February 2017 - Introduction to Civics

It is important for young children to be familiar with the concepts of a citizen, a country, civil rights and civil responsibilities. Children should learn how the country is governed in order to  maneuvre successfully within its complexity. Public education offers a wonderful opportunity for children to mingle and learn about the diversity of each community in this country, but ultimately, I have responsibility to shape my children's view and understanding.
It is my hope that I offer to my children a multi-facet representation of the complexity of all social issues. For instance, I intuitively rebel against the clause in the constitution under which slaves would not be counted as a full person-the 'politically-correct'-'civil rights apprecionato' in me said that yes, they should be counted as a full person; the rational person in me realized that this was one of the absolute smartest decisions the north had pushed for, on its long way to limit the power of slavery in the south, and ultimately fight and win the just cause. This serves to show that the linear solution is not always the best, and serves as a justification for the complexity of world's politics. Among the madness is hidden a lot of reason.
The madness that has overtaken the world today has served, for me, as a catalyst to learn about history-the one discipline that was so removed, so distant, so abtract, so irrelevant that I feared, I ignored, I abhored it. History is essential. It is the discipline that teaches critical thought before math or science.

We started with "If you were there when they signed the constitution". This book is full of details and can be used as either a spline or an introduction to the topic of the nation of the United States-how it came to be. The main players on both sides are introduced. All major issues are discussed, and all sides in the debate are presented. On its own this book is no enough, but it is a wonderful stepping stone.
We talked about the branches of government and what a genious idea the system of checks and balances is: three main player, each overseeking the other and being overlooked by the other two. I decided to concentrated on the judicial branch first rather than congress. The judicial branch is not very well developed by the constitution but in reality has developed to be a very complex system with many dependencies and contingencies. I think of it as a giant safety net. Today under Trump it is functioning preceisely as such.

 "I dissent" and "Sonia Sotomayor" are wonderful picture books, introductions to two wonderful, strong women, who through hard work and dedication have reached for the stars. These two women serve as a reminder that the "American Dream" is alive and well, but there are external factors who are trying to convey the idea that that dream is a myth from the past. Life is not easy, there are a lot of loopholes and moments of luck, but sometimes you also have to deliberately set your fishing rod ready to fish for them. "I dissent" speaks about tolerance and respectful disagreement and learning from disagreeing. "Sonia Sotomayor" speaks about remaining true to your roots, to your own essence. The kids learned that the Supreme Court handles tough cases, serious cases, cases with long-lasting consequences, so not everyone can be qualified to take the responsibility, and the nomination process itself is an example of the application of the checks and balances system. To make an abstract notion concrete I brought out the following picture books.

"Separate is never equal" is a very detailed picture book about the Mendez case against school segregation in California. The book offers one commonality with "I dissent". In "I dissent" the little jewish girl, Ruth, travels to Philadelphia and sees hotel signs reading "No dogs and no jews". The little girl Sylvi sees signs at public schools saying "No digs and no mexicans". The United States has discriminated against its own Supreme Court Justice. The United States has the potential to make other grave mistakes. The democratic process was invented to fight all such mistakes.  "Sylvia and Aki" show the parallel experience of Sylvia (the same Sylvia from "Separate is never equal") and Aki, a child of japanese heritage who, along with her family, has been stripped off her constitutional rights by the United States, in violation of the constituion, without due process.  The story is beautifully written. I read it and I recommended it to my third-grader to read; equipped with the background from the pictures books she will be able to enjoy it. We already briefly talked about the Second World War. However, it is important to bring what is familir in a new context in order to establish connections and encourage critical thinking.
 "Baseball saved us" talks about the life of a japanese boy in the internment camps in Arizona. This ties nicely with both books listed above. As a contradiction to the artificially created panic within the US, I am going to bring back "Passage to Freedom", to highlight that goodness exists among all men, as well as badness exist among all men. I don't know if we will read "Sixteen years in sixteen seconds". It is about segregation, it offers us a sign similar to what Sylvia saw in the pool and Rudy saw in front of a hotel. It also showcases that one can achieve anything through hard word, dedication and persistence, which go nicely with "I dissent" and "Sonia Sotomayor".

