March 2019

Fifth Grade

• English
• This has been a very productive month. S. read a lot of books: Nanny Piggins, Front Desk, Spin the Golden Bulb, and Brave.

 

• Portuguese
• Maintained mostly with lessons. I need to jump start the grammar review in June in preparation for summer camp, but for the time being will focus on reading.
• Math
• Finished the units from PreAlgebra on Rates, Ratios & Conversions and Square Roots. From the Geometry book we finished perimeter and area, and will review Angles from the PreAlgebra book. From the PreAlgebra book we will learn about circles-perimeter, area and angles. I will fill in the rest of the month with competition questions work.
• Piano
• Preparing for the Guild is going slowly because S just does not sit much at the piano, and readily would forget and skip days. This is hard but she knows that the piano goes only after the violin goes, and unless she keeps up the piano, the violin is a done deal.
• Violin
• S joined her school orchestra and has integrated well. I am not sure she is enjoying it but it is a good experience. S. participated, for the last time, in her music school's spring concert. She is a just at the level to move on to a more advanced group.
• Dance
• Not much going on here. Hip hop and musical theatre. We won't be able to continue next year. The studio is too far and I hope S would pick an extra curricula activity through the middle school.
• Spring Break
• S read a lot. She read three books back to back. This is really good. She read Spin the Golden Bulb, Front Desk and Brave. We did nothing. Mostly stayed home.

Third Grade

• English
• B has been reading very well and has ventured to read some shorter books on his own. He read Battle Bunny, Gollie & Bink and SideKicks.

 

• Portuguese
• Mostly we maintain it through lessons, but we also read small books that I have printed out. I will kick grammar into higher gear in June, after the Guild and the IMA.
• Math
• Not going great. B is a smart cookies, gets a concept and immediately forgets it. Frustrating. We are finishing fractions-all operations. I really hope to be done with Beast Academy 4 before the next school year so I can move him along the path his sister has taken.
• Piano
• We are ready for the IMA, and behind for the Guild. B needs to learn the Happy Farmer, Eccossaise, Minuet 3, Children at Play and all the scales by June. Not sure how that will happen.
• Cello
• Started lessons. So far B has had one lesson. But he has figured by year how to play twinkle twinkle, so he is moving ahead. He may learn how to play with the bow this week. I don't know. We will see. His teacher is great.
• Spring Break
• B built a lot from legos and playmobiles and cardboard. He had a good break, I think.

Read Alouds

• Portuguese
• We have almost finished Wonder. Almost. We have one more week to go. This book took 4-5 months to finish. While it is great as a read-aloud, the chapters were too slow and too many. I am hoping to read two books this month: one about a family's travel to Antarctica, and another book about Dinosaurs in Brazil.

• Social Science
• We talked about the struggles of the for equal rights by oppressed groups, and focused primarily on the fight for integrated schools, integrated public places, and equal housing opportunities, and how segregation naturally arose from policies installed during the New Deal era by FDR. I am most definitely not nice to American History. Most adults don't hear the ugly truth until they hit college, and as we know not everyone gets the opportunity to go to college, so more than half of the country lives with false images and beliefs of glory and superiority. Well, since I was lied to as a child, I decided that for as long as I am not punished for it, I would speak as much of the truth as possible to my offspring, because I don't know all the truth, just some. In April, we will focus on the March for voting rights, and the bus boycotts in Alabama.

My Reads

• Scandal

• With the scandal around arranged college admissions by affluent families I was recommended to read The Price of Admission. Basically it summarizes the scandal. I am disappointed in the US. 
• AI

• With the on-going primary season, moving into higher gear, I decided to spend more time learning about the 20 candidates. One in particular caught my attention with his slogan MATH. So I read his book. The book is ok, it says certain truths, and spreads some unreasonable fears, mostly it fails because the writer assumes all stories will work out the way his story worked out, and we know his luck is just a very unlikely luck. I don't like people who are smart but don't think things through.

