We’ve got a family business!

Ashar and cat Mitts helping with family business computer work

Since last week, we’ve done something crazy and cool. We’ve added a new family business to the mix!

We’re now the proud owners of a space at a local antique mall. There, we’ll be taking our formerly digital-only business into the bricks-and-mortar world, selling used books, ephemera, postcards and more under the name of Papergreat.

We’ve had, for several years, an online bookstore through Amazon where we’ve sold used books. And for the past two and a half years, my husband, Chris, has blogged about ephemera and old books at Papergreat. This is our chance to bring those efforts together – and get our feet wet in the realm of local selling, which we’ve only done intermittently until this point.

And it’s our chance to truly have a family business, one that Ashar can be as involved in as the rest of us. Tonight, we started pricing and labeling our books. Ashar’s job was to look up the book in our Amazon listings and tell us what we had it listed for; mine was to label it accordingly in pencil and update it in our inventory spreadsheet; and Chris’s was to carry all the books and be the final price arbiter. We got about 100 of them done as a team! (And, as you can see in the photo with today’s post, even Mitts the Cat helped. Less willingly.)

Tomorrow, we’re hopefully going to start filling our space, and I’ll be able to share photos. We officially open for business on March 1, so we’ll have a busy couple of weeks ahead! Wish us luck…

15 Feb

Mom learns, too: How I’ve gone back to college (sort of) to study astrobiology

Unschooling isn’t just about what Sarah is learning.

Mom learns, too: Be interested and be interesting. One of my friends, Karen Lee of A Radical Path, was recently talking in an online group of radical unschoolers I’m part of, and she described the role of the parent in unschooling like this.

“Be interested (in her and what she is doing and loves and in bringing new, fresh opportunities to her but without expectation, and be interestING. Be someone who is interested in life and learning yourself, pursue your hobbies, look stuff up yourself because *you* want to know something, and just naturally share it with her as you would with someone else.”

Can I just say what a HUGE impact Karen’s message made on me? I’ve been kind of “blah” lately. I don’t feel like doing anything, I’m not particularly energetic, and… yeah, I’m not particularly interestED or interestING.

So I’m kind of not shocked, when I think about it, that Ashar has also been kind of in an “uninterested” phase lately. It happens – and we’re fine with that. But at the same time, I started thinking that I certainly wasn’t doing anything to get myself out of my funk, and that one, I could certainly address!

So, meet Dr. Cockell.

Screenshot of Coursera Astrobiology course with Professor Charles Cockell of Edinburgh University.

Dr. Cockell, or Professor Charles, as I call him in my head, is an instructor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I signed up for a free five-week online course he’s teaching through Coursera called Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life.

And for the past three weekends, I’ve spend about two and a half hours split between Friday and Saturday nights watching his video lectures and taking quizzes.

I love it! I have often said that if perennial college student was a job option, I might take it. Not because I’m much into degrees (and boy am I NOT into student loans), but I love learning. What I don’t love is learning what someone else tells me I need to learn, or being forced to pay ridiculous sums of money in the interest of supporting an institution, not the acquisition of information.

So for me, Coursera is great – its courses are free, but rigorous. You get a certificate of completion – but ONLY if you do well enough on any in-course quizzes, exams, or assignments, and only if they’re done on time.

The interesting thing is, there are about 139,000 people taking this class with me. The discussion forums and Facebook group are actually too much to keep up with most of the time, and my fellow students range from gifted 12-year-olds to 70-year-old Ph.D.s and everyone in between, which makes it a MUCH more diverse experience than traditional college was for me.

So far, it’s been great. I’ve actually decided to take some other courses via Coursera in the coming months – like Modern European Mysticism and Psychological Thought, and Fundamentals of Pharmacology – so I’m sure I’ll be writing more about them.

The thing is, I really want to re-invigorate my own joy in learning. I truly believe that the best way to be a good learning role model for Ashar is to love it myself. That’s the great thing my parents did for me, and I want to be able to do half as good of a job for my own daughter.

So I’m hoping to make this an occasional series – Mom learns, too. I hope you’ll comment and share what YOU are interested in right now, and maybe we can spark some ideas for each other!

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

01 Feb

Things we’ve learned so far today

I mentioned earlier this year that I want to write about more of the “everyday” learning that goes on in our family, in addition to sharing posts on the “big stuff” like resource guides and five-day series.