We will read the constitution and the commentary that follows. This is a wonderful book. The next few books mostly contain snippets of what is contained in these two. "The bill of rights" can be skipped or assigned as an independent reading (probably what I will do with my third grader) since the information is well covered in "Constitution translated for kids".  "How the government works" overlaps a bit with the "US constitution and you" but does offer a few extra snipped into particular departments that the president has in his cabinet so we will read this together. Overall I find these to be very useful resources for younger children.
I believe that once children understand how the government works, this abstractness should be brought into reality by resorting to activities.









The following texts are great for older students, but we will read selected portions and do selected activities now. It is important to become first hand familair with the components of the government we control with our voice when casting a ballot.
We will first talk about the Supreme Court and move on to Congress for a thorough discussion of representation, democracy and republic. I will also talk about communism, fascism and socialism. Let's see how these go, it is a bit ambitious.

In case there is doubt about how busy we are, the school handed us "The trumpet of the swan". I read it a few years back and I liked it. I intended to read it to the kids but the time never came. So voila, the school gave it to us as part of the "One-school-one-book" program. I think the program is great. Out of the last six years we have had only one book that I refused to read. I am not terribly thrilled about this book, on my second reading. I find the book rather dull, and repetitive; a sure step back from "Charlotte's Web". We are also reading "A fantastica fabrica de chocolate" as our read-aloud in portuguese. It is a great book. I wish I had started with it, but I guess it is easy now because we had gone through some hard portuguese books as read alouds.

Because it is February, we have science fair and math challeneg to worry about as well. Boo. For science fair we are sticking to the bare bones principles of science-the five magic steps:question, hypothesis, experiment, observation, discussion. My first grader will learn about evaporation's dependence on surface area. My third grader will learn about temperature's effect on crystal growth. Both are relatively easy, and easy science is the way to highlight the principles of science. So, this year we are not going to build anything, we are just going to observe things happenings.

Piano is going great. The first grader is en route to complete Suzuki book 1. The third grader is en route to complete Suzuki book 1 in violin. Great progress.

The rest is as usual.

Janaury 2017

BITTER WInTERY COLD

We have not celebrated New Year's. Technically it has happened, but for my family, one tradition was not held as we were travelling, so we are postponing our personal New Year's celebration until the end of the month. Hopefully, our hearts will be warmed up and cheered up by the splendid music of Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic. Until, then "Happy New 2017 to you", and "still a grumpy 2016 to us"!

Winter Break was mostly wonderful. It was an honest break. We did not do any educational work, only fun and laziness were allowed. The kids spent good time with their cousins. There the girls went to a horse-care camp; altogether we toured NYC for a day, and mostly took small walks and hikes.

The cold has occupied Chicagoland in the last few days, so we are crammed indoors. I am looking for the freedom that an extra 10F degrees would bring to us over the next few days. There are a few hikes in the Palos Hills and Indiana Dunes are that I am interested in. I think, that for this weekend we will be satisfied with viewing Hidden Pictures(1/8/17), the movie. The books, both the original and the adapted youth version, were terribly dry and uninspiring; both read like a fact-infested catalogue. This sad remark aside, the movie is expected to be well done. 

The book that I have displayed to the left was suggested to me as an additional inspirational read aloud. I am still to find and read it. Commentary to follow in due time. Update: "I dissent" is a fabulous picture book. It is inspirational for young girls to work hard and to achieve their passion. It talks about disagreement and conviction, learning with and from others' opinions which you may or may not share; it talks about women's abilities and contribution to our world. All human beings begin life on the same footing, out of the same gate; there is nothing inherent in preventing one from being significant contributor. While I was researching this book I came across the statement that Susan B. Anthony ran the women's suffrage campaign on the grounds that white women should count as more than all black human beings. I have not researched this and I will update when I do, but I think this is an interesting remark that if shown true I want to share with my children.

I am hoping throughout this year to emphasize to both my boy and my girl that both genders are capable of great deeds, and both genders are capable of utter stupidity. 

Our study of ancient societies is already helping us along these lines. Rome with its preferences for boys to girls resembles current India. Rome's treatment of the poor resembles the ancient China and ancient Egypt strategies to keep their poor and farmers always occupied with work. Lack of information and lack of education for the suppressed is a hallmark from the ancient world, through the ages into today, a bad habit we need to break.  