Summer 2019

• I have a plan. I have announced my plan so we are all good.
• In June the kids will go for a week to soccer camp in a nearby town.
• In July and August is where most of the action is packed:
• The kids will go to the portuguese immersion camp they like for two weeks. I plan to send them by bus but I have not decided on the pick-up method yet.
• Then we will take a two-week trip to Glacier NP, Yellow Stone NP, and Trenton State Park. We will cover three new states-Montana, Wyoming and Idaho (two are firsts for me too).
• Then we recover until school resumes.
• 
  

New School Year

New School Year is upon us. I find it challenging already.

Ballet Girl is in Second Grade. For her the emphasis is reading, spelling, grammar and math.

• For reading, we are continuing with reading for fluency. I try to find texts that are interesting and engaging, often familiar so that she will have no difficulty decoding. I also insist that if she encounters an unknown word, she looks it up and writes it down and reviews it with me or someone else periodically. The girl reads well, but she would not readily reach out for a book and would not spontaneously read. This is bad and is completely contrary to what needs to be happening. Readings does need to be pleasure and not a task, and should be sought more than TV. So, this is a big challenge at the moment.
• For spelling, we are continuing with All About Spelling. We just finished reviewing level 1, about half of level 2 and a few small parts from level 3. While level 1 was mostly basic rules which are true most of the time, level 2 and beyond contain rules that have exceptions which need to be either memorized or learned through a lot of reading, as well as homonyms-words that sound the same but mean different things. Many of these features are best learned in small doses but regardless of the volume a requirement is repetition. For us,this requirements means that we need to 1) read the words visually a few times, 2) write the words a few times on a piece of paper, 3) say or write a sentence with the words, 4) dictation and 5) continuous review. This brings the challenge of how often and how much to assign; what are the consequences for a missed assignment. I don't believe in catch-up work and doubling the work. I believe in move on kind of work but I do recognize that when I am willing to accept slack, the kid is willing to take it to the next level and test my limits. So, I need to be more strict and disciplined.
• Grammar is a new subject for us. I briefly introduced some simple concepts at the end of first grade. The plan is to cover verbs and tenses both in grammar and spelling; singular and plural nouns in both grammar and spelling, and the separate roles of the words in the sentence, as well as the basic sentence types. We will also follow the Bulgarian grammar for second grade as a guide.
• Math is the cool subject. The girl is figuring out a lot of things on her own, and I am pleased, but because she prefers playing and would not by herself sit and work on problems, she is not fluent yet with the multiplication table, which I find frustrating. We are chagging along and the plan is to finish Beast Academy 3 B,C,D and Singapore Math 4A and 4B. I think this is doable but requires the girl to concentrate more than she has been concentrating the last few months.
• Science and History we are going to cover in Portuguese, and will be mostly learning in parallel.  For instance while studying the Ancient Egyptians we will talk about their scientific discoveries and we will try to solve some of the same problems with what we have today. This is also helping with building the foundation in Portuguese which I am also supporting with read alouds- Turma da Monica, Don Quixote, Peter Pan, Historias do Mundo; filmes-Carrossel, Mulan, etc; e cancoes.
• Piano, continues as usual, I am frustrated that we spend way too much time on a simple piece. For instance in the summer I was hoping to have completed two, instead we were stuck at one. Boo. I know her teacher wants to polish the pieces, but I am getting fed up with hearing the same piece for months, so no, thank you, we do need to move along and improve along the way, but learning has to be more active, especially now, when school work is not overwhelming.
• Sports. We are in the midst of soccer season. She loves it. She wants to move on with gymnastics in the winter and the spring. In the spring, I also plan on having them take swim lessons at the park district. 

Sunlight boy is in Kindergarten. The plan for him is to get him reading in English, continue reading Bulgarian and move on in math.