There are so many of these “odds and ends” that they’re easy to miss. For example, today…

Ashar was reading her box of Sucrets (she’s got a cough and sore throat), and she said, “Mom, what’s Z-I-N-C spell, and what is that?”) So we talked about it as a metallic element, and about elements in general, and she wondered if we had any books about the periodic table.
We don’t (currently) – though it’s now made our library list – but we pulled out Ashar’s 2013 World Almanac for Kids and read about the periodic table in general, as well as some specific elements and compounds.
As we read that, we learned that sugar and vinegar are made up of the same elements, just arranged differently and in different proportions. So are chalk and granite! Isn’t that awesome?
Then we somehow flipped to the money portion of the almanac, where we started talking about the unfinished pyramid and the all-seeing eye on the U.S. dollar, which we had just seen in the National Treasure movies!
Chris and I got into a completely joking argument about the atomic number of beryllium in which we were both absolutely just guessing and acting like we knew what we were talking about. Chris’s guess was, like, 37, and mine was 84. It turns out it’s 4. Parent learning win, or silliness fail? Maybe both.
Ashar got a HUGE compliment on the Unschool RULES Facebook page from the mom of a fellow Minecrafter on the unschooling server we’ve joined. She noticed another “Tourist,” or newbie, and, it turns out, helped him out a little bit as he was coming on board. A few people had done the same for her, so it was cool to hear she paid it forward!

Teenage daughter playing Minecraft

Here’s Ashar, Minecraftin’ away!

So what has your family learned today?

27 Jan

What we’re reading: Buck-A-Book Week edition

This week, Ashar got money to read books.

OK, not really. But it’s Buck-A-Book Week, a fundraiser to support our town’s Literacy Council and its programs, and for each book kids read, they can collect pledges to go toward local literacy programs.

Ashar pledged to read 10 books – and I’m proud to say she reached her goal!

As she was reading, I snapped photos of her with each book, and we added a special message to a supporter on each one of the pictures.

So here’s a look at what we’re reading, photographic-like, with shout-outs to those who have helped Ashar raise more than $175 for the York County Literacy Council!

Books read for Buck-A-Book Week 2013

And for those who’d like to know more, here’s a list of the 10 books pictured:

Many thanks to all of Ashar’s sponsors – we had a lot of fun “reading for you!” Special thanks to a sponsor who is not pictured (because we have a special photo gift for her still to come) – my mom, Joan Concilio.

Another special thanks goes out to everyone who supports Ashar’s love of reading, both by recommending great books, lending books to us and buying us books!

Those of you who are our Facebook friends know that for her coming 13th birthday, ALL Ashar has asked for is giftcards to Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble to go book-browsing!

I’ve got no problem with that!

24 Jan

Our scrapbook: Photos from the Wolf Sanctuary and Wilbur Chocolate in Lititz, PA

We spent all day Saturday in neighboring Lancaster County, visiting some cool places in the town of Lititz.

Lititz destination 1: The Wolf Sanctuary of PA

First up was a trip to the Wolf Sanctuary of PA, a place we visited a few years ago with Ashar’s Wildlife Watchers 4-H club and wanted to return to as a family.

I was amazed at how popular the tours of the sanctuary had grown – when we went before, it was a group of about 20, and this time, there were several groups of about 40 people apiece going through the hour-and-a-half-long tour to see about two-thirds of the more than 40 wolves currently on the property.

Here in Pennsylvania, it’s illegal to keep wolves indoors – and in almost if not every state, it’s illegal to keep them as pets. The sanctuary exists to take wolves seized by game officials and give them a proper home. It’s not a breeding facility or a “rehab and release” place; once the wolves come, they’re there for life.

Tour guide Chuck Rineer at the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania feeding the big pack

The organization is almost entirely staffed by volunteers, plus a paid “wolf master” named Darrell who matches up the animals into packs (which we learned is QUITE the process) and so on!

Our tour guide, who you can see above giving a snack to one of the wolves in the sanctuary’s “Big Pack,” was Chuck Rineer, also a noted wildlife photographer.

A white wolf at the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania

Chuck told us a TON that we didn’t know about wolf body language and communication – and how the volunteers know when they need to stay away from a wolf! When you see the photos, you think, “Oh, how cute, it looks like an overgrown dog,” but one thing you learn quickly is that the ONLY relation between these animals and how your dog behaves is in appearance.

