Posts by Joan Concilio

22Mar
0

Family Reading Roundup: Hamsters, birds, butterflies and cats

Ashar’s interests lately have (not surprisingly) been focused heavily on spring animals (and family pets!)

Some of her top picks in the past two weeks have been:

As a quick note, I’m reading Open Season by Linda Howard, and Chris is reading Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino and Boomerang by Michael Lewis. He just finished Huckleberry Hill by Elizabeth Gemming, which was a really obscure (Chris protests, “It’s not obscure!”) look at “child life in Old New England.” He was reading this at bedtime and sharing parts with me. Some neat facts, but some unusual stuff too!

What have you been reading?

21Mar
5

Blogging about geography and old books with dad (and a very temporary mohawk)

Today was excellent. No better way to describe it.

I slept in, and Chris decided to do a “special project” with Sarah! They decided to go into our basement book room to look for old school books. (We run an online used bookstore, so when I say book room, I kind of mean a combination between a bookstore and a library. A really OLD library.)

They were originally looking for old math books, which we have a bunch of, and they were going to see if they could find any with word problems in them.

Reading an old geography textbook

But early on, Ashar found an old geography textbook – from 1920 – that she absolutely fell in love with, and Chris decided to run with that too. She sat down and was reading through pages of it that talked about everything from the mechanization of farms to the human intrusion on the territory of brown and black bears. By midday, that became this guest post dictated by Ashar for Chris’s book and ephemera blog, Papergreat.

Chris said the blog idea worked well because Ashar didn’t have to type it herself, and also because she also likes writing blogs and doing research – the first thing she wanted to do when they came upstairs was to look up the book online and see what she could find out about it.

I wasn’t sure what had prompted all this (I came in at about the point they started working on the blog), so I asked Chris about it tonight as I was starting to write, and he said, “She had really been going off on quite an interesting lecture about the Amish and what has and hasn’t changed on the farm in terms of mechanizations, because the geography book really focuses on how horses and mules are vital for the American farmer, but that things were starting to change. So she really was saying some smart stuff, so I wanted to get upstairs and do it in the form of a blog as quickly as possible, because it was a really a case of her not just repeating what’s in the book, or saying something fairly obvious, but really saying some more insightful stuff.”

The Amish parallel, by the way, she came up with entirely on her own, which fascinated me!

I LOVED hearing Ashar dictate her blog post to Chris, and I loved hearing Chris work through her ideas with her. He’s pretty serious about his blog, and having Ashar guest post was truly an honor. (He’s never had ANY guest author before!) I would really encourage you to check out what they came up with here. It’s pretty stellar. (Mom likes to brag.)

The other neat thing about the post was how Chris and Ashar worked together on the art for it. They scanned their book page, and they worked together using Pixlr (which, by the way, I highly recommend if you can’t afford Photoshop) to create different crops. When they got to a cropped version of the map you can see in the photo above, Ashar showed Chris how to use the eyedropper and paintbrush tools to first match the background color of the page and then mask out the text, giving an image of JUST the map with no fragments of text around it. Then they worked together to decide where to put the images in the post and everything.

The other cool thing, Chris mentioned, was that while they were still in the book room (or the “ephemera hideout,” as Ashar called it), Ashar must have also gone through 10 math books, looking through them and seeing what year they from, what people had written in them, seeing the illustrations, that type of thing.

He said she must have said a bunch of times, “Oh, I know how to do this,” “I remember doing this in class,” or “I can do this.” Chris said they must have looked through those for at least a half-hour, and they made a pile of the ones that were really interesting for future enjoyment. I think that’s pretty awesome – and it’s so great to see Ashar enjoying the history of books the way the rest of the family does!

Other exciting events today: After Ashar’s shower, our friend Tracey helped her create a temporary mohawk out of her wet hair. Ashar LOVED it. I’m somewhat given to extreme hair myself, but I have to admit I cringed just a little when Ashar said, “I want it like this ALL the time!” We’ll see. I wouldn’t say no, but my concern is honestly that she wouldn’t want to put the work into it and then it’d turn into a fight. Either way, she got a real kick out of doing it tonight!