• English - he is reading the Bob Books. We are in set 1, 8 books in and thus far the progress has been satisfactory. He is approaching the reading with enthusiasm and pride. I think that he will be a reader by the end of K and in the summer we will continue along the road I took with the young lady.
• Math- we are almost finished with Singapore Math 2B. I will teach him to multiply 2-digit numbers before moving him to Singapore Math 3A and 3B. The goal is to finish the Singapore Math 3 sequence by the beginning of first grade.
• The young man started piano this fall and is enthusiastic about it as well. He is picking up the material with fair ease although his hands are still slightly uncoordinated and very stiff, but regular practice and encouragement will resolve this issue, I hope.
• Science, history, Portuguese and Sports apply equally to both kids. The young man is in soccer, which he loves, and will be forced into gymnastics and swimming before the end of the year.

We are reading every day. On the weekends sometimes I read twice, sometimes just once, depends on my energy. 

We have read some great books thus far. Most recently in August we read books about Ancient Egypt, The Adventures in Ancient Egypt book is very similar to the book we read about Don Quixote in portuguese. It is layed out in a cartoon format and is very accessible and entertaining. Overall the adventures of the boy and girl resemble a little the Magic Tree House books, but these are annotated with historically accurate information right when needed, and as such I consider them better.

Yes, we talked about the daily life of the egyptians. We talked about their beliefs and hierarchial system. We talked about their traditions and inventions which have come about from basic and logistic social and individual needs. I am pleased with how we covered Ancient Egypt as a first visit.

In August we read a book about pranksters, the Terrible Two. The author is the same as the author of Battle Bunny which we met last summer. We loved this book and ballet girl was able to foretell many of the things to come about. Overall, a great story about turning the ordinary life in the middle of nowhere (read Iowa) into exciting adventure. I also loved the emphasis on planning and thinking and designing. Love the book. Now in September, we are reading Toshko Afrikanski, which in many way resembles the adventures of Paddington, but is relevant to Bulgaria in the 20's-40's. It is a very funny read and the kids are loving it. I have to start inserting comments about the reality of Bulgaria at the time just to complete the learning.

In August we read Don Quixote das Criancas, which in style is similar to Adventures in Ancient Egypt. Greate fit in terms of Genre. The book is also nice because it contains in the back relevant information about the historical time and the author. We also read a lot about the adventures of Turma da Monica. I suspect we will be coming often to these adventures for stress free, goal free, readings.

In September, we are finishing another version of Don Quixote, which is a longer narrative with more descriptive adventures. After we are done we are going to read Peter Pan and some information from the Historia do Mundo para as criancas-up to Babylon.

This is another book from the Monteiro Lobato series that I acquired in August which we will read later on this year as well, or if not all of it, at least some parts.

King George and what is his problem I just finished reading. Oh, I did not learn a thing from US History class, but I learned a lot from this one simple book. It made me wonder if the Civil Warn reenactment that we witnessed was not actually accurate. From the description of the revolutionary war, the war seemed like a slug with luck written all over it. America is a very lucky country. Read this book to your kids, they will walk away with more than the mumbo jumbo in the history books. The US history books in order to make it a full year course include complicated, unnecessary information which forces the student to understand nothing. Maybe the goal of education is to produce low self esteem individuals with no knowledge and no critical thinking skills. How sad if indeed this is the goal.

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.

Curriculum for 2014/2015: Pre-School and First Grade

Below is the curriculum we will follow during the 2014/2015 school year. Our curriculum will include a lot of reading, a lot of hand-on experiences and live events. I will continue to keep a monthly list of the books we have read aloud and the events we have attended and of otherwise the interesting things we have been exposed to.

Sunlight Boy

Sunlight boy will be one more year in Pre-K here at our local public school. The goal for him at school is to continue to improve his English. As was the case with his sister, we will keep the educational component of life simple and plain fun.

Math: During the summer of 2014, we will finish Singapore Math-level 1 books. During the 2014/2015 school year we will study the Singapore Math 2A & 2B books; most likely we will begin these sequence in October. Update 10/8/2014: we started 2A this week., I couldn't believe that the boy whom the local public school considers behind in everything imaginable and who didn't know the numbers just a year ago has finished first grade level math! He is not even 5 yet! 


