Ballet Girl is in Second Grade. For her the emphasis is reading, spelling, grammar and math.
- For reading, we are continuing with reading for fluency. I try to find texts that are interesting and engaging, often familiar so that she will have no difficulty decoding. I also insist that if she encounters an unknown word, she looks it up and writes it down and reviews it with me or someone else periodically. The girl reads well, but she would not readily reach out for a book and would not spontaneously read. This is bad and is completely contrary to what needs to be happening. Readings does need to be pleasure and not a task, and should be sought more than TV. So, this is a big challenge at the moment.
- For spelling, we are continuing with All About Spelling. We just finished reviewing level 1, about half of level 2 and a few small parts from level 3. While level 1 was mostly basic rules which are true most of the time, level 2 and beyond contain rules that have exceptions which need to be either memorized or learned through a lot of reading, as well as homonyms-words that sound the same but mean different things. Many of these features are best learned in small doses but regardless of the volume a requirement is repetition. For us,this requirements means that we need to 1) read the words visually a few times, 2) write the words a few times on a piece of paper, 3) say or write a sentence with the words, 4) dictation and 5) continuous review. This brings the challenge of how often and how much to assign; what are the consequences for a missed assignment. I don't believe in catch-up work and doubling the work. I believe in move on kind of work but I do recognize that when I am willing to accept slack, the kid is willing to take it to the next level and test my limits. So, I need to be more strict and disciplined.
- Grammar is a new subject for us. I briefly introduced some simple concepts at the end of first grade. The plan is to cover verbs and tenses both in grammar and spelling; singular and plural nouns in both grammar and spelling, and the separate roles of the words in the sentence, as well as the basic sentence types. We will also follow the Bulgarian grammar for second grade as a guide.
- Math is the cool subject. The girl is figuring out a lot of things on her own, and I am pleased, but because she prefers playing and would not by herself sit and work on problems, she is not fluent yet with the multiplication table, which I find frustrating. We are chagging along and the plan is to finish Beast Academy 3 B,C,D and Singapore Math 4A and 4B. I think this is doable but requires the girl to concentrate more than she has been concentrating the last few months.
- Science and History we are going to cover in Portuguese, and will be mostly learning in parallel. For instance while studying the Ancient Egyptians we will talk about their scientific discoveries and we will try to solve some of the same problems with what we have today. This is also helping with building the foundation in Portuguese which I am also supporting with read alouds- Turma da Monica, Don Quixote, Peter Pan, Historias do Mundo; filmes-Carrossel, Mulan, etc; e cancoes.
- Piano, continues as usual, I am frustrated that we spend way too much time on a simple piece. For instance in the summer I was hoping to have completed two, instead we were stuck at one. Boo. I know her teacher wants to polish the pieces, but I am getting fed up with hearing the same piece for months, so no, thank you, we do need to move along and improve along the way, but learning has to be more active, especially now, when school work is not overwhelming.
- Sports. We are in the midst of soccer season. She loves it. She wants to move on with gymnastics in the winter and the spring. In the spring, I also plan on having them take swim lessons at the park district.
Sunlight boy is in Kindergarten. The plan for him is to get him reading in English, continue reading Bulgarian and move on in math.
- English - he is reading the Bob Books. We are in set 1, 8 books in and thus far the progress has been satisfactory. He is approaching the reading with enthusiasm and pride. I think that he will be a reader by the end of K and in the summer we will continue along the road I took with the young lady.
- Math- we are almost finished with Singapore Math 2B. I will teach him to multiply 2-digit numbers before moving him to Singapore Math 3A and 3B. The goal is to finish the Singapore Math 3 sequence by the beginning of first grade.
- The young man started piano this fall and is enthusiastic about it as well. He is picking up the material with fair ease although his hands are still slightly uncoordinated and very stiff, but regular practice and encouragement will resolve this issue, I hope.
- Science, history, Portuguese and Sports apply equally to both kids. The young man is in soccer, which he loves, and will be forced into gymnastics and swimming before the end of the year.
We are reading every day. On the weekends sometimes I read twice, sometimes just once, depends on my energy.
We have read some great books thus far. Most recently in August we read books about Ancient Egypt, The Adventures in Ancient Egypt book is very similar to the book we read about Don Quixote in portuguese. It is layed out in a cartoon format and is very accessible and entertaining. Overall the adventures of the boy and girl resemble a little the Magic Tree House books, but these are annotated with historically accurate information right when needed, and as such I consider them better.
Yes, we talked about the daily life of the egyptians. We talked about their beliefs and hierarchial system. We talked about their traditions and inventions which have come about from basic and logistic social and individual needs. I am pleased with how we covered Ancient Egypt as a first visit.
In August we read a book about pranksters, the Terrible Two. The author is the same as the author of Battle Bunny which we met last summer. We loved this book and ballet girl was able to foretell many of the things to come about. Overall, a great story about turning the ordinary life in the middle of nowhere (read Iowa) into exciting adventure. I also loved the emphasis on planning and thinking and designing. Love the book. Now in September, we are reading Toshko Afrikanski, which in many way resembles the adventures of Paddington, but is relevant to Bulgaria in the 20's-40's. It is a very funny read and the kids are loving it. I have to start inserting comments about the reality of Bulgaria at the time just to complete the learning.
In August we read Don Quixote das Criancas, which in style is similar to Adventures in Ancient Egypt. Greate fit in terms of Genre. The book is also nice because it contains in the back relevant information about the historical time and the author. We also read a lot about the adventures of Turma da Monica. I suspect we will be coming often to these adventures for stress free, goal free, readings.
In September, we are finishing another version of Don Quixote, which is a longer narrative with more descriptive adventures. After we are done we are going to read Peter Pan and some information from the Historia do Mundo para as criancas-up to Babylon.
This is another book from the Monteiro Lobato series that I acquired in August which we will read later on this year as well, or if not all of it, at least some parts.King George and what is his problem I just finished reading. Oh, I did not learn a thing from US History class, but I learned a lot from this one simple book. It made me wonder if the Civil Warn reenactment that we witnessed was not actually accurate. From the description of the revolutionary war, the war seemed like a slug with luck written all over it. America is a very lucky country. Read this book to your kids, they will walk away with more than the mumbo jumbo in the history books. The US history books in order to make it a full year course include complicated, unnecessary information which forces the student to understand nothing. Maybe the goal of education is to produce low self esteem individuals with no knowledge and no critical thinking skills. How sad if indeed this is the goal.
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