Ashar with a fauxhawk

And, finally, this weekend marks not only Ashar’s birthday (and my mom’s birthday, on Sunday), but also Ashar’s great-grandfather’s 70th birthday on Monday. Her grandparents and other family members are celebrating with him out of town, but Ashar isn’t going to be able to go because of her own birthday celebration. So, she decorated a giant card for Great-Pappy instead. She did some really neat work – and for Ashar, this is a LOT of writing, so that was pretty cool!

great-pappy-card

Hope your day was as fun as ours. Tomorrow, we’ll have family visiting from out of town, and I’ll be interested to hear how Ashar describes her homeschooling adventures to them!

20Mar
0

Spelling, shopping and a found bird’s nest

So here’s the “great” thing about living and homeschooling in Pennsylvania and following a somewhat untraditional learning approach: We’re what I’ve found is a high-documentation-required state for homeschoolers. The short version of that means that we have to justify our learning a lot more than folks in other states.

That’s not entirely bad – and a LOT is dependent on the evaluator you choose for your independent year-end evaluation; that evaluator’s report, and a portfolio that can actually be very simple, are what go to your district. I’ve been “interviewing” two potential evaluators who both seem incredibly nice, one a current special education teacher and the other a retired teacher from a local private school. The first woman was kind enough to provide a list of what she prefers to see at the end of the year, and I wasn’t too worried about most of it – until I saw that she’d like to see five samples of spelling practice.

Cue Patented Mom Panic. Spelling practice? I’m soooo not giving my kid spelling lists and tests. She has had them for basically six years and remembers exactly zero of the words from them if they’re not things she uses in her daily life. Honestly, why bother? I would MUCH rather she be a “good speller” of words she is using to spell. So I figured, let’s let her be as accurate as possible when she writes or blogs or whatever, and that’s good. Well, then I saw the five samples thing and, while it’s not absolutely required, I started thinking… what do I have to “show” for this?

Enter inspiration of Ashar’s own choosing. She decided to help us write out our grocery list for this week’s trip. Completely without prompting, and completely with an interest in getting things spelled correctly.

Grocery list handwriting practice

And she did a GREAT job. She also improvised on her first take at the word “deodorizer” – take note of “cat litter thing to make it smell good.” But, on her second take, she was willing to give deodorizer a try!

That’s my kind of spelling. Useful, voluntary, and good work – not the “you can’t read my writing, I don’t even know what I’m trying to spell” list-based stuff.

As a side note, Ashar was also incredibly helpful on this grocery trip, and with the menu planning and coupon sorting that preceded it. Our family only shops every two weeks, for a LOT of stuff for the four of us plus the menagerie of animals, and she often comes along, helping with coupons, with putting things in the cart, with making sure we don’t miss anything from the list, and just for fun company. Maybe we’re different, but we like all going to the grocery store together – it’s always at least Chris and me, and Ashar and Mom join us when they can. It’s fun!

Finally, I’ll leave you with this photo, celebrating our first day of spring. We found this bird’s nest on the ground in our backyard, and Ashar liked taking a look at it, seeing how the birds worked different twigs and the dryer lint into it. It now has a place of honor in her room (with an wooden owl figurine in it, not necessarily scientifically accurate but super-cute), and after seeing this, she’s decided we should make a “nesting materials feeder” for the birds out of an old suet feeder (which, of course, we found directions for on Pinterest), so I’ve been saving string and my dryer lint for the cause.

Found birds' nest

Happy spring, everyone! How’s your weather? Ours is slightly damp, but warm and with many sunny days. I love it.

19Mar
10

Making our first sensory tubs: Rainbow rice, fuzzies and dice

One thing I’ve read about on a ton of homeschooling/unschooling blogs is the “sensory tub.” (And, yes, they’re all over my favorite site, Pinterest, too.)

