WOW, it’s October. I feel like we crammed a ton of things into September, and while it was fun, I’m looking forward to things slowing down a bit as it gets colder. They probably won’t, but I can dream, right? Anyway, here’s a look back at just a few things we got into as a family this September.

(If this is your first time catching our month-in-review posts, welcome! Check out July’s here and August’s here for a little bit of background on why we’re taking this approach to documenting some of our unschooling learning adventures.)

Our biggest project this month was the 4-H alpaca show at the York Fair. Here are Ashar and Jupiter.

Books

• Painless Algebra
• Dracula
• The Matrix and Philosophy
• More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded
• Supermonsters

Remember our Bionic Blox? Ashar dug them out and built this cool, somewhat anti-gravity tower this month.

Movies and TV

• Ghostbusters – Chris and Ashar went to see the theater rerelease and realized they both watched it at the same age, 14. Fun fact!
• Zombieland – This was a follow-up to Ghostbusters because I remembered it had Bill Murray in it. I didn’t remember a lot else. Oops. Parental discretion is advised.
• Captain America
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier

• Les Misérables – This was a BIG DEAL for us this month, and we’ve watched the movie, listened to the soundtrack, read book excerpts, learned about the time period…
• Guardians of the Galaxy (for the second time)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• The Maze Runner
• Meet the Robinsons
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – Another musical. Not super happy. A little gross. But still neat.
• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future Part II
• Back to the Future Part III

One early morning, this katydid (leaf bug) was on the windshield of our car!

Video games

• Dragon’s Dogma
• World of Warcraft
• Club Penguin
• L.A. Noire
• Fibbage – Think of this as a “digital Balderdash” played through your TV using your iPod, iPad, phone, etc. We crack up playing it! (Watch out – there’s no rating on the questions, so sometimes you get some that are not topics you want to discuss. But it’s A TON of fun if you have teens or adults.)

The terrarium Ashar made over the summer for 4-H won second place at the York Fair!

Videos

Um, Ashar had never seen this, I don’t know how. I feel like a failure as a parent. But less so now.

Places and projects

• Words of the Day. This is going to get its own entire post soon, but essentially, every day, Ashar is choosing a word and making a poster about it, with facts, the word in other languages, a quote and more. This was entirely her idea and the sum total of my contributions has been to download A LOT OF FONTS for her formatting pleasure. Some of her favorite words so far: Barricade. Matrix. Apocalypse. Space. It’s been awesome and a huge rabbit-trail starter.
• 2014 York Fair. At our county fair, Ashar and I both entered paintings of ours; we both won prizes for two pieces! She also showed her 4-H project alpaca, who was kind of a poop, but she had fun. The best part was dressing him up in costume – she was James Bond, and he was Jupiter, normally an evil henchman to one of Bond’s enemies who was working with Bond on one mission. They dressed up, and she wrote a story to accompany their appearance.
• Coursera philosophy course. Ashar and I have been checking out Introduction to Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Not just because we like the lecturers’ accents, but it helps. Another huge conversation-starter.

The alpaca costume contest. Ashar, aka James Bond, with Jupiter, henchman to her enemy, but who she was using to complete a mission. You know, because he has a long neck and makes a good lookout.

Odds and ends of stuff we’ve talked about/read/geeked out over

• In a rather long philosophy discussion, the ideas of religious plurality and Universalism, why most religions including ours fundamentally involve other religions being “wrong” and more.
• The Scottish independence vote and why it mattered (even though it was “no”).
• An overview of military history in the 20th century and beyond thanks to Wikipedia’s List of Invasions page.
• That Daniel Craig is going to have a small part in the new Star Wars.
• How a genet is making friends with large animals like a rhino and a buffalo.
• Whether our society’s opinions about eating animals in the future are likely to change, either because of how the animals are treated and might feel or because of the health concerns things like antibiotic use bring for humans.
• How Hitler convinced many Germans to either ignore or tacitly or actively support the killing of the Jews during World War II.

Ashar’s paintings – Jazz Bluebird, top left, and Geordi’s Visor, bottom center – won ribbons at the York Fair.

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