January 2020

These books are our read-alouds in January.  They could not be more different.
The Bridge Home is the story of four poor children in a large city in India. The book focuses on their daily life and their friendship. It is told by one of the characters, as if she is speaking to her sister. It is a moving story.
The second one we picked because we have liked the books by David Williams. We like this one too, although it is somewhat predictable, at least for now, and not nearly as absurd and silly as "Vove deu no pe" and "Vovo vagarista"

These are the books the kids are reading for pleasure. The fourth grader is reading the Secret Coder books. He is liking them which means that they are a perfect set for this grade level. My daughter read them in fourth grade as well. She was hooked on them and could hardly wait for the next books to be published. Now she is reading slightly darker books. This one I have not read so I cannot comment, but she likes it.

Math for the sixth-grader is from these Art of Problem solving books. In Geometry she just finished the chapter on the Pythagorean theorem. In Algebra she finished the chapters on quadratics. January is dedicated to preparation for MathCounts so the official books are picking some dust at the moment. Back to business in February. The fourth grader is half way through the Beast Academy books. I am quite pleased with his progress. I switched the sequence in which I teach the fifth grade books. We covered fractions, all operations. Then we moved to decimals and covered all operations, and only then we moved to ratios and rates. I am not sure why the topics are scattered across the 4 books, but this is the order which sticks. The book order leads to pain and suffering. In preparation for Mathcounts I am using the tests listed in this website.

The sixth grader had a piano recital. She played Knight Ruppert, Tarantela by Pieczanka and a repertoire from Suzuki books 3 and 4.  She is three pieces into Suzuki violin book 4. She loves music. This is almost her lifeline. The fourth grader is just one half of a piece away from his piano recital. He will officially finish Suzuki book 2. The cello is going great as well. He is half way book 1, and he attends weekly practices with a local youth orchestra. As a special treat we attended a concert at CSO which featured Anne Marie Mutter perform three of Beethoven's sonatas for violin and piano+2 extra pieces.


We have fallen behind with science and social studies. I am going to resume science in February. We will focus on chemistry and then we will focus on electricity. With  regards to chemistry we carried out several experiments. I will summarize the findings and the facts. For electricity I have a book that I intend to follow. For chemistry I am using this book. I like them both and I think they are perfect with respect to detail, theory and practice.


Portuguese has taken a back stage for the last two months. I will need to bring it back, but time is just short. I read to them, and occasionally they watch a video or a movie, but we need to bring back the systematic learning and practice of the language.

I have not decided what we will be reading and focusing on in February. We have a whole one week in January to enjoy.