The big pack at the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania waiting to eat

These are wild animals – they are not trainable, they are not “social” (most of the wolves, unless they were bottle-fed upon arriving at the sanctuary, don’t like to be touched), and they only come up to the fence when you’re touring because the guide carries a large bucket of raw meat.

That said, they are incredibly intelligent, incredibly gorgeous creatures who I’m so glad to know are safe in the sanctuary! (They are IMMENSELY well cared for, by the way – though my pictures can’t do it justice, they have big spaces to call their own and a caring crew looking after them, including a veterinary team that donates the cost of the labor to care for all the animals.)

If you’re in Pennsylvania… I highly recommend a visit! Tours are best in the winter months – the wolves are most active – and they’re reasonably priced at $12 per adult on the weekends.

Lititz Destination 2: Wilbur Chocolate Co.

Visiting the Wilbur Chocolate store and museum in Lititz, Pennsylvania

After we left the sanctuary, we headed about five miles up the road to the town of Lititz proper. There’s a lot of cool shopping there, as well as the Wilbur Chocolate Company. Wilbur is the maker of Wilbur Buds, something that many people would say bears a resemblance to the possibly more famous Hershey Kiss – except that the Wilbur Bud predates the Kiss!

While there isn’t an official “tour” of the factory, there is a small museum dedicated to the history and art of chocolate-making, and a change to see several goodies made behind glass. We sat and watched most of the video on how chocolate is created from cacao beans, and that was pretty cool! (And free!)

Finally, we closed out our time in Lititz and our Lancaster County day by visiting the Lancaster Barnes & Noble… which was fortuitous, as it was educator week, with a discount of 25% off your purchase instead of the normal 20%.

And guess what? B&N gives educator discounts to homeschoolers if you provide your affidavit (which I happen to carry in my wallet so that I can get A.C. Moore’s educator discount!)

Many books. Wolves. Chocolate. Good day in my world!

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network’s Best Homeschool Field Trips linkup. Click the image below to read more from this series!

21 Jan

Lego-sorting: Not a job for the faint-hearted

We had an incredibly busy weekend, including a long day Saturday spent on a family field trip to a nearby wolf sanctuary that I’ll be posting about later this week.

Add in some basic and much-needed housework like laundry, dishes and getting the approximately 80 pounds of pet hair off my floors… and I was BUSHED by Sunday night.

Ashar wanted to play Legos in her room, and I offered to go up and keep her company. In addition to her dozens and dozens of finished models, she has a huge plastic tote of “extra bricks” and I started sorting through it while sitting on her floor, looking for a particular piece.

I was just going to sit and relax… but somehow…

Sorting LEGO bricks

It turned into a total Lego-sorting free-for-all. The end result is going to be that we will no longer need the huge tote I’m dazedly leaning on in the photo above. Instead, we’re using two of the Lego brick-sorters you can see to the right of the picture (baseplate on top, three removable drawers below.)

We already have one, and as soon as we get a bit of extra money, we’ve got plans for the second! (I hear, by the way, that there are LEGO-sponsored bloggers. Hey, LEGO company, over here, pick us!)

Sorting LEGO bricks

Ashar decided to photobomb when Chris unexpectedly came up to take a picture of me in all my “this is a baseplate, this is a brick, this is a window, this is a castle wall, this is a minifigure piece” glory.

All of this, by the way, is in preparation for some work we hope to do in Ashar’s room shortly. Size-wise, it’s tiny – in fact, she’s basically on her bed, which is against the wall, and that is the sum total of space side to side.

She needs more storage, so we’re hoping to get built-in shelves put up on the walls on either side of me (around the closet door that’s behind me). Since her room is tucked into the eaves of the house, standard bookshelves don’t make the best use of the space, but built-ins would add a LOT of room!

I’ll keep you posted… I do love a good remodel! And if you have any Lego-sorting or displaying ideas, I’d love to see them!

18 Jan

Our fitness is pretty funny-looking: Video games for physical education

5 Days of Video-Game Learning series: Video games that promote health and physical fitness

The adults in our family do all of our work – and most of our recreation – via laptop and phone.

My 80-year-old mom keeps up with friends and reading via her iPad.