English:  I rely on the program at the public school to help him learn English, grow his vocabulary and understanding. On my end, starting in January 2015, I will begin to work on letter/letter-combo--sound correspondence. We will start with what is the first/last letter of <> word. Starting in May 2015, I plan on introducing the first Bob books; this may happen earlier if the previous step is solidified earlier than I envision.

Bulgarian: I will continue to practice reading words with him until the start of the school year. We will move to sentences starting in September 2014. We will aim to be comfortable reading 20 words/evening by the end of 2014 and will continue reading at that rate for 2015. Update 10/8/2014: the little man can blend the sounds now, and he can make a guess as to which word he is reading. We are still on the level of reading isolated words but soon will move to little poems. Update 12/1/2014: still reading separate words, typically aim for 8-10 per evening.

Portuguese: I will continue reading one story per evening along with Q&A. I will continue to pair our stories with movies from YouTube. More details will be provided in Ballet girl's section below.Update 10/8/2014: What is fascinating to me is that the little man is willingly repeating. His sister started willingly responding last year, but I think the internal competition is helping. I am also going to include a session on Portuguese during our one-ones during the week. Both kids seam to need it, but we will continue with the current read-aloud together scheme and Q&A sessions.

Music: During the fall of 2014, I will try to reserve one day of the week to review proper technique and position and the piano, along with some familiarity with the keyboard. On another day of the week I intend to introduce him to simple, short melodies and slowly build his repertoire and confidence at the piano. I will wait for two signs before signing him up for formal classes: 1) better hand coordination and 2) persistent interest. I suspect that while with Ballet girl both requirements were met at age 4.5, I delayed her lessons until after her 5th birthday, once she showed real interest during our vacation in New Jersey. So, I will wait until the right moment.
Update 10/8/2014: the interest is there, the coordination is lagging, but a few times I caught him at the piano fooling around, which is a superb sign. He continues to sing and accurately. I will need to organize the CDs this weekend because the colder days/inside days are upon us! Update 12/1/2014: the little man sings a lot of songs and eagerly demonstrates. He sang a turkey song, a turkey dinner song and jingle bells for the family multiple times this week, completely spontaneously, unprovoked, un-requested, but very welcome:)!

I will also organize our CDs collection so that he has a larger selection to pick from.
I will also consider signing him once again for dance class.


Sports; In the summer of 2014 both kids are enrolled in swimming lessons. In the fall of 2014 both kids will play soccer. Sunlight boy is signed up for a 6 weeks Mixed Martial Arts class staring in August. This is a trial and depending on the outcome we may or may not make further plans along these lines. Update 10/8/2014: we are in the last week of soccer. Soccer has proven fabulous for our household. The kids have played soccer all summer and fall. They play regularly in this one little green area at the recreation playground. I am thrilled because I love that game.

Ballet Girl

Ballet girl will begin first grade in our local public school. She will attend the classes: language arts, social studies, music, art and physical education. Science and Math we will study at home.

Math: During the summer of 2014, we will finish the outstanding topics in Singapore Math 4A&4B. During 2014/2015 school year we will cover the materials in Singapore Math 5A&5B and we will work through the problems in Singapore Math-Challenging problems for 2nd grade. We will start this sequence in October.  Update 10/8/2014: We continue math as usual; we are so far ahead and the scheme we use works so well that I realized there is no need to make changes. We continue with the informal-lesson, some practice and call it a day sequence. There is no rush, we just started tackling geometry and ballet girl finds it fascinating. I do too. Geometry has always been my favorite subject and I took a lot of care to prepare so that I can share my love for it with her. It has worked.  I do use the books, but the sequence and the method is completely my own. Most of the fifth year is review so we will spend time learning the multiplication table, learning division, and learning to be better at multiplication. Geometry is just the cherry to keep us fascinated. Update 12/1/2014: we will add Beast Academy 3A to our curriculum, once per week, starting in January 2015

