Patriotic Month

It started with our visit to Iowa and President Hoover's presidential library.

First we talked about money. What money is and how the meaning of money has changed over time. I found this book to be a very good introduction to the concept of money.

The One and Only Declaration of Independece is the book I wish I had read as a senior in high school. I learned more from this children's book than from pages and pages in a heavy textbook. The history of money and the independence of the English colonies in North America are closely related. True unity would not have been achieved without adopting common unit of money. The trade, taxes and regulation, of course, were at the core of the revolutionary sentiments in the colonies - all money issues.
[We are going to read one more book about money and we will read a few more books about the revolutionary war]

President Reagan's birthday is February 6th and President Lincoln's birthday is February 12th. In schools Lincoln is the icon and is covered first. My children love to read about Lincoln so when we went to the library we took a few books about him. This is the first we read and I found it quite exciting, expecially that it is based on true events. [There are a few more books we will read about Lincoln.] [ I also intentionally began the month with the declaration of independence. I wanted to stress the significance of the language and how that language did not apply equally to all residents of the colonies. I will put this together with Lincoln and the Civil War to drive the point about inequality for women and races and the struggles of groups to be recognized as equals. We will study a little bit about th civil rights movement. I am appaled that MLK is the first representative that children meet. I already discussed MLK with my kids and dismissed him as the core and most honest representative of the movement. I stressed the importance of the people and not the one hipocritical representative. ]

I have started to teach my kids not to trust stories they hear at school, even "true stories". I started with myths in Bulgaria's history such as the lion jump by Levski. As we were shopping I guided ballet girl into taking the story apart and finding all possible flaws and reasons it should not be trusted. As with MLK I dismissed the single role of one individual and stressed the importance of the masses and the many, small contributions that have been made. Societies tend to seek national heros. It is my belief that heros become meaningless when they assume super human and super natural strengths or are otherwise depicted as invincible and flawless. I think it is important to emphasize the importance of the masses, but I guess for the leaders of societies it is not a good advertisement to know that a lot of people with small actions can take you down; for leaders of societies it is better to state that heros come every once in a while, rarely, giving the illusion to all others that they are not significant, just ordinary. So, I am going to dismiss the value of Vassil Levski and stress the importance of all organizers and all leaders in all villages and cities.

This is my read for the month. I have never read about the history of the atomic bomb and this narration, which is rather simple, makes me uneasy. I will say more when I have finished

Malala, I did not read, but rather I listened to the story during my 5-hour drive to Iowa. The kids were listening to their Kindles, I was listening to Malala's story. I was not impressed. In fact, I resented the story because it was very self-centered and it left a lot of questions unanswered, and it raised a lot of questions which in the context of the aspriation of this girl made no sense. In most stories of this kind, there are tipping points but these were not recognized, just the outcomes mentioned which definitely made the story shallow and incomplete. I am happy that this girl is doing well and has survived and moved on. I am sad that she has been manipulated. I wish in ten years she revisits her story and tells it with maturity. I also hope that in ten years she has resolved a lot of the contradicitions in her story.

This is a wonderful series about the amazing constructions over human history. Bridges is one great episode that I highly recommend. We will probably do the bridge building activity with straws and pins.

Below are all the wonderful books we read about bridges. We read them over a few months. They contain very insightful information, great pictures and ideas on projects to try.

Left: General Information about existing great bridges..

Right: Learning about bridges-types of bridges, simple demos, observation points.

  

Left: This too is laying out the basics but in a bit more detailed way.  

Right: Detailed information about some bridges and general concepts about bridges.

This is a primer for teachers on how to put together a 10-day team competition in a classroom setting. I liked it and I think that in a few years I will probably use it actively with my kids.   

Left: Cartoon version about the dangers during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Right: the non-cartoon, more detailed version about the construction process, the difficulties and the solutions that went into building this beautiful bridge.

Quick Update on School Progress:

Ballet Girl:

1. Math: Finished Beast Academy 3B and Singapore Math 3B. Began Beast Academy 3C and Singapore Math 4A.
2. English: Reads at level O. All about Spelling: reached lesson 10 in level 3.
• Read Frindle (R)
• Read The Story of Diva and Flea (a few times)
3. Bulgarian: Is learning the parts of speech and rules of spelling. I learning the forms of communication.
4. Portuguese: Can read with help. Knows to conjugate in present tense regular AR verbs, Ter, Ser and Estar. Understands when a story is read.
5. Piano: Almost finished with book 2
6. Violin: Began Violin, tomorrow is lesson # 3.

