The pleasant chaos

Kindergarten-Second Grade: Month 1 Update

Our read alouds this month were "Emil ot Lionaberia" by Astrid Lingren, "Toshko Afrikanski" by Angel Karaliichev and "Peter Pan" by Monteiro Lobato. Quite the collection of entertaining pre-bedtime reading. A mischievous monkey, a mischievous boy and a mischievous band of pirates.

 During a typical month we typically read through a good list of books. In light of this fact, the current month is unusual. Yet, it was equally rewarding, because we became familiar with some fabulous characters. We are still reading about Emil and Peter Pan. Peter Pan we will finish but the third part of Emil's adventures we will finish maybe next summer.

Our next stop is history. We will be travelling to Ancient China. October!

Here is a quick update on Sunlight boy:

1. He is going through a creativity boom. He has been building all types of inventions with Legos. He is a problem solver at heart and a charmer. 
2. He finished the first level of the Bob Books yesterday! He is very proud of himself. I am also extremely proud of him. He picked up reading very well, faster than I anticipated. I think he will not have difficulty following Ballet Girl's reading path. 
3. He finished the second grade Singapore Math books last week, and this week we began the third grade books. I am very impressed with him, there are some activities such as given a bunch of digits to construct a certain digits largest or smallest number, I thought would be tough, but no! Very very easy! He handles multiplication well too!
4. He continues to read really well Bulgarian!
5. At the piano he is becoming more at ease. He reads music so we may have to walk a fine line between Suzuki and traditional approach. I am very happy with his progress. I am discovering that both approaches have a lot of strengths that are valuable to him.
6. I think that he pays attention at school, but he probably has an attitude, as in "I know this already, so I won't bother to participate". I never had a problem with Ballet Girl regarding being ahead academically than her peers; she has always been happy to do repeatedly the mundane, which has its brilliance, as long as I ensure that she is challenged enough along the way. Yesterday alone, Sunlight boy made the connection between my mom's comment about "everyone's unique set of mnemonics for remembering the multiplication table" and "schema" which is a word used in school to describe the prior information one possesses about a topic or object.
7. Soccer has been his highlight! He loves it, and we love the passion and energy with which he runs and fights on the attach and on the defense.

Here is a quick update on Ballet Girl:

1. Ballet girl continues to be busy with creating accessories from rubber bands, hair bands, pieces of thread, and pieces of cloth. She loves drawing and is always with a note pad and pencil for sketching and writing.   
2. She learned the multiplication table! Hurray! We finished Beast Academy 3A and have moved on to Beast Academy 3B. We are also going to finish the last few topics from Singapore Math 3A&B so that she can take the tests and we can move on to the next levels in depth. Beast Academy offers fun math, not math drills, and when we get bored from the SM books, I move on to Beast Academy. I have warned before that while really good, Beast Academy has its weaknesses, its points of negligence. I follow my own curriculum and I use these books for support, while also teaching critical thinking.
3. We are continuing with All About Spelling Level 2. We are throwing in words that sound the same but mean different things and are spelled differently. We also talked about some irregular plurals and some irregular verbs. Today we talked about the change in the pronunciation of "read" from present to past tense. I have also begun to introduce the rules of punctuation. We started with the comma and the famous "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" book. Ballet Girl reads at 3.8 level, so way to go, girl! Every once in a while she gets into the groove of reading, but this is not frequent. I don't push her, but I do hope that one day soon, especially in the cold days of winter, the curiosity will overcome her to dig in with more zest.
   
4. I moved her from the 10th piano piece to the 11th. This and next week the aim is to learn the second half and I really look forward to the 12th piece. I hope that by the end of the year, we will be done with that, and by the end of January we will be done with Suzuki Book 2. This year I want to concentrate on music theory and solfege as well. Overall, we have been progressing slowlier, but at least we are moving and not stuck!
5. Portuguese is coming along well for her. She is using more and more words and is understanding better but I want to introduce her to some formal material. I need to push for the Portuguese lessons in earnest for both kids.
6. In November she will start gymnastics which is a long standing wish of hers.

We went to a Pumpkin Patch which the kids loved. We planned next summer too. May, June and part of July, the kids are going to Bulgaria. In July we are all going again to Minnesota. This, of course, followed by August soccer camp.

Overall, a peaceful month. October will be exciting. We have a busy October. One birthday-Ballet Girl, one opera-Marriage of Figaro, and one half marathon-Prarie State on the north side:)