Unschooling: Our November 2016 adventures

As I’m writing this, our family is preparing to take a road trip to Pittsburgh for the weekend to attend Steel City Con, a comic-con event we’ve enjoyed a few times before. I kind of made a promise to myself that I didn’t want to go off having new unschooling adventures until I documented some of last month’s, so instead of packing, I’m sitting here writing this post!

Ashar and Chris went exploring in downtown York and visited the old York County Prison, long since unoccupied.

If you’re new to seeing our days recapped in this format, check out our archive of previous wrapups here for some more info on why we take this approach and some other highlights of our adventures.

For my birthday, Kaitlyn took me (and Plaid Pengin) to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.

Exploring French

Ashar has this great little stuffed pengin wearing a blue coat named Pierre, who, of course, we’ve decided is French. So Ashar decided we should learn French. With Pierre.

We started doing DuoLingo French together and have been practicing a few times a week. We’re now 20% fluent, or so it proclaims!

We also looked into how to say words that weren’t included in DuoLingo. Like penguin. (Manchot – if you say pingouin, that means more of an auk.)

Another thing we got into was the kinds of food eaten in France.

But then we found out something amazing. There’s a book. About a penguin named Pierre. WHO HAS A COAT. Pierre the Penguin is a true story about a penguin at the California Academy of Sciences who had a molting problem and ended up getting a wetsuit so he could still swim. We checked it out of the library, and it was amazing! It’s designed for little kids, but we didn’t care. We held a dramatic reading for our Pierre Pengin. Then we looked up a bunch of articles online about the real Pierre, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

All thanks to a cute little stuffed penguin.

Speaking of penguins

Or, as we call them, “pengins…”

We have been running a semi-stealth Stuffed Penguin Giveaway Campaign under the name Pengins For Everyone.

Well, it’s less stealth now. As of late November/early December, we relaunched our website and reached 100 stuffed friends given away, both to people we know, people we don’t know, and organized programs like the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree and Toys for Tots.

If you or someone you know needs a pengin, check out the Pengins for Everyone website to request one. It’s free and there’s no catch. We’d love to get more of them into loving hands!

We took a family field trip to our favorite used bookstore, the York Emporium, and Ashar got caught up in Stephen King’s “The Dark Half.”

Books

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 picture above sums up a lot of our book-time in the past month! After a used bookstore trip, Ashar dug into Stephen King’s The Dark Half, and for some lighter reading, she finished off Deadpool Vs. Gambit #4 and #5.

We also did a lot of reading online, AND we played our favorite game, Sort the Books, after our bookstore trip to get rid of books we no longer wanted to make room for the new acquisitions!

As part of that, we dug up a book called Volcanoes: Fire from the Earth, which we’ve had for a while, and Ashar and I started reading it together in a new Reading Cave she built in her room. (Photos of that, hopefully, coming next month!)

Mom and I (at left) toured the QVC Studios. It was a blast!

Movies and TV

A special note for our newer readers: I’d love for you to check out our post on learning from movies and TV shows. It really explains a lot about why we are such fans!

Here’s a look at some of what we watched this month:

Person of Interest – Ashar and my mom’s current show.
Arrival – Ashar and Chris went to see this and she described it as “a very good, philosophical, thinking movie.”
Con-Air – I asked Ashar if this was “a very good, philosophical, thinking movie.” She said no.
Dave – A good follow-up to an election month.
Salem’s Lot – Part of Ashar and Chris’s horror series.
A Fish Called Wanda – Of all things, this was on a poster in the aquarium we went to in October, and Ashar had been dying to see it ever since.
Pleasantville – Ashar also found this one “philosophical.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Always a favorite.
Dr. Strange – OK, I am NOT the comics-movie fan that Ashar is. She, Chris, Kaitlyn and I went to see this, though, and I really got into it!
The Walking Dead – Ashar is so much a fan. She and Chris watch this; it’s definitely not in my wheelhouse (though I loved Season 1 back in the day; it just got too brutal for me!) But part of the draw of Steel City Con is that she can get two autographs from cast members.
Army of Darkness – More zombies.
Frequency – Part of Chris and Ashar’s evening movie series. I caught about 15 minutes of it and already was crying. As I do.
Akeelah and the Bee – A huge winner from the Daddy-Daughter Evening Movie Series.

