November Happenings

We had a birthday boy! A happy birthday boy!

November has been very nice to us. Sunny and warm. Over the weekend we would finish the mundane things by noon, I would have the kids eat their lunch on the sunny porch, and off they would go to the park for a few hours. We would do some light homework and prep for the week and off we would go to sleep.

Ancient Greece will be the focus of one week in November. We will spend another week wrapping up the rest of the ancient world. This is after all a short tour and we would like to trampoline to Ancient Rome and the middle ages. These two Usborne books will be our splines.

Our focus this month will be learning about light and how the microscope works, as well as how to use our own microscope at home. Thaksgiving week will be devoted to this.


The girl is interested in oragami and making other creations from paper.She has been borrowing books from the library and has been drawing, sketching and folding paper in all shapes and forms. The biy has followed suit. His interests align mainly with knights, castles, dragons, cars, and pirates. Tons of folding, drawing, cutting and gluing. Imaginations here run wild. We have to start thinking about science fair soon. These two books will be very useful to us. Hands on is wonderful. I am glad that this year has been light so that we can concentrate on reall fun activities. Update: No, these two books were not very useful. They do provide a few ideas but nothing that was not presented in other forms already from other sources.

A word about our main math curriculum. The Beast Academy is a series of books for grade 2-5. Each grade consists of 4 books. These books were highly recommended, word of mouth style, in the homeschooling community. For children who express interest and ability in math these books are wonderful. The problems are non-trivial and challenging. The problems require thinking and concentration. So, last year after having completed Singapore Math 4 and having entered the world of Singapore Math 5, but looking for more mathematical practice than more math jargon, I decided to supplement with Beast Academy. Since then it has been our main learning tool. To my pleasant surprise, the problems that are featured are either on par or ahead of what I remember as a student growing up. This makes me happy. The Singapore method lays out wonderfully the concepts, however the standard set did not have challenging problems. There are separate books one can purchase that may be enough. I feel happier with the Beast Academy content. I am following the same steps with my little guy. We are just about to venture in Singapore Math 3. I am sure that we will breeze through it because he already knows how to add and subtract efficiently, and since we are working through the multiplication table right now, he will have no difficulty with that aspect. I am going to wait to solidify his basic skills and next month we will conquer SA3A.


The plan on the portuguese front has been all over the place. In other words there is no plan, but we do a bit of portuguese every day. For instance, we have mainly looked at online videos of story narrations, we have listened to songs and watched some movies. With the girl we read parts of books; with the boy we are going through a book which teaches reading. I am not using it as such but rather as a tool to teach him portuguese vocabulary. So far so good.

These have turned out to be some of our best favorite books. It takes us two readings to get through one. Especially with Pedro e o Boi Voador, the context from portuguese camp helped tremendously.

Sprint is the practical application of the concepts introduced in the Lean StartUp. I feel that the Lean Startup is a book about bragging while Sprint is a book resulting from hands-on activities which have led to real results- failures and successes. I resommend these books. They are easy reads.

Rework is on my to-read shelf. Revolution, I have started and I love. The reviews for it has been great and I understand why. I am not sure it is necessary for this book to be this large, but it is what it is. I have not finished but I already appreciate much of the historical backgroun information, especially in light of the upcoming presidential election, less than 48 hours away now! Update: Revolution is a wonderful book. It is well written, the topic and the contextual information provided as a supplment is fantastic. I felt that the story took forever to take off but once I realized that it was worthwhile even if unnecessary.

The Christmas concert is about a month away and we picked a piece from here to do. I have no idea if we can make it happen but we will try. The young lady and I tried Frosty today and it sounded OK but it will not be easy putting it together with the little man. We will see. We will do our best and if this year it does not work, there will be next year too!

Update: We settled for two solos. The duet is not an easy feat. Hopefully we will manage one for next year.