We are back in the swing of things. First week! Together, as a group, we are moving on in history and learning about Ancient Rome. Most of the discussing is comparison and contrast between Ancient Rome and the civilizations existing before it. This is a nice format allowing me a lot of review of past readings, and also development of critical thinking. The children already have established opinions about the gladiator type entertainment. My daughter objected to them due to the deaths of the animals. I pointed out that this covers the animals on both side so it is indeed sad for that reason. She laughed. 

Since Rome is famous for its gigantic projects, we are talking more extensively about its citizens, buildings, roads and bridges. As of 1/16 we have read and enjoyed all of the featured books. I highly recommend them as a trampoline to information, critical thinking and further discussion on Rome and other ancient societies. Update:  We read the book but we did not watch the video.

In Science we will begin to talk about the enviornment. On my list for this month is to view the movie The Lanfill Harmonic  . (We viewed it and we liked it. I would not necessary recommend purchasing it, as its more inspiring version is available on the youtube.) 

We have already read the picture book, but there is no harm in revisiting it again. The story of the girl depicted in the book is also available on youtube.  

It is important for me to emphasize to my children that trash does not need to be trash. It can be reused and can be labelled treasure instead.  

My daughter is very concerned about animals and I think that a few picture books adressing this issue will be a nice reading addition to our routine. 



Trash, slums and poverty walk hand in hand, so I will take this topic further into the world of child exploitation and child labour. I do want my children to understand that they are indeed priviledged, but with these rights and luxuries come responsibilities. I want them to understand that and take actions in their daily routines to make some impact towards maintaining their world cleaner and uncluttered. 

Human exploitation, period, on any scale, by anyone, cannot be acceptable and tolerated. This is my opinion and I want to pass it along to my children. "Sugar changed the world" is my reading but I will add on information from it to the children's learning. "Breaker Boys" is not terribly well written, but it contains key illustration to drive the main message home. "Sugar changed the world" is well written; however it skips over key historical moments in a rush. I think this book would have been more successful as a series, each component devoted to a particular era. The information that is contained within, the final essay regarding the manner in which the topic was researched, and the included list of sources are all very valuable to all educators. I think this is an excellent resource for further reading. If you read about the story of sugar, you have to read about the story of Salt-a basic necessity for the human phisiology. It is quite wonderful to learn from both, that the era of science eliminated the harshness and brutality brought by these simple chemicals.

Speaking of the era of science. It is Science Fair season, so we will be reviewing how science works and how scientists think. It is very important to begin drilling that into kids from this early, so they are neither afraid of the scientific concept, nor are intimidated, as the current society is, of the tools and reports of science.

Hopefully, this book will help us. I have a print out of ideas to explore. I hope that the kids will pick their own projects and we can begin chugging along to some fruitful research and hopefully some real learning.

This book is quite a good first introduction to the scientific method. It talks about statistics and warns about how difficult it is to be certain of your conclusions, which makes sharing information important.

Lessons have resumed-violin, piano and portuguese. For Portuguese we are reading the little prince. The kids saw the Netflix film and liked it, but the book will offer us the opportunity to discuss what the author means, or at least how we interpret/see the story. 

My daughter:

• English: she is reading the BoxCar Children, books 1-4. She is also working on finishing AAS3.
• Math: she is working in Beast Academy Book 4B, chapter 1(counting) and chapter 2(division). We are also chugging along some mental math tricks. She already took the math challenge test but we don't know how she did overall.She passed and will take the district exam in February.
• Portuguese: weekly lessons and daily exercises in grammar.
• Piano and Violin, both require daily practice. Each instrument is allowed one day off per week.
• She is participating in her school choir this year, and she is loving it.
• She can choose to participate in two piano competition, and the piano guild audition. It will be her choice. We are taking it easy performance wise because last year was a bit of an overkill and slowed us down with advancing in the repertoire; in addition Book 1 for violin is in sight.

My son:

• English: he is reading well now. He is in AAR2 which I think is great. He is also finishing up AAS1 and by the middle of next month may be in AAS2.
• Math: multiplication is learned. He is now going through the advanced word problems for Grade 2. He is learning about the different interpretations of multiplication. We will also move into division and explore that. I am very optimistic and that the muck we found ourselves in December is overcome.
• Portuguese: daily readings and prompts for answers.
• Piano requires daily practice.
• I am not certain if I should ask him to participate in a piano competition. I don't think it is necessary. He is approaching the end of book 1 and we will be working on a piano recital, so that would be sufficient.