Here I am, turning 34 complete with a birthday pie crust. What, you don’t have a birthday pie crust with candles? Whatever.

Games

We continue our Wednesday night family game nights, and this month included something really cool and special: the debut of a family trivia game Chris and Ashar have been making for all of us to play.

They go to the library and pick topics and find facts on those topic, then write statements on index cards. When they get a bunch saved up, Mom, Kaitlyn and I take turns having them read one of the statements to us, and we have to say whether it’s true or false. If you’re right, you get a point; if it’s false and you can say what would make it true, you get another point.

Facts have included topics from the English monarchy to zombie ants to lampreys to Puritans to mosquito-borne diseases. It’s super fun and it’s been cool to see the things Ashar has been interested in including!

Ashar and I have also been challenging each other at QuizUp, and she’s been playing a lot of MLB 16: The Show and Destiny.

New hair colors and cuts for Ashar and I this month!

Unschooling places, projects and odds and ends

Pokemon Go: This continues to be a ton of fun, especially for Sarah. She and Chris took a three-mile walk through York City looking for them, and that’s where the nice prison photo at the top of this post came from.

4-H: Exciting news: Ashar was named the president of the York County 4-H Alpaca Club for the year ahead! She was so excited and gave an acceptance speech that included the phrase “I didn’t expect to actually win!” A new club formed that she’s a part of, too, a dog group called the Clover Canines.

National news: Ashar has always been interested in current events, politics and things like that, so of course November was a huge month for that. Besides the obvious drama of the election (and she stayed up until the race was called; I went to bed!), she and Chris also spent a bunch of time talking about the Trump cabinet possibilities, the big Thanksgiving Day dog show, Pearl Harbor, Fidel Castro’s death and the history of Cuba, the possibility of election recounts and a bunch more.

Rabbit trails: I truly don’t remember how it started, but somehow we spent one evening researching currency exchange rates, which led to us looking into Brazil’s Effigy of the Republic on their currency, which somehow led us to talk about how all oceans are really one big ocean, and then we talked about the zones of the ocean, and what it would take to walk from North America to South America…

My birthday: I turned 34 and had a very nice celebration with the family as well as a nice weekend away with Kaitlyn, during which time we both acquired a large stuffed gnome for our family as well as gave away a large stuffed gnome to a family we’ve been friends with for years. Couldn’t ask for a better birthday!

Morse Code mystery: Ashar and Chris had a bunch of fun with a Morse Code mystery from an old postcard he had. You can read more about those adventures here, including how Ashar helped decode a century-old mystery!

Words of the Day: About two years ago, Ashar started a Word of the Day project, where she takes a word, comes up with some cool facts about it, translates it into other languages, finds a quote using it, and makes all this into a poster that hangs on our fridge til the next word comes along. We’d taken a break earlier this year, but in November, Ashar picked it back up and that led to a mind-bending experiment with Mad Libs.

We had our family Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel, and while we were there, Ashar spotted this cool bottle of old-fashioned soda called Kickapoo Joy Juice that she wanted to try.

So what’s new with your family this month? Drop me a comment! I love hearing from all my “blog friends!”

07 Nov

Unschooling: Our October 2016 adventures

So let’s see… in our October 2016 unschooling adventures, we wrapped up our trip home from the Free to Be Unschooling Conference in Phoenix, AZ, took a day trip with a giant penguin, finished some books, spent time “panicking” at a local baseball stadium, and dealt with an unexpected trip back to Arizona.

Curious? Wondering whether I can explain all that up in one post? You bet, and I’ll also hit some of the book, movie and game highlights from our month.

Ashar gives Mr. Angelino, our littlest cat, some lap time while Mr. Bill, NOT the littlest anything, enjoys some sun.

If you’re new to seeing our days recapped in this format, check out our archive of previous wrapups here for some more info on why we take this approach and some other highlights of our adventures.

Taking a giant penguin on a road trip, aka the Hooger-Ride

I have to start with this, because it’s the thing I can pretty much guarantee no other family did this month.

