it for her to say, “Hey, when you’re done with that, maybe can I do it?”

Living-room yoga

And she did. I’d only cycled for about 10 minutes as a mini-game, but she did it for a half-hour… and then decided she wanted to do 45 minutes total, so she tried meditation, ski-jumping, and yoga to make up the rest of the time.

She is GOOD at yoga – really good! (She’s very flexible and thin, and her balance is pretty great.) I’d love to see her do it with a real trainer, but I don’t think she’s at a point where she’d enjoy that, so for now, Wii yoga is awesome!

Living-room yoga

Yes, these pictures are of some of our stretching and yoga at midnight.

For those of you who are real practitioners, first let me say that we DO have a real yoga mat, though Ashar wasn’t interested in stopping to go get it. And while the pictures don’t show it, she can do the leg-raise straight up, but I was taking the pictures as she was moving, and my camera isn’t very precise!

Mostly, I just wanted to share this slice of our day with you. But I also want to point out that this is a great example of a concept that’s a huge part of our unschooling life, called strewing.

My friend Aadel has a great series called The Art of Strewing that I’d love for you to check out for more info. The thing I want to get across is that I didn’t ever say to Ashar, “Hey, we’ve all been a bit inactive lately, we should do some exercise.” Blech! If my husband said that to me, I’d hit him; I wouldn’t want to say it to anyone else.

Instead, I did something interesting, and Ashar got interested. I wouldn’t have been disappointed if she didn’t, but it sure was cool when she did!

16Apr
10

Our scrapbook: In which we become a family of vampire-pirates (sort of?)

Making a pirate map

I’ve been way too quiet here in recent weeks. Things are a little hectic on the home front – we just wrapped up Ashar’s seventh-grade year with portfolio and evaluation; I’m dealing with some long-term health issues (nothing new, just annoyingly recurrent); and I’m also making some changes to my freelance work.

On top of all that, things are incredibly busy at Chris’s full-time job (which is also my part-time job), and we’re ALSO trying to build up our antique-mall bookstore.

Oh, and I finally built an official portfolio website for my freelance work, tied into the schedule changes coming up. So while we’ve been quiet, things haven’t, you know, been quiet.

One thing that had been falling by the wayside a little bit was family fun. The just-being-silly, goofing-off-together, not-a-planned-event kind of fun.

So the other night, when Ashar decided she wanted to make pirate treasure…

Family pirate treasure craft project

We all jumped at the change to blow off some steam and just have some creative fun.

Foam pirate sword

Some of us got in touch with our inner pirate.

Pirate says Arrr (with a dinosaur)

Sometimes we were piratey with a dinosaur.

A jelly-bean vampire?

And some of us are just weird. With our crazy glasses and our jelly-bean-vampire look. Not naming names or anything.

Pirate "Wanted" poster family craft

The same weird person or people decided to create a “Wanted” poster for our wall, complete with slightly creepy-looking pirate.

Family pirate map craft on papyrus

And finally, we decided to use some of our Egyptian papyrus to make an authentic-looking pirate treasure map!

We ran around the house like crazy, “hiding” our treasure, searching for it, giving each other clues, trying NOT to give each other clues… and we had fun.

What fun stuff have you been up to lately?

30Mar
10

March 2013: This month’s snippets from unschooling

Here are odds and ends of our past few weeks.

1. In our biggest news, we’ve officially finished documenting Ashar’s seventh-grade year by state standards. Our portfolio is done, our 180-day requirement has been met and our meeting with the evaluator is scheduled for April 15!

I shared this news on the Unschool RULES Facebook page last week, and mentioned that I was going to write a post in the coming weeks about Pennsylvania portfolios, including what the law says you have to include and how to make a portfolio work for unschoolers, living-books learners, unit study-ers and anyone else not dealing with a traditional curriculum. You can find that post here!

2. Ashar’s 4-H alpaca club completed their mandatory training on quality control in livestock food and medication. Our Extension educator, Linda, made it amazingly fun by drawing ridiculously bad pictures of alpacas on the whiteboard and also by showing us how to do subcutaneous and intramuscular shots by injecting blue-dyed water into a banana. It was both hilarious and amazingly informative!