While we don’t have the latest and greatest video-game systems, technology and especially gaming are a huge part of our lives. Is it any surprise that they’re a major part of our teenage daughter’s homeschooling experience as well?

We’re not just talking the standard “educational games” here. We firmly believe learning happens all the time, and we’ve had chances to discuss all sorts of concepts in popular games like the Assassin’s Creed series, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and more. We also believe in the value of apps for learning, in a traditional educational sense and beyond.

That’s why I took part in the iHomeschool Network’s “5 days of…” Hopscotch series with a look at 5 days of video-game learning.

Today, we’ll finish up the series with a look at some of the video games that literally keep us on our toes.

Video games for physical education and exercise

With the exception of my tae kwon do practice and some really pitiful family games of tennis, we’re NOT a particular athletic or graceful bunch.

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

The way we meet our physical education “requirements” for our homeschooling documentation is simply to incorporate as much movement as possible into our everyday lives.

We do a LOT of walking and hiking, especially when it’s not winter. Ashar bikes and rides her scooter a lot. We play badminton all summer. Ashar loves hula-hooping. We do some incredibly physical projects in our garden. (Landscaping is HARD work!)

And, as we do with almost everything, we use video games and apps, not as a replacement for other activities but as a fun supplement when we need to stay in the house (or a helpful tool when we leave it).

Country Dance – This Wii game is our newest “workout” addition. This sucker is HARD WORK! We are all sweating within one song. Don’t underestimate how much fun, and how much exercise, come with these or any of the Just Dance series games. One caveat: We’re fairly particular about our lyrical selections. There’s maybe one or two songs on Country Dance that I don’t prefer for that reason, but they’re still way better than some of the Just Dance. If I had to recommend one of those, it’d either be the Disney Party or either the first or second Just Dance Kids games. They’re not just “little kid” songs either; they’re family-friendly, and not annoying to adults! One other caveat: You will look ridiculous doing these. Don’t let anyone videotape you. Ever. (These are available on Wii, and most are also available on Xbox 360. A few are for Playstation 3 also.)

Wii Sports – This comes bundled with most Wii systems. I’m not sure if there are matching ones for other systems, but it’s a simple way to play baseball, golf, tennis, bowling or boxing. The skill drills in here are phenomenal – I used to bowl competitively, and the bowling drills are as realistic as I could ask for! Chris, Ashar and I will often spend an hour playing these together in the evenings, and sometimes my mom will even bowl with us! It’s a good way to teach the rules of these sports (for instance, how foul balls work in baseball) even if your child isn’t geared toward team-sport participation.

Wii Fit Plus – Ashar and I can easily each “exercise” for an hour on this and not realize we’re doing anything but playing games. In addition to regular fitness drills, there are a LOT of these that deal with balance and coordination. I mentioned before that with Ashar’s Asperger’s and sensory-processing disorder, her proprioceptive sense, or her sense of her body in place, is sometimes “off.” There are a TON of great things here that match a lot of mainstream occupational therapy concepts, without the cost. And I can do yoga and step aerobics – which is great!
Pedometer on 3DS – Ashar figured this one out, not me! Her Nintendo 3DS, which she saved up for and bought with her own money, comes with an integrated (and surprisingly accurate) pedometer. She routinely takes it with her and tracks her steps! In some games, walking even gets you extra game coins or bonuses – which of course is all the more incentive to do it!
Runkeeper app – I guess this is my version of the pedometer. We have the Runkeeper app on my phone, and when we go on hikes or walks, we keep track of our distance and time. It even maps your route down to a scarily accurate level! While it’s technically not a “video game,” it’s definitely a way I’ve used technology to up our family’s fitness level, so I wanted to include it!

There are plenty of even more “dedicated” exercise video games, of course, and games for platforms other than the ones we’re most familiar with. The Jillian Michaels Boot Camp ones (which I tried, and basically stunk at!) are hardcore workouts made more fun by being able to track your progress on-screen. There are plenty of others in that vein.

Exercise is probably the easiest “subject” for me to justify in video games – because it’s so quantifiable. We’re sweating, and we’re burning calories, so we know know it’s working!

That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy fresh air when we can. But I’d say that video games are our main equivalent for “indoor gym” or “indoor recess” at my daughter’s former public school!

