Annie and the Phantom: An appreciation of musical theater

In big news for us, Ashar had a friend sleep over yesterday into today. Two wonderful, hyper girls laughed all over my house for just about 24 hours straight. It was great for me, because they kept each other occupied, and I hope it was great for Ashar to get some girl time! They certainly had a flair for the dramatic, as evidenced by the photo at right of their fashionable get-ups. Complete with bling. And beads. And “we got us hats and bracelets, yo!” That’s a direct quote.

Sleepover with Friends Tonight, we got to continue the drama streak. We were lucky enough that our local PBS station showed The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall during one of its pledge drives.

Minus the way the pledge-drive interruptions broke up the story (sorry, PBS), it was amazing. Ashar loved it, and it was especially great because we’d gone to see a performance of the musical Annie at my high school last weekend, so we got to talk a lot about HOW musical theater works and the art that goes into it.

As a total “band nerd” for most of my life, and a many-times-over performer in our school’s musicals, it of course thrills me to see Ashar so interested in something I’m so passionate about. And with both of these musicals, it was neat because I was actually surprised at how much of the plot Ashar was able to grasp, despite some of their topics being pretty deep and a little outside the purview of your average 11-year-old.

Annie, for instance, was a great springboard to talking about the Depression, Herbert Hoover, FDR and the New Deal, and while Ashar hadn’t been familiar with anything other than the presidents themselves, she quickly was able to grasp the conflict between the two administrations and the way many folks blamed Hoover for the economic crisis. In Phantom, Ashar was really interested in the idea that the Phantom was neither a bad guy or a good guy, which is a big deal because of how black-and-white she tends to be in her thinking.

She was also very interested when I told her it was based on a French novel. She says, “Do they have it in English?” and seemed very interested in reading it – even when I showed her how thick it is. Again, this is pretty major, because reading fiction, and especially fiction that requires an attention span, isn’t really something she’s historically been much for. Will she read the whole thing? Who knows, but even the interest is a good start.

Another interesting comparison, and my apologies to all the actors who’ve played the Phantom over the years: Ashar says, “You know who should do the Phantom? Johnny Depp. Because he was Captain Jack Sparrow, and he was kind of a mean guy and kind of nice sometimes too, and he looked angry and sometimes drunk a lot but really wasn’t.” I mentioned that singing isn’t maybe exactly his forte, and she says, “Well, they could do, you know, a silent movie.” (Lon Cheney must be rolling over in his grave.)

Check out more of our favorite Phantom of the Opera resources here, including how we turned this into a much larger study later in the year!

06 Mar

Celtic music and ladies’ night out

Celtic Woman concert in Hershey, Pennsylvania

Tonight, Mom, Ashar and I went to a Celtic Woman concert in Hershey. AMAZING doesn’t do it justice. We watched as their violinist, Máiréad, spun in a circle and swung her hair while still playing at an incredibly dizzying pace. Our seats were great, and in fact, the bagpiper at one point came out just feet away and started walking toward the stage.

It was great to have a “ladies’ day,” and great to get to talk about this music, which is very much a part of our family’s heritage. We listened to perhaps Ashar’s favorite group, Celtic Thunder, on the way to and from, and even had an in-car singalong and drum-along. This coming Sunday, we’re adding my sister Linda to the group and going to see Celtic Nights here in York.

In other news today, we went – at Ashar’s urging – to Kiwanis Lake to see the ducks and geese. (Not time yet for the egrets and herons, which nest there later in the spring and summer!) I think Ashar could happily spend hours just watching the birds. She had a great idea, too. There’s a big sign there that says “Feeding of waterfowl prohibited,” but Ashar suggested they should put in good bird food in the dispensers where you insert a quarter and get a handful. “So that little kids could learn how to enjoy the birds, plus they could make some money,” was her reasoning.

I told her she should write a letter to the city with her suggestion, and I think that’s just what we’ll do!

05 Mar

Fan fiction, bookstore bliss and making math more manageable

The best news today is that Ashar, entirely unprompted, wrote a “fan fiction” story about Jimmie Johnson and a car race, following yesterday’s NASCAR exploits. She printed it by hand (almost unheard-of) and took up a page and a half of college-ruled paper. She even included dialogue, complete with quotation marks, and she cast herself as one of the race announcers.