Showing how to give an alpaca an injection using a banana at 4-H

3. We finished reading the longest and most complicated fiction book Ashar’s ever read: The Alchemyst by Michael Scott.

Ashar had never been much into fiction, but these are actually so fact-packed that she loves them. In “fact,” we’ve had to start discussing which parts of the story aren’t true, because so many of the details are, which has led to some neat research quests.

4. Last fall, when I went to Colorado for work, I brought home a little kit of Japanese paper-roll art for Sarah. We finally put them together and made these guys:

Japanese paper-tube art

These are from a line called Piperoid and they’re all done without gluing or anything else messy – just paper! It was neat to see them go together, because when you see the pieces in tubes, they don’t look at all like this.

5. Ashar’s still Minecrafting up a storm, and in doing so, she’s made friends across the country. It’s amazing to me that we have dinner-table conversations about these friends and I can actually forget that they haven’t met. They’re definitely close. It’s really cool (says the mom who has really found her own “tribe” online.)

She also tied for third place in a building competition on one of the servers she plays on. Pretty good for a fairly new player!

6. Some local homeschoolers invited us to join a behind-the-scenes tour of the new Dairy Queen in town.

Homeschoolers touring local Dairy Queen

It was pretty cool – and even more fun was when Ashar and four of her friends got to hang out and snack afterward, including one she hadn’t seen in a couple years!

7. We’re also doing a lot of Lego-ing. (Which is normal.) Ashar got the Ninjago golden dragon from my sister Carol and the Lego Minecraft set from my mom for her birthday, so those have been fun to build, and Chris and I took her to the huge Lego store at a mall about 2 hours from home as part of her birthday gift. There, she made 3 custom minifigures of her own!

The first two are part of a “James Bond” theme (matching another interest of Ashar’s), and the last one is samurai-like! Our big goal is to make Ashar significantly more room to display her Lego collection here in the next couple months; we’re looking to get some built-in shelving done in her room, and when we do, I’ll be sure to share before-and-afters!

Build-your-own LEGO minifigures, James Bond-themed

So that’s a look at seven snippets from our unschooling life lately. What’s going on in your world?

12Mar
0

Knowledge ‘beautifies and adorns the soul’

Welcome to my next installment as part of the iHomeschool Network’s new series called Quotable Wisdom.

Each Tuesday, we’re all posting thoughts from topics or authors of interest. I’m sharing quotes from famous mathematicians and scientists for your pinning and Facebooking pleasure, but my biggest goal is that I hope something will spark you or your family to dig deeper into a particular area or a particular person’s life.

Quote by noted scientist Dr. John Dee

Ashar picked our quotable person this week as the “part two” of last week’s quote. Like Nicholas Flamel last week, today’s author – Queen Elizabeth’s personal mathematician, physician, astronomer and spy (and even the original “007”) – is the subject of some factual reading we’ve been doing – as well as our new favorite fiction series by Michael Scott.

There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences.
~ Dr. John Dee

Learn more about Dee

More awesome quotes

10Mar
2

Things that kids and parents should know about ‘Skyfall’

We’ve been watching a LOT of movies this year. It’s been a great way to visualize some of the things we’ve been interested in studying, and it’s also been a jumping-off point into new interests.

Ashar’s latest fascination?

Bond. James Bond.

Specifically, we’ve watched two Bond films so far, with more to come. First, we watched Goldfinger, and more recently, we gave in and rented Skyfall. We talked to Ashar in advance and said, “You know, these aren’t exactly designed for almost-13-year-olds. They’re kind of grown-up movies.” And she gets that.

In fact, she gets it so well that she sat down the other night and decided to write out Things that kids and parents should know about ‘Skyfall’, along with some other related notes. I do have to give a spoiler warning, but I think it’s worth the spoilers to see her (pretty intuitive) take!

Here’s what Ashar says:

1. There are bad words. They do swear. It brings the meaning to the movie, I understand that, but they do it a little more than necessary, I think. I would say that the movie is for mature 12-year-olds, and teenagers and adults. If you are younger than 12, do not watch the movie.

2. There is a lot of romance in it. I mean A LOT of romance in it, because James Bond is a ladies’ guy, so there’s a lot of Bond girls in it. And also sometimes the girls die.

3. I would also say that there is a lot of killing and a lot of guns, and the use of alcohol. I don’t think he [Bond] has that much, though. Sometimes just a glass, sometimes it’s just that he orders a glass and he doesn’t drink.

4. At the beginning of Skyfall, when he gets shot and lives his happy, so-called “Dead Life,” he has a drink because he had a bad day. I can understand that. Because it starts out where his teammate is trying to help him, but she has to take a risk.

5. Q almost got James in trouble, because they were doing something they were not supposed to, to lure the bad guy to them.

6. In the one part of Skyfall, the bad guy, Silva, when he’s sitting in the cage, he pulls out his teeth, because he burned the inside of his mouth earlier in his life. You don’t see it coming and then all the sudden you see him putting his hand in his mouth and you’re like, “What on earth?” (I wonder how they did that part. He couldn’t have worn fake teeth like you can get at the store with other fake teeth over that.) [Note from Dad: I think it was special computer effects.]

7. My favorite part in the movie (this part was also shown in the trailer) is when he [Bond] uses the machine to make the hole in the train, and then he jumps over it and then he lands in the train. Because the bad guy was trying to disconnect the parts.

8. Kids might be sad when the bad guy shoots innocent people when he escapes. That part is really sad, because I don’t think that guy did anything wrong.

9. James Bond’s job for MI6 is to be a spy, but he has a so-called license to kill. To me, I think the more violence gives it [the movie] more action, and for people to see the point of James Bond’s job, as a British secret service agent. I think it would be nicer if there wasn’t so much violence in the movies, but with James Bond you kind of have to understand that the whole point of James Bond is action.

10. To me, Goldfinger, yes, it was a good James Bond movie. But I didn’t think I really saw the purpose of James Bond’s job in that one as well. I saw that purpose that he was going after Goldfinger, but not all the action in between that, like in Skyfall. I didn’t see that in Goldfinger. All I saw was music and then it went right onto the movie. There was action in it [Goldfinger], but Skyfall was a longer movie and it had the part in the beginning, and then it went on to the actual movie. Talking is important, but I think to me the movie [Goldfinger] was mostly talking.

11. There is kind of a plot twist in Skyfall – the part where he has to train again to be an agent. And his “Mom” (M) lies to him and says he passes when he didn’t, because he wasn’t ready. The part that M lied to him was actually funny, a little bit. But it was also kind of sad, too, because she lied to him and she also made him mad by telling his teammate to take a shot at him.

12. Skyfall blows up, but James Bond says, “I didn’t really like this place anyway.” I think that part has the most action, because, yes, it is very scary, because there is a lot of TNT going on in there, like dynamite they throw in the windows and all. That part is scary because Silva is throwing the dynamite into the windows. James Bond is trying to kill him at the same time without dying. That part can get a little bit confusing, if you’re not completely paying attention.

13. James Bond movies have a lot more action than Indiana Jones. I would say Skywall is tied with the Crystal Skull for most action. I think James Bond movies have more girls for James Bond to love than Indiana Jones. I like Harrison Ford. I like how he does Indiana Jones, and he’s a really good actor and he’s the right one for it. I think Daniel Craig is the best James Bond I’ve seen, since I’ve only seen two movies.

14. This is my ranking of some action movies that I have seen.

  1. Skyfall
  2. The Avengers
  3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
  4. Goldfinger
  5. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  6. (tie) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, AND Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

So there you have Ashar’s thoughts on James Bond, and his appropriateness (or not) for kids!

At the bookstore the other day, Ashar picked up something else to add to her Bond fascination: a copy of James Bond FAQ – All That’s Left to Know About Everyone’s Favorite Superspy, by Tom Demichael. It’s not a kids’ book – but she’s gamely working her way through the background about Ian Fleming and the origin of Bond. (Did you know, by the way, that Fleming’s middle name was Lancaster – the name of our neighboring county? Now we do!)

Any recommendations for us on which Bond film to watch next?