Science: During the 2014/2015 school year we will follow the topics listed in Singapore Sciences series 1 and 2. We will heavily supplement with library books and home experiments, nature walks and observations. We will also cover the corresponding topics from Marcha Crianca Ciencias in Portuguese.Update 10/8/2014: We are following the topics mentioned above and are combining science topics with geography lessons. So far we have talked about classification of things into groups, what nature is, what shadow is and how people figured that the earth is roundish. All topics are accompanied with hands-on exploration.

English: This I more or less will leave to the school with the following exceptions. 1) I insist on pretty handwriting. To this end we will do copy work from familiar books and later on we will do simple dictations. We technically do dictations but I rely on the magnetic letters which accompany the All About Spelling series.  2) I insist on regular Read-aloud-we leave 2 days of the week to completely relax. Update 12/1/2014: we just finished AAS-Level 1. Great program! Our schedule tends to be as follows: New Concept (Sunday), Reinforcement(Monday), School Words review (Wednesday); Copy (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday), Dictation (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday)

Bulgarian: We will begin reading the first grade reading book during summer 2014. We will move towards the second grade reading book in the 2014/2015 school year. Informally, I will talk about Bulgarian grammar and the rules of the written language. Update 10/8/2014: Ballet girl reads slowlier in Bulgarian so we started in September with some simple same-root, conjugation-of-verbs quick reads to get her confidence up; then this month I moved her to 'gatanki' and we will finish the month of October this way. Next month we will start with short poems and stories from various books and bukvars. We will incorporate copy work starting in November and starting in January we will incorporate short dictations. This should parallel the English curriculum. Update 12/1/2014: the reading book on the left is done; the plan is to read the stories in another first grade reading book before moving to the second grade reading book. Great progress!

Portuguese: This year we will concentrate on building conversational Portuguese. During the summer 2014, we will read short stories, we will review basic vocabulary contained in Timi, Timi 1 and Salpicos 1. During the 2014/2015 school year we will study Marcha Crianca Lingua Portuguese Ano 1. I will not teach reading. I will use the book to teach vocabulary and comprehension. We will aim towards reading three longer books this year. Update October 10/8/2014: We have tackled mostly seasonal topics-fall, school, nature, witches. It's going well-the kids are starting to speak and volunteer their own sentences. Update 12/1/2014: we are reading aloud the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Tonight the kids saw the BBC movie in portuguese and were all thrilled.

Music: This year we will continue with the music lessons (regular 30-min class, 60-min piano enrichment class once a month and 60-min piano club class once a month) . We will aim for 20 minutes of practice per day. Dance will once again be part of our lives-Ballet girl requested to participate in Jazz and Hip-Hop classes. Update 12/1/2014: Ballet girl quit dance this year.

We plan on attending outdoor concerts in the summer of 2014, and other local concerts during the school year.

Sports: During the summer of 2014, Ballet girl will be in swim class. During the fall of 2014, she will play soccer; she will be the oldest but this is the best I can do with her other activities. Both kids will be enrolled in a Mixed Martial Arts class for 6 weeks in August-September to avoid hassle with all other school-time activities. This is a trial and depending on the outcome I will make further plans if necessary. Update October 10/8/2014: The young lady has requested a pony for her birthday. Well, this is not happening, but at least she will enjoy horseback riding lessons in the fall:)

Learning to Read

Ballet girl started with the Bob Books. She has been getting valuable instruction at school as well. From the summer of 2013 when we started reading more seriously (one Bob book per week) until now she has advanced considerably.