The boy:

1. Math: Moving through Singapore Math 3A-multiplication. Spent a lot of time working on addition and multiplication. Learned about "times more" problems. Mastered "so much more/less than" problems.
2. English: The school thinks that he cannot read but I disagree. He comfortably reads the level 4 Bob Books and I have started him on All About Reading level 1. He loves it. He is motivated and he is making great strides.
3. Bulgarian: Reads comfortably.
4. Portuguese:  Understands when a story is read. Sings in portuguese. 
5. Piano: Finished Cuckoo, Lightly Row and just mastered the French Children's song hands separate. He is advancing wonderfully.

Hands-on with reality

This is the year we are going to focus on the engineering disciplines. The aim is to learn about the engineering process and to start noticing the great engineering solutions which are all around.

We begin with civil engineering. Why? In our history readings we finished reading about Ancient Egypt and China, and  we are nearing the time of the Roman Empire - all times full of examples of superb engineering advancements. Let's not forget that grandpa and grandma are here on hand to reinforce the conversation backed by two-lifetimes of professional experience.

We have started with learning about bridges. The following books have been remarkably well put together and full of insightful and inspirational directions. We have learned about the basic types of bridges and we have conducted some of the experiments in order to learn more about the weaknesses and strengths of the different solutions. We have also learned about the importance of considering the available materials and the environment.

These are the books with which we began to gain appreciation for the diversity of structural solutions.  This book offered us an opportunity to bring out the map and check out the locations of this marvels of human ingenuity.

We continued by focusing on the Brooklyn Bridge. The history of the bridge is remarkable and inspirational. The books we used were considered wonderful by civil engineers.







We are going to watch the following DVDs. We have the VHS but it will be a hassle to hook up the VHS player so DVDs it is. I have watched these films about 5-6 years ago, or maybe more, and I am excited to watch them with new eyes, ears and intention.








Ballet girl is interested in the solar system. She and a friend are going to try to build a model of the solar system for the science fair in February. There are plenty of solar system kits on the market, and plenty of home-made alternatives, but I am keen on taking advantage of the mountain of legos we own. Everything can be prototyped with legos. Here are a bunch of links - NASA link and MIT link - which I hope we use for this year's science fair.


I recommend this series of books to get brief exposure to engineering process and the different engineering disciplines. We are going to read the civil engineering book this month. Next month, we may continue with looking at buildings, and I will concentrate more on materials.






January is the month I dedicate to learning about money. Money is a very subtle concept that we do not ponder often, but it is unquestionably one of the greatest inventions of humankind. We will talk about what money means and as we proceed in history we will talk about the importance of money in all historical episodes.






As far Portuguese goes, we just finished Pippi Meialonga which we loved. We are going to move to Os Egipcios and then to the first adventure of Lobinho. I am delighted that both kids are paying attention during reading time and can answer questions on the spot.







This month the kids are going to play at Smith Crossing retirement home in Orland Park which I am very happy about since the next concert opportunity is in May. In May during this year's IMA competition Ballet girl will play Minuet in G-Allegretto by J.S.Bach from Easy Classic to Moderns Vol 17, a selection at the Junior 1 level. This will be followed by the Piano Guild Auditions we will review all of Ballet Girl's book 2 and hopefully, the year will conclude with the book2 graduation.

We attended a ISO concert in December which featured holiday favorites. The way the little man experienced the music during the performance impressed a lot of people. He also went up to the singer to let her know that while he enjoyed her singing, he found her singing to be very loud.  We attended a fundraising concert for the South Suburban Youth Orchestra last week which we loved and which further inspired Ballet Girl to pick up the violin. We are probably going to attend the High School Musical presented by the Lockport Youth Theatre at the end of the month.

Ballet girl said that her school is going to distribute Charlotte's web for this year's One-School-One-Book initiative. I was surprised because her teacher has been reading it to the kids as a read-aloud during snack time already. Ballet girl asked me to start reading it because she is not always there for snack time. I and the kids love this edition because it has colorful pictures. I found an interesting list of questions.