July, one strange summer month

This month ballet girl is attending a day camp. She loves it. It is a great preparation for next year when in July she will be at Portuguese camp in the woods of Minnesota.

This month, we managed to slowly get back to a routine in regards to reviewing things and moving on with new material.

Portuguese

We started reviewing things we should be solid on, such as animals, colors, common objects and expressions. We moved on to read a book about dolphins and a book about a rabbit, Felpo Filva.
We also spend more time speaking Portuguese to each other. Ballet girl also received her own account at Elefante Letrado which is the equivalent to the US version of RazKidz. For us the program is proving fabulous because it is teaching correct pronunciation and new words in familiar way. At camp we learned about Turma da Monica, so I found a link with revistas. I also uploaded many Turma da Monica videos which I found on YouTube.

For next year, we will move on with 2 formal lessons per week. Reading, writing and oral requirement for ballet girl. The little man is mainly going to work on expending his vocabulary and putting phrases together.

Math

Ballet girl is working on the multiplication table and she already understands and knows the algorithm for multiplication of multi-digit numbers. She also learned that multiplication can be thought of as finding area. For this we reviewed the basic geometry we learned last fall. We carried the analogy to the multiplication of fractions. She also learned about telling time, adding intervals to time, and obtaining intervals from two time stamps.

The little man is fluent with addition and subtraction of multi-digit numbers. He understands division and multiplication, and in particular knows that axb=bxa and can show it. He also knows the trick for multiplication by 10 and knows how to demonstrate this. We are moving through fractions, and I think by the time school begins we will wrap up Singapore Math 2B with him.

With Ballet Girl we will tackle Singapore Math, level 5 and master Singapore Math, level 4.
For the little man, we will move into multiplication of multidigit numbers, and we will begin Singapore Math level 3.


English

We did not read as much this time around, because the reading time has been mostly occupied by Portuguese. However, we tackled a few books. One was rather dull and it dragged and dragged (Shiver's the pirate who was afraid of everything), so at page 92, I stopped and that was the end of that book. We moved on to read The Wednesday Witch which so far is rather nice and peaceful. We also read books about the bigger rivers in the world from the series, Rivers Around the World. Here is a link to the selection at the Amazon store. These are simple, the message is the same, and consistency for the early ages is very important. There are also the Let's read and find out about science books which we like and is very appropriate to the elementary school level. Here is one about water on our planet which we read and loved.

Ballet girl will be expected to read independently each day, do copy work once a week, spelling lesson twice a week which will incorporate a dictation portion.
The concentration for the little man is learning to read phonetically. We have started with the Bob Books and we will move on from there.

Bulgarian

Ballet girl is a fluent, even if a reluctant reader. Ballet boy is getting surely there as well. They continue to speak mostly in Bulgarian, they listen to stories in the car. I need to upgrade the CDs but this is going well. We will just need to maintain and not forget and expand by reading, reading, reading. In a few years, we can start reading the big books we have. For now we are on repeat with the children's books and the books borrowed from the library which I translate during read-aloud time.

We will study sentences and some very basic grammar with ballet girl. For the little man, the emphasis will be on reading.


Piano

Also great progress. The little man is interested, he sits and plays. At the moment he is not expected to do anything and it is up to him to entertain his desires. Formal lessons for him start in August. Ballet girl is moving on, she is currently on piece 10 from the second Suzuki book. We stayed on some pieces for ever last year which ticked me off but it was well worth it. Because we measure the success in this arena not by the amount but by the quality. Practice for her is not as much fun, but because she is used to it, she sticks with it. Also I have noticed that if she encounters a tough spot she herself allocates enough tries to get it right. So, she does not practice by a fixed time but by accomplishment, by making progress.

For the young lady the focus will be on technique and music theory as she works through the pieces. For the little man, the goal is to get him started on a good journey and make it part of him.

Everything Else

Soccer in the fall, Ballroom dance in the winter and the spring, and swimming next summer. I learned my lesson from a year ago not to overdo it and not to rush-there is time for everything. Activities need to be enjoyable for everyone.

Trips

We have not taken any major trips in July but we will probably go to the Hesston Steam Museum this month. In the next two months, I hope to go to St.Louis and climb the Arch. At the moment I don't have any solid plans but as I mentioned under the Portuguese section, next year in the summer, we plan to return to the family Portuguese camp and ballet girl will be off to her first 2-weeks sleep-away camp. I am so confident that it will be a good experience for her for a few reasons-she already knows a lot of the staff and some of them are regulars, come year after year; she also made friends and some of them are coming back next year; and some of her local Portuguese-speaking friends will be going to camp too:)

UPDATES:

Elefante Letrado

It is a good program to expose my child to hearing Portuguese spoken correctly. However, I don’t think that the product is well done. Here are my daughter’s and my objections:

• 1.       There is no check when she has completed an activity.
• 2.       The books do not appear to be leveled. What I mean is that some of the earlier levels contain hard words which are easy to guess and I assume the method that is implemented is sight-reading. However, the Portuguese language is relatively easy to read and I think that books focusing on systematic rules for the lower levels are more appropriate.
• 3.       I find the teacher interface difficult to navigate. When I try to add books at a more advanced level I see books but I cannot add them. It is not clear to me why after my daughter has clearly demonstrated reading, hearing a book and answering quizzes, she is not given credit for these activities.
• 4.       The number of books under the more advanced levels is limited which to me demonstrates that the product is still in its infancy.