When I read with her, this is what it looks like: She reads aloud and I am sitting with her; I still run my fingers under the words and if I do not, she does; she attempts to read, phonetically, longer, less familiar words. For instance today we came across action and emotion and I told her that the combination of letters tion is read [shn]. She understood it. This is the first encounter with this combination of letters, we will have to encounter it another 5-6 times before the understanding turns into solid knowledge. Another thing I have worked on with her that the rules that she is told about at school are not exclusive rules: as exemplified by book and door; read and head; same and some. Today when reading together the If you take a mouse to school book we encountered a sentence like this: "I went to the museum, saw a picture and filmed it"-which the museum or the picture? It is not clear. Well, Ballet girl, realized that the it was ambiguous so we had a discussion about this. We will encounter this many times and eventually she will understand to look for this. What this event showed me is that when reading she thinks about the meaning of the content. This is very comforting because most of the content she attempts to read is content that she is already familiar with from our read-aloud sessions (which is another reason I find read alouds so valuable).

At home, from the Bob Books we moved to the Piggie and Elephant books (which she herself discovered). Now, we are tackling the If you take a mouse to the movies series books. The first non-series book she tackled with success is Belinda and the glass slipper.

I have learnt a lot in the last few weeks about reading. For instance, as much as parents want their kids to be geniuses, for reading and everything else, it is important to take it slow so that not to miss the basics. Short, enjoyable, picture books are not be neglected but to be used especially in the learning phase. Chapter books tend to be very shallow in content and should only be used for the reader learning to silent-read. The novels have to wait at least until the beginning of 4th grade. The early reading novels  are also fairly shallow in content which is disappointing.


UPDATE 4/24/2014: The easy P.D.Eastman books are great. Big Dog,Little Dog; My nest is best; Flap your wings; Go Dog Go.

Homeschool Goals and Tools: 2013-2014

Math for Sunlight boy. He  just finished the Kindergarten-level books in the series.
Sunlight boy is 4. He cannot write. I do the writing. He sees me writing. One day he will want to write as well, just like his sister metamorphosed into an eager writer/scribbler.

We do 6 problems per evening, which is at most 10 minutes. The directions are very brief. We do all counting, pointing, emphasizing together. When he has grasped a concept, there is more of him than me. I fade away.

We did not cover all topics in the Kindergarten books. We skipped counting by 2s and 5s, and the months and seasons of the year.

Math for Ballerina girl. Ballerina girl finished the third grade books in the summer. We are in book 4A working on fractions, addition and subtraction. Book 4B will carry us through the end of the summer. We have already covered most of the topics in book 4B.

I have studied mathematics and I love the subject. I also love teaching it. I do not teach rote. I teach understanding. Once Ballerina girl understood place value, we were golden for everything else, which is nothing more than notation for fancy counting.

We do 6 problems per evening. Given that she is not a reader, I give her all the directions she needs, but she can write out the solution to the problems herself.

Both children bring out math throughout the day.

Bulgarian for Ms. Ballerina. She reads/reviews one page per day. She reads poems consisting of 20 words during the weekend.

I aim for 3-4 days of Bulgarian reading.

For Sunlight boy, there is no teaching source. I use a whiteboard and a marker. We review the letters by sounding out words, letter-by-letter. When I taught my son to read, I taught him letter-word-sound association. We practiced with: what letter does word 'X' begin with, and I will give him options. Once the major letters were set, we moved on to our current reading phase. Sunlight boy sounds out 5-8 words per evening, which amounts to roughly 5-10 minutes. My approach with Ballet girl was quite different. I introduced the letters fairly fast, once she exhibited interest, which was around 3.5 years old. She knew the letters before her fourth birthday, she also easily sounded out words. Since then, we have worked on maintaining the skill. During last summer, we read Bulgarian only 2 times per week, if that!

