Screen learning: Some of our recent movie finds

When I was in school, "movie watching" was one of those things that was held out as a treat.

You know what that was like.

If you can muddle through your class's study of the Civil War in eighth grade, we'll pile you all in the auditorium and screen Gettysburg. Two weeks before the end of 11th grade, you'll get the honor of watching a Shakespeare remake on the wheeled-in TV cart with VCR.

Me?

Lights out = Joan out. Asleep. Unconscious. Kaput! Zzzzzz...

OK, I like to sleep, but more than that, I was tired of those topics by the time we got through all the boring stuff before the movie. Even something I was interested in, like Beowulf, I'd dissected through so many essays that I couldn't take any more by the time the Bonus Movie Screening rolled around.

I've also never been the world's biggest TV or movie fan. I have no problem with screen entertainment, but I never sought it out.

Enter my husband, who dubbed himself recently "Homeschool A/V Guy." He can recommend a movie for every possible topic of interest.

And he's smart about when to bring them up: We often START with a movie, and see where we go from there.


Case in point: Sarah had been doing just a little bit of reading about William Shakespeare in an issue of Kids Discover, and it mentioned the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet.

Well, we kept an eye out - and spotted that movie in our OnDemand choices soon after.

Chess, concerts and a celebration!

For this week's edition of the Homeschool Mother's Journal, I have the honor of being featured on the iHomeschool Network site!

Check out some of our fun this week here. (It includes me teaching Sarah AND Chris how to play chess and two concerts.) If you've shared a post about your week in review, be sure to link it up there as well.

Meanwhile, in even bigger news, this marks the 100th post on Our School at Home.

In some ways, it feels like a lifetime ago that Sarah was getting up at 5:45 every morning and getting on the bus to go to public school. In other ways, this whole homeschooling thing feels so new. 

If you are a newer reader, here's an assortment of things from those first 100 posts that you might particularly enjoy.

• 5 things I learned NOT to do in our first month of homeschooling (Well, that's pretty self-explanatory, right?)
• From homeschooled student to homeschooled mom: Going full circle, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 (This series details everything from my own educational background to the earlier years of Sarah's life, and really is the best way to get to know us and why we're in the place we are!)
• Our 10 homeschooling/unschooling must-haves (The library. I almost don't need to say any more, but in true Joan style, I did.)
• What our house looks like (oh, wait, I'm the only house-voyeur?)
• 5 ways to constructively deal with your kids' mood swings (In our life, dealing with Asperger's means dealing with moods, but I believe most of the tips in here hold true for any kind of interpersonal relationships!)
• 10 questions people ask about our family and our life (3 TIMES yesterday, someone assumed Sarah was a boy. 3 times! Argh. You'll see that's "Question No. 1" on the list.)
• The ultimate guide to homeschooling as a working mom (I don't have it all together - not even close - but I spent a lot of time compiling my own experiences as well as resources from people who are a bit more put together than yours truly!)
• 5 days of real-world math (I put this series together also with the help of the ladies at the iHomeschool Network, and if I could make one thing on my blog a must-read for homeschoolers of any style, it would be this!)
• Our whirlwind trip to the shore (This is just for fun - and marks one of the highlights of our new lifestyle so far!)
• The unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan for 2012-13 (If you want to see the types of things we learn, here's a great start!)

Whether you've just started following our journey in the past few weeks or you've been with us even before the blog started, thank you for being part of our lives!

Biographies, biographies, biographies!

It was just a few weeks ago that I shared our unschooled version of a seventh-grade-ish curriculum plan for 2012-13, and in it, I happened to mention we'd probably read some biographies this year.

Some biographies?? We're on number four and not showing any signs of slowing down.

We started with a biography of Sitting Bull, part of the Sterling Biographies series I keep saying I love.

Then we read the Jim Thorpe biography in the same series, and that night, when I asked Sarah what she wanted to read, she wanted to start with the Neil Armstrong biography (another Sterling gem!) that she just checked out from the library.

FUN FACT: Neil Armstrong got his pilot's license before he got his driver's license!

Well, after we read the introduction and first chapter of that one, I asked her if she'd like me to read anything else.

After rummaging around for a while on her bedside bookshelf, she found...

Disclosure: This post has some affiliate links, which will make me a little bit of money if you choose to purchase any of the products I've mentioned through them. 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!

... a 1950s hardcover biography of Leonardo Da Vinci that my amazing husband had dug up for her at some used book sale or another.

We started reading the first chapter of it, and I was amazed at how much Sarah remembered from the Da Vinci exhibit we saw during last year's visit to the Franklin Institute.

It turned out that not only did we read the first chapter, we talked about everything from his inventions to the Mona Lisa to that fact that "da Vinci" means "from the town of Vinci," which, as it turns out, applied to Leonardo's family.

FUN FACT (or, uh, opinion?): Our favorite da Vinci invention is the mechanical lion bearing flowers, which is pretty much the most amazing thing ever.