The rest of the series

Sunday: Why “All my kids want to do is play video games!” isn’t such a bad thing (introduction)
Monday: Virtual friends, virtual art: Video games for social skills and creativity
Tuesday: Digital currency: Video games for math
Wednesday: Pixels and punctuation: Video games for writing and spelling
Thursday: Bringing the past to life: Video games for history and geography
Today: Our fitness is pretty funny-looking: Video games for physical education

You can read all the posts here!

More five-day fun

This post is part of the iHomeschool network’s January 2013 “5 days of…” Hopscotch series.

You can see how some of my fellow bloggers are spending their five days here.

We’re sharing everything from tips and tricks for getting out of debt to using posterboard in your homeschool, from catapults to eating whole foods.

We sure are an eclectic group – I hope you’ll check out more!

And if you’re into the things we do in our family homeschool, check out my previous “5 days of…” series, 5 days of real-world math.

17 Jan

Bringing the past to life: Video games for history and geography

5 Days of Video-Game learning series: Video games that teach about history and geography

The adults in our family do all of our work – and most of our recreation – via laptop and phone.

My 80-year-old mom keeps up with friends and reading via her iPad.

That’s why I took part in the iHomeschool Network’s “5 days of…” Hopscotch series with a look at 5 days of video-game learning.

Today, we’re talking about the ways modern technology is helping us learn about the past.

Video games for history and geography

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

Let me just start out by saying I’m not a history buff. At. All. Ashar actually really enjoys history – everything from Native Americans to the Titanic to Elizabethan England. As we’ve delved into the topics that he’s most interested in, I admit, I was surprised to find him requesting some related video games. These were things he knew about, some from friends, some from public school, that I wasn’t familiar with.

Hidden Mysteries games – This series, for either PC, Wii or Nintendo DS, is in some ways comparable to my favorite Facebook time-waster, Hidden Chronicles, where you find objects in a whole bunch of different scenes. Except, guess what? THIS series comes complete with serious history facts, as well as some bonus logic puzzles that you really have to think to work through! We had gotten the Civil War and Buckingham Palace combo pack, I think at our library’s discount media sale, for something like a dollar. And Ashar loved them! He was telling me all about letters written from Antietam and how the Changing of the Guard works! For Christmas, he asked for and received another combo pack, this one featuring her favorite historical topic from the past year. It was a Titanic and White House set, again surprisingly fact-filled. There are some more in this series I’d like to pick up after trying these discs – Notre Dame and the Salem Witch Trials among them! I think they’d really spark Ashar’s interest, because he can and does play the others for more than an hour at a time!
The Oregon Trail – C’mon, you didn’t play this in the fourth grade obsessively, like I did, scrambling to earn computer time in class so you could sit on that ridiculous plastic chair and look at that boxy screen full of wagons and oxen?? OK, nostalgia time is over, but this truly is a great game straight out of history. Apparently now you can get various computer versions of this, as well as a 3DS and Wii version, and even apps for your phone. (There’s a whole list here.)
More classics – The Amazon Trail and Galleons of Glory were two other titles I played, and that you can still find (especially if you’re tech-savvy; there are online emulators that work great for both.)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? – This is a “classic” that’s gotten new life both as a Facebook game and for more modern computer systems. An INCREDIBLE geography reference – you will learn where Myanmar is or was, where Burkina Faso is or was, and where a whole host of other neat-sounding world places are. And it’s actually fun – not “so educational” that your kids will roll their eyes at you. (I’m a little bit guilty of trying to go that route at times, and Ashar will tell you that “Math Circus is just math with ugly clowns.”) This one, he enjoys. Even though we have to look up almost every clue, we do it together and have a good time researching!
Age of Empires – I admit, I hadn’t thought of this one at first, because it wasn’t one I’d played a lot myself. But seeing this post on how one family uses it in their relaxed homeschool made us think we should give it a shot on Steam, and to see what else we might be able to find on there!

I’m sure there are more modern games that have a historical twist, too. These are the ones I’m most familiar with because they’re our style of game, but I know there’s some good stuff out there in the World War II realm! (And a couple of Ashar’s older friends love Red Dead Redemption; I don’t, particularly, but even that seems to have taught Ashar about the Wild West!)

Wikipedia even has what I think is pretty cool – a list of video games with historical settings. I wouldn’t suggest there’s a year’s worth of curriculum in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is mentioned there, but some of them sound pretty intriguing!