 Ballerina girl plays the piano. She started in January 2013. Prior to that during the summer 2012, I have worked with her during the Sundays, for half an hour at most. Her interest showed while we were visiting my brother on the east coast. She saw her cousins and her uncle playing and she asked to learn. I taught her one Christmas song, which she learned really fast. Then I called a local school and set her up with lessons. Her piano teacher is very nice. Initially, I was doing most of the teaching and we used the piano class to showcase what we have learned. Now, the teacher is teaching and I am supplementing at home. I have learned a lot as well. I have learned to overcome my fear of not knowing. I don't say I don't or I can't. Ballerina girl sees me and she is motivated. Every once in a while we compete for the right to the piano:)

The Bob Books. My brother gave them to me because they were too babish for his son. They were perfect for my daughter.

I did not know how to approach English. As you know, English is a language in which you can invent phonetic rules but then have to make hundreds of excuses, and the rules and the excuses are longer and more complicated than the art of reading. So, I was lost. How to teach English. First, I have to backtrack a little and say that the thought of teaching English reading did not occur to me until Ballet girl had learned English well. Second, the Bob Books came into our lives. I tried them in the summer of 2012 but that was too early and I put them back. I introduced them again during the summer of 2013 after the second year of pre-K, and it was the right time. We started with 1 book per week. Thus we moved until January 2014 when the school sent a reading log sheet. So we started reading 1 book/15 min per day. Bob Books 1 and 2 were finished in the summer of 2013. Bob Books 3 we finished in December 2013. We just finished Bob Books 4 and we will move to Bob Books 5.

Bob Books are great but not interesting enough. Once the art of reading clicks, one might as well introduce more interesting text, but not more complicated. This is where the Piggie and Elephant books came into play. Ballerina girl picked one at school and she gobbled it up instantly with ease. She read them all.

She read The Foot Book, The Nose Book, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and some Greenlight Readers Level 2 which recommended by the school.

We have a lot of picture books at home and Ballerina girl is familiar with them. I gave one a try recently. 'If you give a mouse a cookie'. What a hit! She also read 'If you take a mouse to the movies'. Another hit! This is where we stand. Reading picture books, re-reading familiar once, moving forward and taking it easy. Ballerina girl is proud of her skill.

Children Books in Portuguese Online this is how we learn Portuguese at home. I am not a fluent speaker and it has been extremely difficult for me to find my path. I make use of movies and children shows which I find online (anything with Mickey, all Disney films, Galinha Pintadinha and similar ones), and photocopied and shared books online, either through blogs or pinterest. I read one book per evening, often I re-read it, and sometimes I ask questions. We also sing a lot of familiar songs such as a version of Old MacDonald which helped us learn savannah as well as farm animals and other more exotic animals. Some easy o translate picture books I have at home are also great; with the 10 little lady bigs we learned to count to 10. Easy readers are fabulous to translate-they are easy and the plots are simple. This requires work but is worth it.

We love the Colecao Rato e Gato books. Now that Ballerina girl can read Bulgarian and English, she is making attempts to decipher the Portuguese in familiar books. It's exciting to watch and I wish I could get my hands on all of these wonderful books.


We have homework on most days. For Ballet girl, I try to limit everything to 30 minutes but we have gone to 45 a few times. With Sunlight boy, the whole homework ritual is 15-20 minutes at the worst.
In the past, we have skipped homework for the following reasons:
1) we stayed out late (as in the summer when we are either in the park or at the pool)
2) we are tired/sick
3) we have had other activities (ballet, piano, recital, attended event)
4) were busy with something interesting
5) have had school for a while and need a break to refuel.
Right now we are taking a break off school. The children were struck by a stomach bug and we have had school for a while, and grandma is going out of town for 10 days.

We very rarely skip read-alouds before going to bed at night. I have to be extremely tired or the kids have to be really sick/tired. Books are demanded and expected.

The goal for this year is to collaboratively pick one project, explore it and develop it with some hands-on activities. My thoughts have been around building racing boats while reading Stuart Little; or making model planes, rockets, kites and flying them while learning about the history and principles of flight, especially with the 45 year anniversary of the first man on the moon coming up. These are not set in stone but ideas which can be substituted with whatever else the children prefer to dive into. The year is so young!

Happy learning:)