The coolest thing is, these biographies are teaching all of us, across so many areas of traditional curriculum. We've got history, science, social studies, reading, vocabulary, sports, art and more.

Sarah would have had a biography unit this year in public school. That's not why we're encouraging her interest in them, but it's certainly an interesting chance to reflect on how homeschooling has provided us with so much freedom - and how, when Sarah is invested in her education, she'll dig deeper than she ever had a chance to in a public school setting!

What else is Sarah reading?

We just finished our fourth book in the Life of Fred elementary series, "Life of Fred: Dogs." Now we're into "Life of Fred: Edgewood."

If you had EVER told me that Sarah would ask me, routinely, to read one more chapter of a book that's more or less about math, I'd have laughed hysterically.

Now, I'm just thrilled. Sarah even used the phrase, "WHEN we get to the Calculus book in the series...," and it's possible I might have gotten almost teary-eyed.

She's also reading Treasure Island for free through the Google Books app on her new phone - something she figured out on her own that she could get for free and enjoy!

What's the rest of the family reading?

My mom and I have been enjoying some medical thrillers by Michael Palmer - The First Patient, The Fifth Vial and A Heartbeat Away - all courtesy of our local library.

I've started a couple of Bible-reading plans through the YouVersion Bible app on my phone - after being encouraged by Sarah to make use of the app, which I'd downloaded ages ago and never bothered much with! (If you use YouVersion, I'd love to hear your recommendations out of the many reading plans!)

And my husband, Chris, just bought 25 boxes of used books for his online bookselling business - and I'm sure he'll be reading some of them before they're listed for sale!

What's your family reading? I had previously tried to start a family reading roundup link-up, but I'm pleased to say that the lovely ladies over at Christian Unschooling are doing one each month now that I'll be supporting instead!

So, if you have a post about what you've been reading, please go share it!

Saying yes can be scary: An almost-teen with a cell phone

One of the biggest changes wrapped up in our journey into homeschooling hasn't had anything to do with school per se.

A lot of the biggest differences in our life now come in how we interact as a family. In so many ways, we were heading toward what I consider a pretty rock-bottom experience in an awful lot of ways.

Yelling, screaming, crying... sometimes even from Sarah! ;-)

A big change for me has been in my parenting approach. Through the years, we've adapted several different strategies, and none of them were getting us where we needed to be.

When I read about the idea of gentle parenting, parenting with grace, peaceful parenting, whatever you want to call it, I thought: "Maybe this is the change we need."

It's not easy. And I won't say any of us are adjusting perfectly. But we're adapting ideas that work, and one of them is Saying Yes.

I'm trying to say yes as often as I can. That's in terms of Sarah's requests, but also my husband's and mother's, and even my own preferences.

No one in our family is a doormat, but we're also not tyrants - any of us. So while we all eat dinner together as a family, and we all have a say in menu-planning, if I choose something that I know my husband or daughter really doesn't want to eat... it's no longer a big deal. They're glad to make something else themselves, we still eat together, and everyone enjoys the food.

That's a simple example, but I'm finding that this "yes" business gets real complicated real quick.

Saying yes to a cell phone

This was our big leap-of-faith YES this week.

Sarah, who's about 12 and a half, went from having no cell phone to having what I consider a pretty top-of-the-line smartphone with few, if any, restrictions on it.

This is incredibly scary for me. I'm not naive - and I have major worries about the content of text messages that are out there, the types of apps that are available, the drama that comes from the perceived slights among how fast someone does or does not text you back.

I'm trying to trust - and I'm counting on Sarah to keep that trust.

It's not perfect, for sure. We've already talked about some general etiquette do-and-don't situations (including, probably the hardest one for her, not bombarding her public-school friends with messages during the day, which truly didn't even occur to her until one of them got mad!)

We've also made it clear, even before the phone, that you don't do anything on email, chat or now text that wouldn't want broadcast in front of your parents and your pastor. (Now, if only I would extend that rule into my own sometimes-too-snarky text messages...)

The up-side to saying yes to this?

• Sarah's learned how to use Instagram, and is happily documenting her life in photos and improving her photography skills.
• She's downloaded the NASA app and is on there pretty much daily, checking out space photos and their captions and seeing how the Mars Rover is doing.
• Her first-ever text message was sent to me, saying, "Mom, I really appreciate my new phone and I love you and you're my best mom ever, thank you!"
• She's beat all the levels of the free Rush Hour logic game app.

Other ways we're "yessing"

The phone has been the biggest "yes" this month, but we've had others, many more than I can list. A few off the top of my head:

• TAKING the phone places. Yes, you can take it to the fair. (I may have been biting my nails the whole time about this one, but we - and it - survived.)
• EATING something different than what's on the menu plan for dinner. And, as I mentioned earlier, this extends to the whole family, not just Sarah!
• MODELING in a fashion show with my mom! This was a "yes" I probably wouldn't have done before, but it was an enjoyable way to spend the day and to do something together!
• WEARING mismatched socks. This is a huge fashion trend among the middle-school set in this area, and Sarah has picked up on it. I kind of like it, but I do admit, we get some looks (including from some of my friends). If Sarah's comfortable, no one is going to be hurt by her sock choices, so I say go for it, kiddo!
• ATTENDING a new-to-us church with friends. We've been invited several times, but for various reasons it never worked out, not the least of which is that none of us are huge fans of going new places and doing new things! But we all agreed as a family to go this weekend as part of a special service!