So we have this giant stuffed penguin named Hoogerheide. Those of you who follow our adventures on social media probably know that we often take our stuffed animals places. But this guy… he doesn’t get out much. Mostly because he literally can’t fit in our Honda Civics if we have passengers.

(Aside: Why Hoogerheide? It’s a village in the Netherlands from which we’d received a PostCrossing postcard on the day of his arrival in our house.)

Solution! We rented a van and took “The Hoogs,” as he’s affectionately known, for a nice daylong drive around York and Lancaster counties, including taking him to an inclusive playground called Daniel’s Den outside of Mountville, Lancaster County. It even had a Hooger-sized swing, and we got to make some families at the park happy through our antics as well.

Hoogerheide the giant stuffed penguin was very pleased to find swings and an elephant ride his size at Daniel’s Den in Mountville, Lancaster County.

You can see a whole album of his adventures on my personal Facebook, titled Hoogerheide’s Big Day.

To sum up: Van rental. Large penguin. Playground. A little bit crazy. Fun.

Speaking of penguins

Or, as we call them, “pengins…”

We have been running a semi-stealth Stuffed Penguin Giveaway Campaign under the name Pengins For Everyone. We’ve given away something like 70 already and we’re already stocking up on ones to give away through causes like Toys for Tots and the Salvation Army Angel Tree program this Christmas.

If you or someone you know needs a pengin, check out the Pengins for Everyone website. We’d love to get more of them into loving hands!

Much of the Panic at the Ballpark cast. The dude with the baseball coming out of his head is the center of the story, and the twins you see at right are friends of Ashar’s who served as “tour guides” for the attraction.

Panic at the Ballpark

This month’s other “big event” was kind of a last-minute surprise. Ashar decided to take part as a cast member at Panic at the Ballpark. This was a combination live theater experience/scare park at our local Atlantic League baseball stadium, and some of her friends on the cast mentioned a need for some more performers, so…

Enter CJ Logan, undead shortshop.

CJ Logan, undead shortstop, as portrayed by Sarah. Among the coolest parts of her role was that she got to hang out in the dugout and the locker room!

This was an amazing experience for Sarah. It was unpaid, but it had the responsibilities of both a theater role and a part-time job, and even better, she had a ton of fun. It was probably the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time, and I can’t say enough good things about the staff of Weary Arts Group, which created the event.

On a more serious note

So I mentioned a surprise trip back to Arizona in the introduction to this post. That didn’t include Ashar, only Kaitlyn and me, but it was a huge shock; we received a call on the morning of Oct. 11 that his 31-year-old brother had just suffered a massive heart attack and was flown by helicopter to a heart center about an hour away.

By that afternoon, we had Kaitlyn on a plane. Friday evening, I flew out to join him.

On our FIRST trip to Arizona this fall, we hung out with Kaitlyn’s brother Dave at Dave and Buster’s. (The orange monster is, appropriately, named Buster.) It was only about two weeks after this that we found out Dave had a massive heart attack and was in ICU.

Kaitlyn’s brother Dave is an amazing guy. After the better part of a week in the ICU, during which time he was on a heart pump, as well as a couple catheterizations, they’re still not quite sure the cause of this, but his doctors assure him it’s nothing he did wrong – he’s active, he eats pretty well – but there are a lot of unknowns in his medical history because he was adopted from a Korean orphanage when he was young.

I’m glad to say Dave is doing better now, though he was already back in the hospital once for a few days because of some continued heart trouble. He’s on a lot of medications and is eating a strict cardiac diet – low sodium, low cholesterol – which he’s adapted to by posting awesome Facebook photos of his and his mom’s cool creations.

In bad news, that heart center? Not in-network for Dave’s insurance. They’re fighting it, but at this point, he’s something like $150,000 in debt from his two hospital stays and related treatments.

His best friend started a GoFundMe page, and if you’d like to help, not only are your contributions there welcomed and greatly appreciated, but I can definitely say we also appreciate you helping by sending good thoughts for Dave and spreading the word about the GoFundMe campaign.

Kaitlyn and his parents, Paul and JoAnne, enjoy the red rocks near Sedona, Arizona, while Ashar dabs photogenically.