Though I usually see them referenced for younger kids, I really thought Ashar would love one. She is incredibly tactile, and when she has something to fidget or “stim” with, it can be a huge help. When she doesn’t… then she’s an incredible nail and finger-biter, cuticle-picker, etc. (So, yes, I admit my “mom motives” on this were a little selfish.)

Anyway, I showed Ashar this recipe for rainbow-colored rice and explained that we could make a cool box of stuff that feels good, just to play around with.

Rainbow rice for sensory bins

She was THRILLED. So, today, we made rainbow rice, bought a couple of fairly cheap plastic containers with tight latches at Target, and made our first sensory tubs. (Or, as Ashar calls them, “Rice stuff boxes.”)

Ingredients for rainbow rice for sensory bins

It’s pretty simple – separate your white rice into a bunch of zipper bags; in a smaller container, mix 2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol and a few drops of food coloring, then pour into the bag – and then find a “squisher” to help mix it up!

Rainbow rice for sensory bins, before drying

We made nine colors altogether, and then poured them onto wax-paper-lined cookie sheets and sat them on the deck to dry. Luckily, that only took less than a couple of hours, because we brought them in when it started to rain!

Once the rice was dry, Ashar mixed the colors, and then we started assembling our tubs. The one you see below is our “house tub,” a large one; we also decided to make a “rice car box” for trips; this is smaller and a little less full.

Making rainbow rice for sensory bins in homeschooling

With this rainbow base, we just started adding “stuff that feels good.” I was thrilled, because this turned into a whole-family project. Chris was photographing (which I greatly appreciated!) Ashar contributed a bag of kidney beans and a bag of black-eyed peas; she’d asked for those when we all went to the grocery store Sunday – cheap and good-feeling! I found some buttons and some cotton balls.

My mom went upstairs and came back with one of the MANY leftover centerpieces from our wedding; they were simple glass containers with blue and white river stones in them, and she had the awesome idea to use the stones. Ashar got a brainstorm and went downstairs to our game shelf and came back with her container of extra dice. I wandered upstairs to her playroom and found some tiny plastic farm animals. Ashar was willing to use some of her neon pompoms, or “fuzzies,” from some recent craft projects. In it all went, and we ended up with a container that is completely full of good feelings.

Sensory bin with cotton balls, rice, beans and dice

Here’s the best part. We ALL stood around, running our hands through it, examining the textures, playing games Ashar made up (like, “Let’s find all the dice,” or “How many farm animals can we find?”), scooping with a measuring cup, making stacks, making volcanoes… and just enjoying the good feeling of feeling stuff.

Today might have been the best example so far of why unschooling rules. We spent most of our day on this project, it cost us very little, we all thought creatively, we worked as a team, and we had a GOOD TIME. Plus, now we’ve got something fun that our whole family will enjoy messing with for who knows how long.

Happy Monday. I hope your day was as full of good feelings as ours was!

18Mar
2

Meet Shadow, our family’s new hamster

Yes, after Ashar did the “hamster cost” math, we did go along for the ride and decide to purchase our thrilling new rodential family member. She’s paying some of the cost from her savings (her choice), and the rest is part of our birthday gift to her

New hamster in box from PetSmart

We could not possibly have had a happier kid at PetSmart this afternoon. Many thanks to Tyler, the associate who took Ashar’s interest very seriously and didn’t roll his eyes at this kid saying, “This is THE EXACTLY RIGHT hamster for our family.”

Ashar with hamster box from PetSmart

It was sort of like any other birthday present… in that he came in a box and, when we got home, Ashar got to open it up and have fun… while Mom dealt with the parts that were “some assembly required.”

Putting a hamster habitat together

After we got the cage assembled and filled, we put it in the place of honor – the top of one piece of our entertainment center. In a house with five cats, finding a safe home for a hamster cage is no small feat. This was a good spot because Ashar can see it, it’s not in some out-of-the-way corner, and it’s still as close to cat-proof as we’re going to get.

Putting the hamster into the cage

Ashar was VERY excited to watch Shadow settle in. He kind of amazed us – he was very interested in exploring his new home, even climbing (most hamster species, dwarf ones especially, don’t explore at that level for a couple of days when put in a new place.)

He also made “angry hamster noise” when we tried to wake him up to go back in his ball… if you’ve never heard it, it has a cricket-like quality, almost a clicking and squeaking together. I told Ashar we’d need to let him acclimate before we did much more. But watching him was totally OK – and she tuned in to “hamstervision” for about an hour.

Looking into our new hamster's cage

Wish us luck! We’ve had several hamsters in the past, and most if not all had some interesting quirks, to say the least. Let’s just hope this one doesn’t surprise us with babies, like one of our “male” hamsters did in the past.

16Mar
0

Our scrapbook: Cookie-making with Dad

Since there are so many friends and family members out of town who are now reading, I’d like to regularly show off some of our fun photos. Today’s are mostly from our cookie-making this morning, in which Chris and Ashar teamed up to get three kinds of tasty treats ready for donation to the 4-H auction fundraiser tonight. There might be some gratuitous cat photos, too.< Cookie volcano

Ashar wanted to make a “food volcano,” so she shaped the dough mix into one, complete with opening in the center.

Double chocolate cookie dough

The batter for our double-chocolate-mint cookies. I’m not a mint fan, but they smelled pretty good.

Wonderful cookie-bakers

I love these cookie-bakers THE MOST!

Ashar shapes her cookie dough

Here, Ashar expertly shapes the dough on the cookie sheet. She liked being careful to be EXACTLY the right size!

Finished cookies

Here you can see the finished products. Our three flavors were double-chocolate-mint, white-chocolate-cinnamon-chip-swirl and toffee-butterscotch. YUM!

Chris holding Salem

Gratuitous photo of Chris holding Salem…

Ashar holding Mitts

… and super-cute, gratuitous photo of Ashar holding Mitts! These are our biggest cats – Mitts is about 19 or 20 pounds (more than a third of Ashar’s weight!) and Salem is about 22 or 23 pounds. (Not more than a third of Chris’s weight… sorry, sweetie!) We love these big boys, but not as much as I love the nice people holding them.

15Mar
2

Learning to make decisions: Harry Potter and cookie-making

I have to start today’s post by thanking the MANY friends and family members from my personal Facebook page who’ve stopped by. I greatly appreciate – we ALL greatly appreciate – your support and encouragement!

Homeschooling playground fun

Funnily, a day after sharing this blog on Facebook, here I sat most of the day with no time and little idea of what I wanted to write. Figures, huh? I work primarily from home (via a full-time job and a series of part-time jobs); one of my part-time jobs includes me working a shift a week in the office, and today was “office day.” That meant Ashar was home with Chris and my mom for much of the day; she did a couple of math workbook pages, played on Mom’s iPad, read some books, and, later, once I came home, we went to the park with one of my good friends. All in all, a fairly quiet day.

Late this evening, though, our biggest “learning” moment of the day happened.

Ashar was watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on TV. She had her snack, and it got to be about 9:45. I checked to see what time the movie ended, and it wasn’t to be over until 11 p.m.

Something Ashar’s been excited about this week is that on Friday, she and Chris are going to make and package cookies to be sold at the food stand of our local 4-H auction as a fundraiser. (I’m excited, too; Chris is actually a MUCH better baker than I am, and this is something they really love to do together.)

Anyway, one thing we know Ashar sometimes struggles with is decision-making. Some of it is related to her Asperger’s – and some is just “I’m 11 and it’s easier if Mom and Dad do the work of deciding for me!” So I thought, here’s a chance to see what happens when I put this in her hands.

I said, “Well, here’s the situation, an you can figure out what to do. You know you want to get up to make cookies with Dad in the morning. The movie is on until 11. If you would like to stay up, I’m totally fine with that. If you think you’d rather go to bed, that’s fine too.”

Here’s what I loved. Ashar says, “Well. Can you email Dad and see what time he wants to start with the shopping and making the cookies in the morning? That way then I’ll know so I can see what to do.”

So I did. (Side note: 2 seconds later, Ashar says, “Did Dad answer yet?” Have to love the instant age.) Chris, when he replied, said we wouldn’t start with the cookie-making until after we took the dog to the groomer; he has to be there at 10 a.m. So, he said, she wouldn’t have to be up any before 9:15.

Relayed this back to Ashar, who thinks a little, and, working this all out, says to me, “Well, last night I didn’t go to bed until after 10 or 10:30 at night. And I got up at 9:15 on the dot this morning and got dressed and came downstairs. So I think I can stay up to watch the movie, then go to bed, then set my alarm and get up and get dressed OK.”

And she did. She’s tucked in for the night now, clothes chosen for tomorrow, alarm set. She and I both liked her plan – and she made a choice (and an informed one at that!)

To some people, maybe this doesn’t sound big. But I’m almost choked up writing about it, because it’s just so wonderful to see. This is why we homeschool… not because her former school was bad (it wasn’t) or because she wasn’t “learning” there (she was). But because this foundation, this ability to analyze and to synthesize and to evaluate, is something we’re passionate about, and something we want to spend more time on, and now we have the freedom to do just that.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in my “trying to find what to write about” phase today, I browsed a bunch of homeschooling blogs and found this post, School ADD Isn’t Homeschool ADD, by Laura Grace Weldon. Her son’s story certainly resonated with me, but honestly, the part that I found most compelling was where she talks about “free-range learning.” That’s what homeschooling is allowing ME to learn – that it’s OK to trust Ashar, OK to believe that she’ll learn what she needs to learn when she needs it, and OK to trust my own judgment. That learning doesn’t stop being learning because it involves movies on TV or hamsters or Legos.

And I like it.

14Mar
0

Rest in peace, triops; long live the winter white hamster

Remember our triops?

Well, now they’re “our former triops.” Apparently, my water-changing escapades weren’t to their liking, and they’ve gone to the great crustacean beyond. My eulogy was “Well, you guys were the best pets less than an inch long that I ever had.”

We’re not lacking in pets – with a house of five cats and a hundred-pound dog, it’s not like animal companionship is an issue. But Ashar has really had an interest in small, more “manageable” pets lately. The triops were a good example of that – always there for her to watch, fairly easy to care for, not independent enough to go off and do their own thing. We’d talked about having fish; Ashar has been fascinated for more than a year with the knifefish family, especially the black ghost knife, but we talked to a really helpful guy at PetSmart today who told us that those fish grow to be about 20 inches long and require a 75+ gallon tank!

NOT. HAPPENING.

So, another pet Ashar’s been passionate about is a winter white hamster. We’ve had hamsters in the past – in fact, quite a few, especially once we accidentally ended up with a pregnant “male” – but never this particular type. Ours were Siberians and other general dwarf species.

Winter white hamster

Here he is, in all his PetSmart glory. While we were there today, inspiration struck. Chris and I were pretty close to “yes” on this already, as Ashar had been asking for one for weeks, but, you know, we didn’t want it to be TOO easy.

So, we said, “OK, Sarah. You need to make us a list of all the things we would need to have in order to have this pet. Then, we’re going to find out what the prices are of those things, and then we’ll figure out a plan for how that could work.”

Well, don’t you know, the kid comes home (armed with, from the library, “You and Your Pet Hamster and Gerbil,” “I am Your Pet Hamster” and “A True Book: Your Pet Hamster,” as well as, all the way from 1986, “A Beginner’s Guide to Hamsters” from her own bookshelf) and whips up this:

List of supplies needed for a pet hamster

Much of this was taken from a list she found on a brochure, but she worked it all out, made sure everything was spelled correctly, used her nicest handwriting, and even helped me measure the spot where we think a hamster habitat will go so we can make sure to get a good fit. (She specified for her cage, “one with ramps and different levels,” so it’ll be a two-story proposition!)

Guess this means a trip back to the pet store is in my fairly immediate future… wish us luck!

13Mar
4

Our top 5 homeschooling resources

I was pretty excited to see that The Homeschool Classroom just started a new series of writing prompts for homeschool bloggers. The first one asks, “What is your favorite homeschool resource that you’ve used?”

