Homeschool Goals and Tools: 2013-2014

Math for Sunlight boy. He  just finished the Kindergarten-level books in the series.
Sunlight boy is 4. He cannot write. I do the writing. He sees me writing. One day he will want to write as well, just like his sister metamorphosed into an eager writer/scribbler.

We do 6 problems per evening, which is at most 10 minutes. The directions are very brief. We do all counting, pointing, emphasizing together. When he has grasped a concept, there is more of him than me. I fade away.

We did not cover all topics in the Kindergarten books. We skipped counting by 2s and 5s, and the months and seasons of the year.

Math for Ballerina girl. Ballerina girl finished the third grade books in the summer. We are in book 4A working on fractions, addition and subtraction. Book 4B will carry us through the end of the summer. We have already covered most of the topics in book 4B.

I have studied mathematics and I love the subject. I also love teaching it. I do not teach rote. I teach understanding. Once Ballerina girl understood place value, we were golden for everything else, which is nothing more than notation for fancy counting.

We do 6 problems per evening. Given that she is not a reader, I give her all the directions she needs, but she can write out the solution to the problems herself.

Both children bring out math throughout the day.

Bulgarian for Ms. Ballerina. She reads/reviews one page per day. She reads poems consisting of 20 words during the weekend.

I aim for 3-4 days of Bulgarian reading.

For Sunlight boy, there is no teaching source. I use a whiteboard and a marker. We review the letters by sounding out words, letter-by-letter. When I taught my son to read, I taught him letter-word-sound association. We practiced with: what letter does word 'X' begin with, and I will give him options. Once the major letters were set, we moved on to our current reading phase. Sunlight boy sounds out 5-8 words per evening, which amounts to roughly 5-10 minutes. My approach with Ballet girl was quite different. I introduced the letters fairly fast, once she exhibited interest, which was around 3.5 years old. She knew the letters before her fourth birthday, she also easily sounded out words. Since then, we have worked on maintaining the skill. During last summer, we read Bulgarian only 2 times per week, if that!

 Ballerina girl plays the piano. She started in January 2013. Prior to that during the summer 2012, I have worked with her during the Sundays, for half an hour at most. Her interest showed while we were visiting my brother on the east coast. She saw her cousins and her uncle playing and she asked to learn. I taught her one Christmas song, which she learned really fast. Then I called a local school and set her up with lessons. Her piano teacher is very nice. Initially, I was doing most of the teaching and we used the piano class to showcase what we have learned. Now, the teacher is teaching and I am supplementing at home. I have learned a lot as well. I have learned to overcome my fear of not knowing. I don't say I don't or I can't. Ballerina girl sees me and she is motivated. Every once in a while we compete for the right to the piano:)

The Bob Books. My brother gave them to me because they were too babish for his son. They were perfect for my daughter.

I did not know how to approach English. As you know, English is a language in which you can invent phonetic rules but then have to make hundreds of excuses, and the rules and the excuses are longer and more complicated than the art of reading. So, I was lost. How to teach English. First, I have to backtrack a little and say that the thought of teaching English reading did not occur to me until Ballet girl had learned English well. Second, the Bob Books came into our lives. I tried them in the summer of 2012 but that was too early and I put them back. I introduced them again during the summer of 2013 after the second year of pre-K, and it was the right time. We started with 1 book per week. Thus we moved until January 2014 when the school sent a reading log sheet. So we started reading 1 book/15 min per day. Bob Books 1 and 2 were finished in the summer of 2013. Bob Books 3 we finished in December 2013. We just finished Bob Books 4 and we will move to Bob Books 5.

Bob Books are great but not interesting enough. Once the art of reading clicks, one might as well introduce more interesting text, but not more complicated. This is where the Piggie and Elephant books came into play. Ballerina girl picked one at school and she gobbled it up instantly with ease. She read them all.

She read The Foot Book, The Nose Book, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and some Greenlight Readers Level 2 which recommended by the school.

We have a lot of picture books at home and Ballerina girl is familiar with them. I gave one a try recently. 'If you give a mouse a cookie'. What a hit! She also read 'If you take a mouse to the movies'. Another hit! This is where we stand. Reading picture books, re-reading familiar once, moving forward and taking it easy. Ballerina girl is proud of her skill.

Children Books in Portuguese Online this is how we learn Portuguese at home. I am not a fluent speaker and it has been extremely difficult for me to find my path. I make use of movies and children shows which I find online (anything with Mickey, all Disney films, Galinha Pintadinha and similar ones), and photocopied and shared books online, either through blogs or pinterest. I read one book per evening, often I re-read it, and sometimes I ask questions. We also sing a lot of familiar songs such as a version of Old MacDonald which helped us learn savannah as well as farm animals and other more exotic animals. Some easy o translate picture books I have at home are also great; with the 10 little lady bigs we learned to count to 10. Easy readers are fabulous to translate-they are easy and the plots are simple. This requires work but is worth it.

We love the Colecao Rato e Gato books. Now that Ballerina girl can read Bulgarian and English, she is making attempts to decipher the Portuguese in familiar books. It's exciting to watch and I wish I could get my hands on all of these wonderful books.


We have homework on most days. For Ballet girl, I try to limit everything to 30 minutes but we have gone to 45 a few times. With Sunlight boy, the whole homework ritual is 15-20 minutes at the worst.
In the past, we have skipped homework for the following reasons:
1) we stayed out late (as in the summer when we are either in the park or at the pool)
2) we are tired/sick
3) we have had other activities (ballet, piano, recital, attended event)
4) were busy with something interesting
5) have had school for a while and need a break to refuel.
Right now we are taking a break off school. The children were struck by a stomach bug and we have had school for a while, and grandma is going out of town for 10 days.

We very rarely skip read-alouds before going to bed at night. I have to be extremely tired or the kids have to be really sick/tired. Books are demanded and expected.

The goal for this year is to collaboratively pick one project, explore it and develop it with some hands-on activities. My thoughts have been around building racing boats while reading Stuart Little; or making model planes, rockets, kites and flying them while learning about the history and principles of flight, especially with the 45 year anniversary of the first man on the moon coming up. These are not set in stone but ideas which can be substituted with whatever else the children prefer to dive into. The year is so young!

Happy learning:)