Books

Back to happier, more unschooly stuff… Ashar finished two books while we were in Arizona – Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, a solid nonfiction book, and Q-Space, a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel.

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!

Together, we’d started reading a biography on Lionel Messi, but we decided to abandon it, because it was pretty awful. So instead, we started reading We Don’t Need Roads, a look at the making of the Back to the Future trilogy. We haven’t gotten very far yet, but so far it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the Messi book!

Ashar and Chris also read a bunch of Edgar Allen Poe poems and short stories together, including Annabelle Lee, The Bells and The Tell-Tale Heart, to get in a Halloween mood, and Ashar picked up some comics, including Gwenpool #1.

This is my squad – Rachel and Heather, unschooling moms extraordinaire and, even better, some awesome ladyfriends.

Movies and TV

A special note for our newer readers: I’d love for you to check out our post on learning from movies and TV shows. It really explains a lot about why we are such fans!

Mr. Mom – The origin of one of Chris’ and my favorite phrases, “You’re doing it wrong.” Now Ashar has officially seen this too!
Sleepy Hollow – Ashar and my mom watched this Johnny Depp adaptation of the Headless Horseman story and did some compare/contrast.
Person of Interest – Ashar and my mom’s current show.
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey – Late ’80s/early ’90s kitsch and some of Ashar’s favorite actors.
Beetlejuice – Chris described this to Ashar as a surprise movie “starring Donald Trump and Batman.” (Alec Baldwin, who spoofs Trump on SNL, and Michael Keaton, who played Batman, star.)
Star Trek: The Next Generation – This is like our comfort-food TV. On a hectic day you can find Ashar winding down with one of her favorite funny episodes.
The Imitation Game – Remember how I talked about how valuable it is to learn from biographies and biopics? This is a great example. Made me cry like crazy, though.

This lady is my hero. Jen McGrail, who blogs at The Path Less Taken, is the organizer of the Free to Be Unschooling Conference, a great friend and an all-around tough, awesome, amazing woman.

Games

We continue our Wednesday night family game nights, and this month’s selections included Rummikub, a longtime favorite, as well as Zombie Road Trip and Munchkin, both of which were new to us and both of which involved a good amount of math.

Ashar and I have also been challenging each other at QuizUp, and she’s been playing a lot of MLB 16: The Show, which she got as a birthday gift at her 16 1/2th birthday party in Arizona.

Places, projects and odds and ends

Road-trip podcasting: While Ashar and Chris were on the drive to his mom’s house (about an hour and a half away), they listed to an episode of NPR’s Invisibilia podcast called How to Become Batman. Ashar found it very interesting, Chris said. It’s about a man named Daniel Kish, and as Chris described it, on the surface, it’s about blind people being able to “see” and do most anything they want. … But it’s really about how people tend to live up (or down) to the expectations that people and society place on them. Super-cool conversations there! (And I highly recommend Invisibilia in general; it’s a great show.)

I’m standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona… (Sing along! You know you want to!)

Sight-seeing in Arizona: We saw the Grand Canyon, went to some artsy places in Sedona, visited Petrified Forest National Park in the Painted Desert, saw the cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon and a bunch more. We also did the Standin’ on the Corner in Winslow, Arizona thing, AND we went to the new OdySea Aquarium, which was amazing. I should write a whole post on these “family field trip” destinations… maybe someday when I have that weird thing, what’s it called, free time?

So one of the coolest things about the OdySea aquarium was this make-your-own-ice-cream-sandwich shop. LOOK AT HER FACE. So much ice cream. So much cookie. (Yes, that was dinner.)

Postal fun: Ashar wrote a Halloween postcard to her Taiwanese pen pal, Christina, and sorted some of her large stamp collection with Chris. The conversations we have related to stamps are super-fun!

STEM Sisters: The local science museum where we’re members has a program called STEM Sisters, in which girls in middle and high school get to hang out with women who work in science and technology fields. We went to the “Discovery Dinner” in October, and are scheduled to go to a pretty cool career day in November that I can’t wait to report on. And it’s all free for the girls, which is amazing.

So what’s new with your family this month? Drop me a comment! I love hearing from all my “blog friends!”