05Mar
0

Nicholas Flamel’s timeless advice: Wait, look, observe

Welcome to my next installment as part of the iHomeschool Network’s new series called Quotable Wisdom.

Each Tuesday, we’re all posting thoughts from topics or authors of interest. I’m sharing quotes from famous mathematicians and scientists for your pinning and Facebooking pleasure, but my biggest goal is that I hope something will spark you or your family to dig deeper into a particular area or a particular person’s life.

Quote by alchemist Nicholas Flamel

Ashar picked our quotable person again this week. This scrivener, scientist and manuscript-seller who was born in the 1300s is the subject of some factual reading we’ve been doing – as well as our new favorite fiction series by Michael Scott.

Today’s quote is especially pertinent given the mixed histories that surround its author – some true, some completely an invention of later writers. Some sources label him an alchemist in the early-chemistry tradition, some as more of an occult magician, and others as an almost immortal demigod. In truth, he was a married, devoutly Catholic man who committed the heresy in his time of knowing how to read and write! (Yikes.) Our readings have been a great way for Ashar to learn how to separate literary fiction from historical fact!

You must learn to question everything. To wait before moving, to look before stepping, and to observe everything.
~ Nicholas Flamel

Learn more about Flamel

More awesome quotes

04Mar
2

Mom learns, too: Done with astrobiology, on to microbiology

Remember last month when I said unschooling really isn’t about what Sarah is learning?

Mom learns, too: Be interested and be interesting.Since then, I’ve finished my astrobiology course through free online learning provider Coursera. (I even finished “with honors!”) I’ve also signed up for several coming Coursera classes, but the next one – Gamification – doesn’t start until April.

So I wanted to have something to work on in the meantime. Now that I’m rolling with the idea of devoting some of my time each week to tackling a learning project, I wanted to keep up the momentum.

Enter The Microbiology Coloring Book. Yes, I bought this for myself using some Amazon credit I’d earned through Swagbucks. Yes, I’m a dork.

But I’m a dork who likes to color and who’s using that to learn about how anthrax got its name, what the first bacterium to be isolated was, how the earliest microscopes worked, and more.

And, in an awesome learning “coincidence,” I got to learn more about the experiments that disproved the idea of spontaneous generation, which was a common but erroneous belief in the 1700s and earlier. This was cool, because it was actually something we talked heavily about in the astrobiology class!

I’ve set a goal for myself to do about five “plates,” or coloring/reading sets, a week. If I did that consistently, it’d take me 21 weeks to finish the book. I may take a break during my other Coursera courses, depending on my schedule, but it’s nice to have this to fill my time in a way that’s a little more productive than playing Level 33 of Candy Crush Saga for the 873rd time.

By doing things like this book and the online courses, my goal isn’t to become a master in these subjects. In fact, most of this microbiology work should be a review of my high-school-level biology course. But it’s interesting; it’ll refresh my memory before the epidemiology courses I signed up for this fall; and it’s given me a chance already to talk to Ashar about some neat concepts.

What are you learning this week?

Many thanks to Flickr user John Williams for the base photo that’s part of our the “Mom learns, too” logo, and to Karen Lee of A Radical Path for sharing the brilliant reminder to be interested and be interesting!

21Feb
61

What’s it like to homeschool as a night owl?

How to homeschool as a night owl

So… it’s 10:24 p.m. and I’m sitting down to write this blog post. In fact, I’m sitting down to do a bunch of tasks, of which this post is an early entry on the list.

I have always been a night person. In high school, it wasn’t uncommon for me to be up until 2 or 3 a.m., watching movies with friends in my living room, then rolling out half-functional at 7:30 a.m. in my neighbor’s truck, headed for school and downing enough iced tea to get me coherent along the way.

During my worst semesters of college, I worked a full-time job from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. or later. I’d come home, wake up Ashar, who was an infant, and hang out with him for a few hours before dozing off around 3 a.m., and heading back to school around 8:30 a.m. I was tired, but I got to see my kid!

I met Ashar’s dad, Chris, working on the night desk at our local newspaper. We were often the last pair standing – heading out the door around 2 or 3 a.m.