Have you said "YES" lately? Doesn't matter if you're an unschooler or not, a homeschooler or not, or even a parent or not! I truly believe saying yes can change all of your relationships when it's done intentionally and with love.

Share your own "yes moments" in this month's linkup here!

Thoughts on our week: The across-the-nation edition of the Homeschool Mother's Journal

I have so much that I want to write, on so many topics. Hopefully today's Homeschool Mother's Journal will at least help me get caught up in sharing some of our eventful week, and then I can pick up from there!

In my life this week...

Oh, it's been an especially hectic one! It was the deadline for our county fair, and not only did Sarah and I enter, we helped a good friend get her entries together as well.

Meanwhile, I was preparing to head to Denver, Colorado, for a four-day conference, fitting in some work for my part-time job and generally trying to keep the house from reaching a state of "Man, it would be easier to replace this floor than to clean it!"

The house was pretty decent, I made it to Denver, and the fair entries are in and judged...

And Sarah and I each got ribbons! Her for her 4-H soapmaking, and me for two photos I'd entered.

We had a good number of non-winning entries too, including, again, Sarah's art (as well as some collage work of mine), but I think we're both coming to terms with the fact that our distinctive style isn't always what will resonate with a particular type of judge!

In our homeschool this week...

This is one of those weeks that falls into the "thank goodness we don't try to keep a regular schedule" category.

We've learned a lot, though, in everything from art to science to math to history. We've started our fourth book in the Life of Fred elementary series and have started reading a biography of Neil Armstrong. (More on biographies and how they feature in our homeschool this year is coming in another post this week!)

Sarah actually recommended to me a logic game called Rush Hour, which we found while browsing in Staples, of all places. She'd apparently played it during some enrichment class in public school and asked me to get it, then came home and explained to me how it worked, and we solved many of the puzzles together!

THEN, she found that there's a free Rush Hour app for my mom's iPad, so she mixed in some virtual puzzling too!

And finally, Sarah and Chris have been enjoying MANY of the stories in Ruth Manning-Sanders' "A Book of Dragons" and are almost finished that anthology.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share...

Go with the flow. I couldn't have made it through the past few days without that philosophy.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

I'm at FinCon 2012 in Denver, a conference for financial bloggers. (You know that's what I do, right?) It's been amazing, and I've met a ton of great people in all sorts of circles, not just finance.

Also, since I work remotely, it's great to really SEE my boss and sit down and talk about our direction and our plans. Being in his space is always a good thing.

While I'm here, one of the things Chris and Sarah are going to do is see a live bald eagle at a local used book sale. (Seriously, how much better does the world get, than to have those two things at the same place??)

My favorite thing this week was...

Feeling our plane take off from Baltimore on the way to Denver. I LOVE flying, and I was almost in tears of happiness.

I don't know if it's in part due to some spiritual stuff that I'm working on right now, or reading the biography of Neil Armstrong (who was a pilot before becoming an astronaut) or lack of sleep or all of the above, but I just felt that plane lift up and thought, "This is one of God's miracles."

It's hard to explain, but the clarity of that moment was awesome.

I'm grateful for...

I'm thrilled to have had the chance to make some seriously awesome new friends while serving on the conference staff. Too many really amazing things have happened for it to be coincidence.

My eyes have really been opened tonight to the changes in our lives in the past nine months. This is a whole blog post on its own, but when I get out of my narrowly-focused "task list" mentality, it's amazing to stop and reflect on what has happened and how I got where I am.

I'm grateful just to be here, to be in a city I really enjoy, to have friends new and old that I can spend time with while I'm here, and to know that I have an awesome life waiting for me back at home, too!

I am inspired by...

Much like gratitude, this could go on for a while, but I have to say that right now, I'm most inspired by the conference staff, especially my new friend Jessica, and by my boss, Adam Baker.

Questions/thoughts I have...

Home-churching has been on my heart a lot lately, as has the concept for what I believe real faith community can be. I'm not sure yet what the "questions" are; I'm really just waiting and allowing some of my thoughts to percolate.

I've been thinking a lot, too, about the concept of ezer. This is also probably a whole post in itself, but you can get the basic idea here. I've been thinking about the places from which I draw my strength and the ways in which I can be the strength and support for others.

I'm praying for...

Discernment and direction regarding so many of the things I've talked about here - finding a spiritual community, seeing the hand of God in certain areas of my life, how to best use the gifts that I have.

Oh, and safe travels for everyone coming to and leaving the conference!

A photo, video, quote or link to share...

Enjoy the Colorado sky! I definitely am.