Here we all are! Dan, me (Joan), my mom (also Joan), Chris, and, of course, Sarah!
Happy 2016! I am so thankful that we are finishing – and starting – yet another year unschooling, living and learning together. Looking back, I really didn’t do nearly as much as I would have liked to on this blog in 2015, but I am grateful to those of you who have read and commented as we share some snippets from our journey.
I’d like to do more short, “moment from our unschooling life” posts in 2016. I used to write almost every day about the odds and ends of our lives, and while I probably can’t keep up with that pace, I am hoping to share a bit more. That’s where you come in: If you’re reading this, what would you like to hear more about? The things we talk about? Our current favorite movies/books/TV shows/games? Places we go? Unschooling philosophy? I can certainly do my best to oblige, and to keep wrapping up some of what we do in these monthly posts.
(If this is your first time catching our month-in-review posts, welcome! Check out our archive of previous wrapups here for some more info on why we take this approach to documenting some of our unschooling learning adventures.)
You have to watch out for those tiny zombies. Really.
Books
Sarah got a bunch of new books for Christmas that have added a ton to our reading experiences! Meanwhile, I just realized that I rarely share on here what I’m reading, but you can keep up with me on Goodreads, where I am diligent about listing my selections.
- The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer
- Midnight Marquee Actors Series: Vincent Price, edited by Gary Svehla
- Dave Barry Slept Here by Dave Barry
- Folk and Fairy Tales by Ruth Manning-Sanders
- Sir Green Hat and the Wizard by Ruth Manning-Sanders
- Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen; this is something Chris and Sarah are reading together.
- The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel; this came up because we saw and were really unimpressed by the movie, but really were hoping the book would be better.
- The Guinness Book of World Records 2016; Sarah gets a copy of this every Christmas, and spends every December and early January reading it faithfully!
- Smithsonian History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day; this was one of Sarah’s two biggest Christmas presents and we have LOVED diving into it together. If you are looking for a legitimately great history overview, I can’t recommend anything much more highly. Well worth the price.
- Smithsonian Wildlife of the World; this is the partner book to the history one above, and also well worth your time and money!
- Lonely Planet The World: A Traveller’s Guide to the Planet; a perfect gift for my culture and geography-lover!
Sarah has not one but two Lovely Yetis, the larger one acquired at Christmas and the smaller one in Arizona earlier this year. Their names are A-Bomb (Abominable), and H-Bomb (Huge Abominable). Because of course.
Movies and TV
Let me be honest: The holidays aren’t nearly as fun here as our photos make it look. Honestly, Sarah and I both get REALLY stressed out around this time of year, and anxiety is a constant companion. So the week between Christmas and New Year’s was basically spent sitting on the couch, watching movies and TV.
One of Sarah’s random projects recently was sorting some stamps she received for free from an organization called Stamps Teach Plus. (Click this photo to check them out!)
- Spectre
- The I.T. Crowd
- We Bare Bears
- Friends
- Numb3rs
- Parks and Recreation
- Jingle All the Way; Christmas AND Schwarzenegger, who can beat it?
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Home; can’t believe it took us this long to see this, but it was amazing!
- Big Hero 6
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens; I don’t really love Star Wars, but this one was pretty good. You can’t beat cute droids. And Sarah saw it a second time in 3-D with her grandparents, which she loved!
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
- George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker; we spent this season really loving the music and dance of the Nutcracker, so of course I had to show Sarah the movie version with Macaulay Culkin!
I surprised Sarah and Dan with a Giant Penguin. His name is Hoogerheide. (We kind of have A Lot of Penguins. Click this photo to see more of them.)
Video, board and card games
Fall Sarah was hanging out at Pinchot Park, one of our favorite places.
- MLB 2015: The Show
- FIFA 2015
- LEGO Rock Band
- Cities: Skylines on Steam
- Guitar Hero Live; this was MY big Christmas present from Dan, but of course we got a second guitar and Sarah and I play together! It definitely takes some getting used to, but is super-fun.
Sarah engaged in some birthday cheek-smooshing with her dad, Chris, on his birthday.
Places, projects and odds and ends
Sarah’s Christmas portrait.
- We went to a Hershey Bears game. They almost won.
- Mom, Sarah, one of my mom’s friends and I went to tea in Hershey, then on New Year’s Day (I know, that’s technically January), Mom, Chris, Dan, Sarah and I went out for tea at our favorite tea room in York County.
- Sarah, Dan and I saw the Chinese National Acrobats at the Strand, a local theater, with friends, then went out for pizza afterward.
- We acquired a giant teddy bear that we named Einstein. Later, we acquired a giant penguin that we named Hoogerheide.
- Unfortunately, on Veterans Day, we had to say goodbye to our amazing polydactyl cat Mitts, who had been sick for a while.
- In happier cat news, we scared a different one of our cats with a cucumber.
- We talked about a giant salamander found in a cave in China.
- Sarah enjoyed listening to music from and watching several performances of The Nutcracker. First, she saw it in Harrisburg with her grandparents, then she, Dan and I went to see three friends of hers dance in COBALT Dance Company’s Nutcracker in Lancaster! (And we watched the movie version, mentioned above.)
- My best friend Nina came over and took great family photos of us right after Christmas.
- In 4-H, Sarah did some really cool research about the migration habits of bats, and the alpaca club celebrated the holidays with a laser tag and bowling party, in which, in one laser tag game, the kids proudly beat the adults.
Sarah sorted her Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. She has a few.
So what’s new with your family this month? Drop me a comment! I love hearing from all my “blog friends!”
The post Unschooling: Our November/December 2015 adventures appeared first on Unschool RULES.