The rest of the series

Sunday: Why “All my kids want to do is play video games!” isn’t such a bad thing (introduction)
Monday: Virtual friends, virtual art: Video games for social skills and creativity
Tuesday: Digital currency: Video games for math
Wednesday: Pixels and punctuation: Video games for writing and spelling
Today: Bringing the past to life: Video games for history and geography
Friday: Our fitness is pretty funny-looking: Video games for physical education

You can read all the posts here!

More five-day fun

This post is part of the iHomeschool network’s January 2013 “5 days of…” Hopscotch series.

You can see how some of my fellow bloggers are spending their five days here.

We’re sharing everything from tips and tricks for getting out of debt to using posterboard in your homeschool, from catapults to eating whole foods.

We sure are an eclectic group – I hope you’ll check out more!

And if you’re into the things we do in our family homeschool, check out my previous “5 days of…” series, 5 days of real-world math.

More great history resources

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network Massive Guide to Homeschooling History.

Make sure to check it out for tons of other great history resources, including links to a dozen more Unschool Rules posts!

16 Jan

Pixels and punctuation: Video games for writing and spelling

5 Days of Video-Game Learning series: Video games that teach reading, writing and spelling skills

The adults in our family do all of our work – and most of our recreation – via laptop and phone.

My 80-year-old mom keeps up with friends and reading via her iPad.

That’s why I took part in the iHomeschool Network’s “5 days of…” Hopscotch series with a look at 5 days of video-game learning.

Today, we’re talking about the ways some of our favorite video games have improved Ashar’s writing and spelling skills (not to mention her reading!)

Video games for reading, writing and spelling

When I sat down to write this post, I asked Ashar what video games she plays that she thinks involve the most reading or writing. An interesting thing happened – as she was giving me her list, she mixed in things like crosswords and other “traditional” games, not really distinguishing between “video games” and “not video games.”

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

That really interested me – and kind of solidified an idea that I had going into this series and couldn’t quite put my finger on.

My thought is that the division between “video games” and other stuff is pretty artificial. I mentioned in the introduction to this series that it really bothers me to hear people set different time limits for “educational video games” versus “regular video games. And I think this gets to why – the medium is not the message. If Ashar is reading about pet care, the location (on a screen in Pet Vet, or in a book by National Geographic) is just the medium. She’s doing the work – and the message is still there!

With that in mind, here are the games we came up with that dealt most heavily with these language-arts-type skills.

Wheel of Fortune – Ashar plays this on her 3DS, and we’d love to have it for the Wii as well so we can play together! It’s helped her word-building and recognition skills immensely (as has watching the show) – she now understands how words are put together, and that picking random letters isn’t as useful as critically thinking about what combinations make the most sense. It sounds strange, maybe, but that was a skill she’d lacked. She never was able to sight-read words because she just didn’t know how to “guess” what made sense in context, and I think Wheel of Fortune has helped her start to see letters as part of words and words as part of phrases. (As a side note – she loves to play Jeopardy, too, and when I asked her, “Well, don’t you have to spell the answers right in that?” she told me that it’s multiple-choice – and that she wishes it wasn’t! Who knew?!)
Moshi Monsters – I mentioned when we talked about games that promote social skills that Ashar loves leaving notes for her friends (and getting them in return) in this web-based game. She quickly found out that she gets better notes in response when her messages are understandable, and she loves receiving messages with new words! The best example there? When she asked me, “What is SALUTATIONS?” Now she leaves “salutations” for all her friends. Influencing the world with one word of greeting. Or… something!

Pet Vet series – This was far and away the “reading” winner (in addition to being a key math game in an earlier part of this post series) – and in fact, as we talked about it, Ashar decided she wanted to play right now and sat down beside me to treat some animal diseases as I finished this post. She’s now deciphering words like “cornifications” and “antifungal.” All of the game interactions are text-based as well as visual and aural, which makes it great for a variety of types of learners, and playable (though not very easy) for even struggling readers.

The rest of the series

Sunday: Why “All my kids want to do is play video games!” isn’t such a bad thing (introduction)
Monday: Virtual friends, virtual art: Video games for social skills and creativity
Tuesday: Digital currency: Video games for math
Today: Pixels and punctuation: Video games for writing and spelling
Thursday: Bringing the past to life: Video games for history and geography
Friday: Our fitness is pretty funny-looking: Video games for physical education

You can read all the posts here!