We will hike more as long as the temps are around 30F. We will go to three operas this winter/spring season. We will may throw in a trip to Arizona. The kids are expecting to become an aunt and an uncle in a couple of weeks. Super exciting.


I discovered Jack and Louisa this winter. I did not do any discovering. The series was recommended to me by the consultants at Random House books during the holiday season. I cannot praise enough these, so far, two books. Act 1 and Act 2. I even watched the original Guys and Dolls with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. I did not like the music but I enjoyed the humour and the acting.

 These three books were recommended to me as "issue books". "There is a boy in the girls' bathroom" talks about a boy who is shunned as hopeless by the entire school system, and all other students. He is bullies and lonely. He misbehaves in response to aggression but he does not want to be noticed. A counselor, whom the "concerned parents" whose of the "good"  kids who either bully or ignore the main character, is the only person who works with the boy in a gentle, friendly way. This little book made me cry. It was genuine and powerful. It is mostly dialogue so it is easy for late-elementary, early-middle school kids to understand and relate.  "Counting by 7's" is a late middle-school, early high school type of book. It uses a lot of literary means and requires a more sophisticated and life-experienced reader. It is the story of a 12-year old girl, who is adopted and who loses her adoptive parents in a tragic accident. She survives with the help of unlikely characters. There is one main character around whom the story is centered, but the main supporting characters also undergo deep evolution as the story progresses. It is a wonderful book warning about the reality of real life, the struggles, the sacrifices, the complex fabric of our society, and the interconnectivity that ultimately binds us all together. I was considering this book for my niece, as she too at the age of 12 suddenly lost one parent. I don't think my niece is ready for this book, but I think that in a year or two, she should read it. "El Deafo" is a comic-style book. It is about a girl who has deficient hearing due to an early-childhood illness and is supported in her life by hearing aids. The story is about her perception of her experiences growing up-interactions with friends, doctors, parents, school. It is beautifully illustrated, the story is tender, and accessible to young audiences too. I would recommend it to late-elementary-school to late-middle-school kids. I am deeply impressed by the variety and power of the new literature for children. I think it is wonderful that parents read and recommend to their children the books they enjoyed as children, but I think it is important to accept and swim with the present as well. There is a lot of trash out there, but there is also real quality, and it is worthwhile sifting through the flashy garbage in order to emerge with the real gems.

President Trump is such a wonder. The world history has seen plenty of narcissists, but never with so much power in their hands as this one. One of his many anti-social, anti-human, anti-world agendas is to fight vaccines. Social media, in the last decade or so, has given voice to a small, but nonetheless very vocal minority, who has coined non-existent connections between vaccines and medical conditions. Science is not part of the equal, opinion - yes. So, since we have settled into the comfort of world free of deadly and espensive viral diseases thanks to medical, preventative measure, we no longer emphasize the importance and the historical significance of these measures. This book, for me, was a nice refresher, and I consider sending Trump a friendly copy, or maybe an audio book. 

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.

The problems with mass education today

The problem with mass education today is that it was designed for the world as it was some 150 years ago. The FEW instustrial barones did not require intellectuals who can oppose the dictated statusquo; the industrial barones required submissive workers - brainless machines that simply can clock-in and clock-out.

Today the world is different. All industries cry out for creative, independent thinkers. How to find them when the creativity and independence have been delibertaley removed from them starting at the age of 5 in kindergarten!

History textbooks offer an ideal example to illustrate this phenomenon. History textbooks are stuffed with carefully selected "facts", dates, names, etc. What is deemed historical knowledge is memorizing the carefully selected "facts", dates and names.  Thinking about the evolution of ideas, the historical processes and development of social movements is NOT the scope of education. Why? If children learn to question and marvel at the ingenuity of the big stirrers of history they can see the weakess of the societies they live in. This is trouble which even the government of the free does not want to encounter on a large scale. The history lessons become lessons in memorization not lessons in building character and critical-thinking.

Thus, when in January my daughter came home with a "workbook" activity on Martin Luther King, Jr., a celebrated american hero, I decided that it is my duty to show her the dark side of history.