Ashar has always needed a lot of sleep. When he needed to be up for school at 7:30 a.m., he’d go to bed around 8 p.m. – and when middle school started and he needed to be up at 6:30 a.m., he was crashing at 8:30 p.m., barely having time to do more than cram in homework and wolf down dinner after getting home. And let’s not mention how Chris and I looked, walking him to the bus after (still) getting done work overnight.

So among all the other reasons that homeschooling sounded like the right fit for us, getting out of that cycle was a great bonus!

It’s definitely been a huge relief for us to be able to adapt much more to our “night owl” schedule. At the same time, we’ve come face-to-face with a lot of misconceptions. Most are the same misconceptions I faced when I worked night shifts. And most come from people who know us, and know our schedule.

I can tell you that I’ve never been upset when someone we don’t know calls us at 9 a.m. Yep, it wakes me up, but if you don’t know otherwise, I accept that. Those are “business hours,” and I’m fine with that.

I can also tell you that when people who KNOW us get upset when I don’t answer my phone at 8:30 a.m., that’s frustrating. When someone asks us what time is convenient to get together, and we say “any time between 1 p.m. and midnight,” and they laugh and suggest an 11 a.m. lunch, that kind of hurts.

Sometimes, it’s easy to want to be snappish. To want the world to operate on our schedule. That’d be awesome. (Museums open at midnight? YEAH!) But that’s not actually my goal.

Really, what I’d love is simply to have “night-owldom,” and especially homeschooling as a night owl, recognized as a legitimate and viable personality trait, the same as a preference for lima beans or hot weather – maybe not common, but totally OK.

  • We’re not lazy when we’re in bed at 10 a.m., just like you’re not lazy when you go to bed at 9 p.m.
  • We’re not antisocial when we opt out of 9 a.m. group trips, just like you’re not antisocial if you don’t join us for an 11:30 p.m. movie.
  • We don’t find midnight science experiments at all unusual, just like you don’t find 8 a.m. art projects at the breakfast table uncommon.
  • We’re not hurting our son’s chances at getting a “real job” someday. (This was probably the most hurtful comment I’ve received.) If Ashar wants to, he can and will get up. If he prefers, which he probably will, he’ll get a job that has him starting at 5 or 10 p.m. Hey, it worked for me and for his dad! By the same token, we know that not everyone can work second or third shift, so if your kids are getting up at 7 a.m., that’s fine too – just please, trust them to know their bodies and know the times they’re most productive.

Most of all, please know that our night-owl family isn’t judging your early-bird one. Maybe we’re even a little jealous, because you get to go to museums fully conscious! (If we do that, we’re only there 2 hours before they close!)

In return, though, let it be OK that we love nighttime. There’s plenty of daylight – or starlight – for all of us.

And if you’re a fellow night-owl homeschooler, feel free to share our nocturnal friend above. I’d love to start a tribe of “night-schoolers!”

Many thanks to Flickr user Michelle Wright for the base night-owl image!

19Feb
4

Quotes by great mathematicians and scientists

OK, the internet is good for a lot of things – more than cat videos and, yes, even more than having anything in the whole world shipped to my door via Amazon.

One of my favorite things? My Pinterest boards and Facebook page attest to it all the time – I love quotes. I especially love quotes formatted all pretty-like for sharing.

Starting this week, I’m joining with the ladies of the iHomeschool Network as part of a new series called Quotable Wisdom.

Each Tuesday, from now until whenever we run out of fun quotes, we’re all posting thoughts from topics or authors of interest.

I’ve decided to share quotes by great mathematicians and scientists for your pinning and Facebooking pleasure. My biggest goal is that I hope something will spark you or your family to dig deeper into a particular area or a particular person’s life.

Quotes by great mathematicians and scientists - Blaise Pascal

This week, I thought, where better to start than with a quote from one of my heroes about beginnings? This man was homeschooled, and a great mathematician, scientist and philosopher.

Things are always at their best in their beginning.
~ Blaise Pascal

Learn more about Pascal

More awesome quotes from great mathematicians and scientists (and others!)

Quotes by great mathematicians and scientists