More five-day fun

This post is part of the iHomeschool network’s January 2013 “5 days of…” Hopscotch series.

You can see how some of my fellow bloggers are spending their five days here.

We’re sharing everything from tips and tricks for getting out of debt to using posterboard in your homeschool, from catapults to eating whole foods.

We sure are an eclectic group – I hope you’ll check out more!

And if you’re into the things we do in our family homeschool, check out my previous “5 days of…” series, 5 days of real-world math.

15 Jan

Digital currency: Video games for math

$5 Days of Video-Game Learning series: Video games that teach math skills$

The adults in our family do all of our work – and most of our recreation – via laptop and phone.

My 80-year-old mom keeps up with friends and reading via her iPad.

That’s why I took part in the iHomeschool Network’s “5 days of…” Hopscotch series with a look at 5 days of video-game learning.

Today, we’re talking about how some of our favorite video games have tons of math included.

Video games for math

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links. I only link to things we legitimately use and recommend, so if you see such a link, it's because we really do believe in the book or item!

There are a lot of “math games,” especially web-based ones.

I’m not opposed to those, but if you have a math-hater, math facts with circus animals are still math facts, you know?

The thing is, we’ve realized that the games that Ashar LOVES playing most have a huge math component.

Lego Star Wars – This whole series is for the DS, Wii, Xbox and Playstation systems (and includes Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, Lego Batman, Lego Lord of the Rings and a bunch more) is a TON of fun for Lego-loving kids like mine. And guess what? You break bricks and collect coins. You use those coins to complete various challenges. And that means keeping track of the coins, as well as working on your logic and critical-thinking skills, which are a key part of real-world math!
Club Penguin – Ashar loves this web-based game, probably more than any of her others. It’s got a “mission” or “quest” format that you unlock progressively, which keeps the kids coming back, and to unlock various parts, players need to complete challenges. Many of them? Yep, math-based. There’s also a money component here, where you need to save up to buy igloo upgrades for your penguin’s domicile and, you know, cool penguin clothes.
Moshi Monsters and Webkinz – I mentioned these for creative play yesterday, but both have a significant math component as well. They have logic games, mini-games that are actually straight math-based (like Moshi Multiply, oddly one of Ashar’s favorites) and, as with Club Penguin, a significant money component that leads to all sorts of adding, subtracting and more!

Nintendogs and Cats, Pet Vet and Horsez – Again, the money component of these games is key. More so than in some other games, Pet Vet in particular requires you to really work for the coins to then buy upgrades, and there’s a lot of logic required about what upgrades you spend money on. Buy a horse stable and you can care for horses (and make more money), but you’ll have to spend a good bit up front. These are some longtime favorites of ours for science as well, again especially the Pet Vet ones!
Angry Birds – These apps/web-based games are HUGE for learning physics. (And it’s not terribly inaccurate physics – says this math major!) Ashar loves them, and likes doing things like saying, “Well, I’ll need 100,000 points for three stars, and if I have two birds left, that means I’ll get 20,000 points for them, so I’ll need 80,000 before I’m done.”
Rush Hour – This app is based on a board game, and we have that version as well. We play it more on our phones, though, because it’s great for something like passing time in a waiting room or in line! It’s a logic puzzle based on getting a particular car out of a well-packed gridlock.

These are just some of the games WE play. My challenge and encouragement to you is to look for the math in the games your own family enjoys, and, without being heavy-handed (there’s an art to that!), to discuss it. If you’re laying Minecraft tiles, be overt in talking about how you’ll use 20 tiles to make the floor of your house, and if you can, work in that there are four rows of five tiles. If you play Roblox, same idea. I talk a LOT about real-world math and logical thinking, because I truly believe if you get the idea, you’ll be able to get the “math facts” down without issue!

The rest of the series

Sunday: Why “All my kids want to do is play video games!” isn’t such a bad thing (introduction)
Monday: Virtual friends, virtual art: Video games for social skills and creativity
Today: Digital currency: Video games for math
Wednesday: Pixels and punctuation: Video games for writing and spelling
Thursday: Bringing the past to life: Video games for history and geography
Friday: Our fitness is pretty funny-looking: Video games for physical education

You can read all the posts here!