1. We started with reading about the Declaration of Independece - how it came about, how it was defended, what messages it contained, and how daring of a document it was, and yet how weak in its assumptions it was. 
2. We started to reflect on the prejudices of the "founding fathers" by reading about Lincoln and reflecting on slavery and the Civil War. I pointed out that the Emancipation Proclamation was in fact a demonstration of inequality and not a demonstration of freedom. Quite a strange concept for little children provided its premise. Hard lessons are embedded in history.  
3. We touched on the inequal treatment of other groups, women in particular. They won their right to vote through a long campaign. 
4. We are now focusing on the inequalities and denied freedoms of immigrants.
   
   We started with an excellent book "Separate is never equal" which discusses school segragation in the 40s in California based on ethnicity and appearance. Many other themes are alluded to as well: the unequal treatment of veterans due to ethnicity and appearance,  inaccessible schooling due to ethnicity and appearance. All by design, for a reason. When children think of segregation they zoom immediately to the south which is a biased fostered dangerously in our schooling system, to keep the ethnic groups at odds with one another, and the government in power. So, it is important for me to introduce segragation as a general, and far-reaching movement, by design and for a purpose. 
5. We will tackle the segregation in the south as well, soon, again with a picture book. 
6. Then we will read about Rosa Parks. 

Why Rosa Parks? Didn't you start with MLK? Indeed. As I explained to my daughter one day,



MLK was just a representative of a movement which he neither started, nor fueled. He was well connected because as a pastor he was well travelled. He happened to be at the right place at the time when the long-lasting movement of the masses for equal civil rights had grown strong enough to pose danger to the government. The government needed to make peace and MLK was the link they clung to. MLK was nothing more than a representative for a movement that has been growing for decades and that was fueled by the educated among the blacks. No wonder education and independent thinking is feared and was feared. So, yes, I am talking about the actual people who made the civil rights movement possible-mentioning George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges. To ensure that my daughter understood how insignificant MLK was, I told her that he did not do as he preached (nope, his infidelities with prostitutes are not in the textbook, and are not in my daugther's head but a close approximation is).

So, a movement is not a person. A movement is as implied by the root of the word a process and should be treated and represented as such, not lessened by the scope of one man's achievement or ambition. I will go back to immigration because while the creative juices of this country are mainly imported (Steve Jobs, anyone?), immigrants are mistreated for their ethnicity, appearance, customs and accent. In fact, it is often the immigrants themselves who treat each other nastily following the presumption "if I suffered to make it, you will suffer too. no silver platters, buddy.". If you are familiar with the medical field, you can understand how closely related these mentalities are.

Overall, my goal is to show my children that

• we live in a free but imperfect country
• they must know their rights
• they must speak for their rights without fear
• they must question everything and its purpose
• a movement is not a person, but the collective small and large efforts over a period of time of many individuals
• education is power and freedom 

We should not forget about poverty and unequal treatment for people whose financial means are small. So, this powerful little book, will show up again, long before a related Christmas discussion.

We are also reading the Jumgle book which I have never read and which fits perfectly in our work through the injustices of the free world. The jungle is a free world, with laws, but one needs to be educated and guided in order to navigate that space safely and independently. Perfect fit.

Books that go very well with the Jungle book readings are

Jasper's Story-the story of the efforts to save moon bears in Asia. Wonderful story of survival. Inspirational story about our responsibilities to all living creatures.

Wolves is well written as aare most Gibbon's books. It omits some interesting facts about wolves and includes drawings rather than actual pictures of the animals. In order to overcome this I also included in our reading the "The Life cycle of wolves". Both books are accessible to elementary school children and I recommend them

Let's read and find out Rainforest. This is a fairly simple book but we have covered rainforests in detail before. This book served as a very pretty reminder about where the story takes place.

We are also talking about the election processes, another fine example of the imperfections of our democracy. There are fine pieces of literature which help children navigate this new jungle.

Some of our favoties are displayed below.

The government wants people to be fearful. The funniest is that people are willing to fear things they actually want and accept. While this is not a political blog, the theme is, so I will offer by five cents on the topic of the all-so-feared democratic socialism. If you lose your job and want the government to help you out for a while until you get on your feet; if you lose your money on the market and want the government to help you for a bit until you get on your feet; if you cannot pay a doctor and want someone to cover that cost for free, you are using and abusing the social system. If you are benefiting from it, let others do too, even at a higher cost at the time of their need, because at the time of your need it was a higher cost to them.