Mar e Floresta

Usually when I enjoy something I become obsessed to find out all there is to find out. So, I searched and searched and reviewed past pictures, online posts about the past summer camps; found out who are the people who teach your kids Portuguese and I concluded the following:

• 1.       The for credit program, having not experienced it personally, is nonsense. Why? First of all, think about it, the claim is that in 4 summers, 1 month each (4 summers overall) you will learn Portuguese-you will speak, write and read at the level of a student with 4 years of language training! In sixteen weeks! Did you learn your native language in 16 weeks? If you are a programmer, did you learn to program in 16 weeks? In 16 weeks you cannot begin to scratch the surface of learning a language. Language learning is a very complicated task-it involves learning pronunciation, learning idioms, learning grammar! And did you learn your native language from instructions by your gym teacher or your first grade teacher? Yes, you learned a little, but it took you years to become proficient in topics by interactions with teachers who have received more specialized trainings. Yes, elementary school teachers can definitely help you get going, but they are not the source of more advanced language skills. Don’t take me wrong, these people who come are fabulous-they are nice, passionate about their language and they genuinely want to teach you, but you will get the most basic level. No wonder teachers at the high school level are required to have solid language experience and mastery of the language at advanced levels. You will be exposed to more by the interaction with a real, professionally trained teacher. You will learn something but you have to put more effort to maintain and better yet grow what you catch here, when you are at home. Learning a language above all requires time, patience and practice; definitely not sporadic 4-week spurs. This are great add-on but are not a sufficient condition for language acquisition.
• 2.       The program is very repetitive. The songs, the activities are rotated over and over. There is very little new material year over year. There is very little ahead planning. Most of the planning is done on the spot at the time of camp. I understand that because up until the camp starts the counselors are not sure about the spread of knowledge of the attendees. However, wouldn’t you want to have a curriculum, or set expectations that need to be covered and met? The counselors feel stressed because they have to think on their feet, and I understand that. Both issues will be resolved if there were some form of a curriculum.
• 3.        I think that to benefit most from the experience you should only look on it as one input, not as the sole source. You need to learn all the grammar and reading on your own or with a trained teacher. Then come to camp to practice, practice, and practice and be immersed in a form you cannot experience at home. Basically, learn the hard stuff at home and come here to practice what you have learned, get a sense of the Brazilian ways, and make friends. Don’t come here to actually learn Portuguese. Do your homework first and come here to master it, get the snippets and intricacies that you cannot get on your own.

Piano

I realized that the best use of the lesson time is to get as much technical stuff done at home and in class get the technical tricks and musical theory and culture that you cannot deduce on your own. For example, I would go to my classes with my pieces read out and the music more or less down hands together. During the lesson I would be coached on improving my motions on the keyboard, on understanding and following the dynamic, on different ways of thinking about the sections of the piece and strategies for mastering the tricky spots. If I hadn’t done the pre-work I would have taken extra four classes to master what I mastered in four. Basically, leave as much time to drain the knowledge from your teacher. This is what you are really paying for, not the actual technical assembly of hands synching to produce sound. This is the easy stuff and requires time. The hard is understanding the music and making it what it was meant to be.

New year-new approach to learning

The goal is learning, not teaching, not meeting deadlines and expectations. The target is a moving target, nothing set in stone.

For Ballet girl the following have changed:

1. Math: We have clear topics to cover and for each topic we will go from easy concept, to medium difficulty to challenging problems. While the topics are set, the timeline over which learning will be accomplished is flexible. I also incorporate games and Beast Academy.
2. Portuguese: We have one-on-one time each day dedicated to learning the basics of colloquial Portuguese. We are using Salpicos 2.
3. English Reading: We are choosing books by interest and by reading level including books mixing them from easy, to comfort, to challenging level in order to help her move up. I read the books to her in Bulgarian upfront so she understands what the story is all about. Then she reads the book in parts over several days. Then we read the entire book and after that move on to the next book.  I have reserved to read well one book per week.  

For Sunlight boy the following have changed:

1. Portuguese: We have one-one-one time each day dedicated to learning the basics of colloquial Portuguese. We are using Salpicos 1.
2. English: We are using dry-erase books to practice writing and I have started to instruct him in the sounds of the letters. I show him the letters (capital and lower case), tell him the sounds the letter can make, and ask him among a few words which ones begin with that sound(s). The school is not doing a good job teaching him English-he speaks well, so I admit that this is a huge advancement, so I am grateful.

This month and next month, we are going to learn about topics we encountered during our road trip. We are going to learn about native Americans, first people and settlements in the Americas. We are going to learn more about Abraham Lincoln and the Lewis and Clark expedition. We are also going to learn about Charles Darwin(next month) and slavery(also next month). I am excited about the new year.

We are also looking for a new home and I have one in mind. I am excited to have enough room to have a proper home school room and Portuguese immersion environment at home.

Cuisenaire Rods

Cuisenaire Rods are fabulous. I recommend them for everything from teaching pattern recognition, to teaching addition, multiplication, subtraction, division and  fractions. They are a fantastic tool for the kid who need the visual stimulation or the sensory stimulation, and in this day and age of 'number sense' all kids need it. All kids have always needed it just never knew about it.

I use the one color set of single cubes, 10-cube rods, 100-cube flats and 1000-cube cubes. These are wonderful too but the color adds something else to the element of understanding.

I use these with Sunlight Boy to study numbers as groups of 100s, 10s and ones.
I use them with Ballet Girl to study subtraction from 100. It's a breeze. It's fun.

I have found that while my kids can do and understand a lot, if you just leave them tools to play with, they will enjoy what they have learned and will play and find patterns on their own. This I think is the point or at least this is the state I want my kids to reach and not let go of .