Build Your Own Lowe's Race Car Folks, this is huge. Not typing something, and using neat printing instead? Working on FICTION – and creative fiction? (Ashar’s a nonfiction kind of girl to the core.) If that’s the only thing we accomplish in the rest of the year of homeschooling, I’ll call it a win. Lowe’s is not by any means paying me, but I feel like I should pay THEM. Best 10 bucks I’ve ever spent!

In less-enjoyable news, math is a struggle for us. Math was one of the classes Ashar absolutely dreaded at her school, despite getting fairly good grades. For a lot of reasons, it just was a really bad experience. I admire her two teachers to no end, because they really tried to make it work for her, but it just didn’t, and I think we’ll have fallout from her perception of math as “torture” for quite a while.

As I mentioned, we’re not using textbooks, and we’ve been pretty informal on a lot of things. Ashar’s also not much of a worksheet type – which is probably going to make people who know me well laugh a little, as I used to beg for workbooks to do “just for fun.”

But in part because of the “math stress factor,” I want to be extra-sure Ashar doesn’t forget what she knows and I want to be intentional about building her confidence back up in math, because the thing is, she really IS good at it. So we took a trip to Books A Million today to see what they had in the way of a grade-level math workbook that Ashar wouldn’t hate.

She really had gotten into “The Complete Book of…” series, in which she’s on her own chosen and devoured parts of “American Facts and Games”, “Presidents & States” and “U.S. History.” So when I found their “Complete Book of Algebra & Geometry”, I thought that might be as good as it was going to get.

Ashar was game, especially when I told her that my only expectation was that she try to do a page per “school day” (not that we really define those very specifically!) for the rest of our year, and that she can choose which page to do. Of course, we’re starting with the easiest and least math-like (a crossword puzzle with algebra terms), but who cares? At some point, I wouldn’t be surprised if we abandon even this level of formality, but for now it works for us.

04 Mar

A new NASCAR fan?

Remember yesterday’s post about our relaxed attitude toward learning and, oh, the Amazingly Wonderful Lowe’s Racecar Kit?

Well, today Ashar decided to build her racecar. She had a great time, hammering and assembling the whole thing, and when she finished, she saw the stickers and realized this was a particular car, the #48 Lowe’s-sponsored NASCAR car driven by Jimmie Johnson.

Well, THEN, Chris realized there was a race on. Right then. And Ashar, who never showed the slightest interest in the sport before, got to watch the last 30 laps or so, as Jimmie (as she affectionately calls him) came in fourth. She offered commentary the whole time, including gems like, “Lay on that gas pedal of yours, Jimmie!” and “Why isn’t he passing? Pass him! PASS HIM!”

Homeschooling with NASCAR

This is actually a more comfortable TV-viewing position than she was in for most of the time. She was standing, bent forward at the waist, for about 20 minutes. Man, my back would never take that!

Afterward, we talked about the special fuel NASCAR cars use, how they work, why the track is slanted, how we can go to the dirt-track races locally and see smaller cars, how there’s a NASCAR track in Pennsylvania that Mom has been to…

And a NASCAR fan was born!

03 Mar

Our fairly relaxed approach to learning

Wait, it’s Saturday! That’s not a school day!

Except, in our new reality, it is. Or at least as much as any other day is. Today, we woke up early and went to breakfast at Shady Maple – where we’d never been – to celebrate my best friend’s birthday. We explored their gift shop – more like a mall, really – and Ashar fell in love with the unfinished wood pieces made by Amish craftsmen. In fact, she loved them so much that she wanted me to buy her the $50 handmade train.

Or, uh, not. So we searched the whole place, hoping to find a small call or one train car or something, made the same way. No luck.

Here’s where brainstorming sets in. We finally figured out that what Ashar loved wasn’t the train. It was the feel and the smell of the freshly sanded wood.

So off we go to Lowe’s, where, bless the good people in the marketing department, they sell a Lowe’s-branded “build your own racecar” kit for about $10 – complete with unfinished wood pieces. SCORE. Crisis averted!

Later, my best friend Nina and I took Ashar, and Nina’s son and stepdaughter, to an indoor “zoo” at the Farm Show Complex, where they rode an elephant (!!); then, we went out to eat. An incredible day. And when I thought about it later, I realized it was as much of a “school day” as any other. We tried new things. We talked. We used creative problem-solving. We spent time with people of all different ages and backgrounds. We had a good time. And, yeah, we learned. That sounds pretty good to me.