Well, I thought about that for a little bit, and it’s funny; we’re new to homeschooling, but the resources I’ve come up with aren’t new to our family. That feels good – because I feel like it means we’ve been open to learning in a variety of forms all along!

Being so new, though, I hate to pick just one resource, so I decided to do a “Top 5” list. Number 1 is definitely our super-most favorite, but the others are in no particular order.

library-sarah1. Our local library system. The York County Library System is, in a word, phenomenal. I’ve gone to the same library – albeit in different incarnations – since I was three or four years old, and it’s great to take Ashar there as well. Our “library ladies” are always wonderful to us, too. Coming up in the summer, there’s a program in which they partner with our county parks to provide a reading-and-hiking “letterboxing” challenge (think geocaching, with written directions and not coordinates.) That’s an entirely local effort, and we have participated since the inception of the program. Added bonus: ALL our library’s programs are free!

2. Our local park system. Speaking of parks… we’re amazingly lucky to live in an area rich with township/city parks, county parks and state parks, all within minutes of our home. We love spending time outdoors as a family, and when we travel, we’re often reminded that other areas don’t have nearly the wealth of parkland that we enjoy (again for free… love it!)

3. National Geographic. Not just the magazine, though that’s cool; Ashar loves NatGeo’s website, its books, its interest in wildlife conservation, its photography… everything. It’s really broadened my world and Chris’s, too; we read as much as Ashar does from their catalog of works and are always learning something new.

The Complete Book of Algebra and Geometry4. “The Complete Book of…” series. I mentioned this before; we’re big fans of this workbook/textbook combo-style approach. Ashar isn’t much for workbooks in general, but these really keep her interest in social studies, history and, yes, even math. I only wish they had more for middle-schoolers and even high-schoolers; I plan to write to them as soon as I can to suggest as much!

5. 4-H. We are members of an awesome local “Wildlife Watchers” club, and hope to join another club in our community shortly. This has enriched in our life in so many ways – trips and activities we’d never have known about on our own (like soapmaking); great friends from a variety of backgrounds and of all ages; a chance for Ashar to really shine and to get to know people who share her passion for animals and the outdoors. Can’t say enough good things about the leadership and the program, which in many ways serves as our main science “curriculum.” Total cost: Our $11 membership fee. LOVE IT!

So that’s our “Top 5” list. If you’ve got your own favorite resource, head over to The Homeschool Classroom Thursday to share; I’m excited to see what everyone else is using.

11Mar
0

Triops, Celtic Nights and Ashar’s own blog

Two things of particular interest happened today. Well, three if you count that we slept in, which was of particular interest to ME, but I guess that doesn’t count.

First up, our triops have grown like crazy. We have three, and they’re most easily explained as some combination of a really little horseshoe crab and a really big brine shrimp. There’s a fun website, triops.com, where you can read more.

We’ve been growing this set for about two weeks, and they’ve gotten huge. The triops have provided some great science conversations, including some about what diapause is and others about how crustaceans compare with other types of life. Seeing them molt their exoskeletons has been one of Ashar’s favorite parts.

Here they were when we first started hatching them (from the kit pictured). I will warn you; this photo was before we tried hatching the FIRST half of our eggs, and while they hatched, none made it more than a few days without dying.

Growing triops as a homeschool project

Meanwhile, the live ones from the second half of the batch, apparently a hardier lot, got their water totally changed today, a process not unlike changing goldfish water, but with a little more maneuvering required to catch them and transfer them from container to container. Then I tried to take their picture, which was hard to do in their little plastic tank. Here’s the best I was able to get.

Triops

If you look closely, you can see two of the eyes on the one at left; the word triops means three eyes, so there’s another eye there somewhere as well.

In much “prettier” news from our world today, we went to a concert at one of our two local colleges today for the group Celtic Nights. Ashar actually enjoyed this show even more than the Celtic Woman concert earlier in the week. I have some photos to share tomorrow; in the meantime, though, Ashar wrote a post on her own blog about the show, so check that out to learn more about what her favorite part was!