I originally described this blog as “relaxed homeschooling in Central Pennsylvania.” That’s true – we’ve made the conscious choice to be as relaxed as possible. I’m a little nervous to label us as followers of any particular style of homeschooling… in fact, I found out later that both “relaxed” and “eclectic” – my other choice for a descriptor – are actually pretty specifically defined in some parts of the homeschooling community. In a lot of ways, I think we’re closest to being unschoolers – a label I’ll talk about more in the future – but, again, I hate to paint us into anything in particular so early into our journey.

But here’s what we are, and what we’re not.

We ARE informal.
We ARE trying to grab teaching and learning moments as they come.
We ARE letting Ashar make the decisions in as many cases as possible.
We ARE trying to find what works for us, and are willing to change as we go if something isn’t.
We ARE actively engaging with our daughter and with the world around us.

We AREN’T using any “textbooks” at this point.
We AREN’T judgmental about other schooling approaches, including public school.
We AREN’T worried (well, at least not too much) about what goes into our portfolio at the end of the year.
We AREN’T comparing our days to what Ashar would have done in her former school.
We AREN’T experts.

So, with that framework in mind as an introduction, I hope you’ll hang around as I figure out more about what we are and aren’t as a family of learners.

02 Mar

Mischief, mayhem, soapmaking at 4-H

Last night, our 4-H club met and learned how to make soap from heated glycerin. It’s actually a much more simple process – and MUCH more economical – than I realized! You can see Ashar (left) and one of her good friends mixing in some blueberry seeds below.

What you need

Glycerin (a block about two inches square will make a regular-sized bar of bath soap)
Soap molds of your choice
Optional: Colors and additives (find at your local craft store, or around the house)
Popsicle sticks for stirring
Vaseline or cooking spray
Glass or metal measuring cup
Glass or metal small mixing dish (we used a metal cup-size measure)

To make

makingsoap

Coat your soap molds with Vaseline or cooking spray. This is what lets you get the soap out after you’re done!
Microwave your glycerin in 20-second intervals in a glass or metal measuring cup. (Heat 20 seconds – check – heat 20 more seconds – etc.)
Pour your melted glycerin into your small mixing dish. (If you’re adding color or scrub additives, like seeds, put those in now; if you’re adding scent, wait a few seconds until your glycerin is not steaming to prevent the scent evaporating.) Use your Popsicle stick to mix. You don’t need more than 8 drops of anything. For scent, 1-2 drops an ounce is best. Color won’t get any darker after about 8 drops, so no need to waste it!)
Pour your mixed soap into your mold.
Spray the “top” (actually the bottom) lightly with rubbing alcohol to get rid of the bubbles that inevitably form.
Let sit until a skin forms, then refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes or until softly set.
At this time, you can pop your soaps out of the mold and put them on something like waxed paper. Important: Let your soap set for 2-3 weeks at room temperature, out of the sun, before using.

Possible additives

Baby oil (add with or instead of scent)
Olive oil (add with or instead of scent)
Cornmeal – mild abrasive (a pinch at a time as needed)
Chamomile flowers/tea (a pinch at a time as needed)
Ground coffee (absorbs odors from the skin, and make a good, brownish-colored kitchen soap)
Turmeric (just a pinch or two – will make a golden-orange-colored soap)
Paprika (makes a peach-colored soap with red flecks)
Ground cinnamon (brown flecks)
Ground ginger and nutmeg (makes soap brown and adds scent)
Cocoa powder (adds brown color and scent; to get an even color, add to melted glycerin and reheat)
Cosmetic-grade glitter
Ground apricot seeds or blueberry seeds (available at craft stores)

Many thanks go to our friend Nina Boyd for her help making this with the kids, and for the great directions. Any mistakes are mine, not hers.

We brought home some extra glycerin, and we’re looking forward to making more. I couldn’t believe how much cheaper it turned out to be to make soap like this than to buy store-bought soaps, and I think they’ll make great gifts, too.

Ashar will enter 3 of her soaps in our county 4-H fair in August, but we definitely some to use, too. We’re also going to take a trip to Sunrise Soap Company here in York, PA, to see their handmade soaps and compare and contrast them with our process.

29 Feb

Our Leap Day leap into homeschooling

Feb. 29, 2012 marks the day we became a homeschooling family. I shared the good news as my Facebook status, and got 47 likes and 20 comments in the first few hours. The support of EVERYONE has just been great so far, and I can’t wait to share more, and with more people, through writing here. It really does take a village, and we have been so warmly supported already from our friends – and strangers! – locally, as well as the online world.

This is the story of our homeschooling journey. Along the way, you’ll: