August 2020

Goodness! This was a stressful month. Frankly,  it flew by like a blur.

I taught four science classes during August. The first focused on the properties of air, the second focused on static electricity, the third focused on sound and the fourth focused on rockets.

For the properties of air, we spoke about matter. I demonstrated that air has weight and occupies space.

For static electricity we covered what matter is made out of: atoms. What atoms are made out of: protons, neutrons and electrons. We covered how electrons can leave the atom, and how free electrons can jump (shock). We talked how we can protect ourselves from static electricity: by using special clothes and boots, by touching metal when leaving a car, by being inside during a storm, or making ourselves into a small ball if we are outside. I demoed how charged balloon attracts another balloon, or pieces of paper, or pieces of salt and pepper, or dripping water, or a can of soda.

For sound: we build a popper, a whistle, a popsicle kazoo, a straw kazoo,  a paper flute and noise makers with balloons. We talked about vibrations, how sound waves travel, how our ear works and how to protect it.

For the rockets we reviewed the forces that need to be overcome for a rocket to leave Earth. We made rubber rockets, balloon rockets, straw rockets, and skewer rockets.

We also benefited from some classes that we offered by other people working in my company. S. took an improvisation class, a painting class, a song writing class and a book club. B. took a Lego class. 

We also went on a week long vacation to Michigan. It was very pretty and we needed that vacation very much. Bryant Park is great. Haserot Park on the Old Mission Peninsula is possibly the only public park there. It is very pretty, and not busy on the weekends. The Empire Beach was my favorite in 2010 and 2014, but the beach portion has shrunk substantially. I am not sure why but I was unpleasantly surprised. I do not recommend it.

I starting reading a lot of books, and did not finish any. Grit, It's even worse than you think, So you want to talk about racism, Just Mercy(we also watched the film)(I recommend this TED talk by Bryan Stevenson), The New Jim Crow, Port Chicago 50, Stella by the Starlight, Bob. I need to read Roll of Thunder, Hear my cry and The Birchbark House.

We also continued to homeschool. We are somewhere a third of the way in 5th grade and 7th grade.

August 2020 Homeschool Update:

5th Grade:

Math: PreAlgebra Ch 1

English: IEW 10, 11, 12, EIW-Lessons 1-8, Novel - Front Desk

Portuguese: Simple Past Tense, Simple Present Tense, Lessons

7th Grade:

Math: Geometry-polygons, Competition Math - number theory, Counting & Probability - tricky counting and probability

English: IEW 6, 7 ; Novel - Lu, Hello Universe, Just Mercy

Portuguese: Simple Past Tense, Simple Present Tense, Lessons

Read Aloud: Ghost, Sitting Bull

Social Studies: Just Mercy (Movie)

Movie related to a book: The One and Only Ivan

Exercise: Bike, Basketball, Run, Swim, Hike

Here are our 5th and 7th grade curricula:

5th grade Curriculum:

Music: Daily Piano and Cello practice

Arts: Paper & Scissors recreation of battles

English Writing: IEW- Medieval History and Essentials in Writing 5

English Spelling: All About Spelling 5 & 6

Literature: One book a month (three novel studies - Old Yeller, The Giver, Hatchet), one month focused on non-fiction texts, one month focused on fiction short stories and poetry.

Math: AOPS Pre-algebra and Geometry

Portuguese: Brasileirinho, reading, Gramatica Ativa 1

Social Studies: focus on American history from perspectives of Native Americans and Immigrants, critical look on American history and traditional look on American history.

Science: We will focus on hands-on science using books such as:  Explore Gravity (Physics, Forensics, Blood Bullets and Bones,  Rocketry, Exploring the Solar System, Beyond the Solar System, The Apollo Missions, Scientists in the Field Series (The Manatee Scientist, Sea Turtle Scientist, Inside Biosphere 2, Eclipse Chaser, Mission to Pluto, The Mighty Mars Rovers, etc.)

PE: workouts at home, bike, play outside, basketball, swim, hike, walks

7th grade Curriculum:

Music: Daily Piano and Violin practice

Arts: Whatever she finds on the internet

English Writing: IEW- Modern History

English Spelling: All About Spelling 6 & 7

Literature: One book a month (three novel studies - Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry, The outsiders, The Westing Game), EIL 7

Math: AOPS Algebra, Geometry, Counting and Probability, Competition Math, ACM prep, and MathCounts prep

Portuguese: textbook, reading, Gramatica Ativa 1 & 2

Social Studies: focus on American history from perspectives of Native Americans and Immigrants, critical look on American history and traditional look on American history.

Science: We will focus on hands-on science (making observations, taking measurements and drawing conclusions)  using books such as:  Explore Gravity (Physics, Forensics, Blood Bullets and Bones,  Rocketry, Exploring the Solar System, Beyond the Solar System, The Apollo Missions, Scientists in the Field Series (The Manatee Scientist, Sea Turtle Scientist, Inside Biosphere 2, Eclipse Chaser, Mission to Pluto, The Mighty Mars Rovers, etc.). We have a subscription to MEL Chemistry and will follow the experiments for an introduction to chemistry.

PE: workouts at home, bike, play outside, basketball, swim, hike, walks

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.

Random books recommendations

 In a very bad order:



This is a very good book presenting the topics in Q&A format. Each two pages has pictures and informational text addressing one specific question about the life of the Amazon people.

The story is beautifully illustrated. Each page represents one specific episode in the life of John Wesley Powell. It is a very well illustrated and narrated story which should definitely inspire you to talk about people and nature, go for walks, talk about dams, politics, bravery, settlers vs indians, and hopefully, inspire you to take a trip to this wonderful place on our planet.

Yes, this is on our February reading list. Darwin's birthday is the same date as Lincoln's-February 12. Same year too! It is a wonderful book but I strongly recommend it for kids who have read other Darwin related books. Some of our favorites are: Cool friend, You wouldn't want to be on the Beagle, Galapagos Islands, etc. The reason for my recommendation is that the book holds Darwin's words, and leads you to his final formulation of evolution and one of its mechanisms natural selection. The pictures are fabulous, the narrative is fantastic, but background knowledge is needed to fully appreciate the book.

Another February quick read. I love Freedman's books but the detail my kids can get is very small, and the purpose of opening this book is not the detail but sparking the interest. So, we will go over (maybe) the pictures pinpointing the main ideas of the text!

Great series-good pictures, good narrative. Great text for fifth graders who can read the text themselves. For us it is a quick read-looking through the pictures and walking away with the general messages. This is related to our recent trip south during which we visited a few Native American museums. (I intended to read them in January but we never got to them-either next year or after our next visit to a native american related place)

These are texts my kids can fully understand, so we will use them in parallel with the texts above. These we will read in full, and the above will be reference. (I intended to read them in January but we never got to them-either next year or after our next visit to a native american related place)

I hope to get to this book but we may skip it. It is a good description of what a scientist can do when inspired and motivated. We can related in general to the topic of water/snow which we will discuss in detail next month, or to George Washington Carver as a scientists since we visited the national monument dedicated to him in Dimond, MO. (We read this book and the kids liked it but I did not read it again. I think I will bring this book again next school year in December and we will explore more seriously snow and its properties)

I loved this book. I know most of it but make many of the mistakes that are outlined as common mistakes. I love this book and could easily use it to eventually teach grammar or at least as a reference when editing writing.

Yes, this is another February book. We already read the magic tree house books and this is just an extra we will leaf through. The book is phenomenal and we will carefully look at the pictures and recall out trip to Springfield and what we have already learned.  Just a reference though. For fifth grade and above this will be a useful resource!

We will talk about the Lewis and Clark expedition which will also begin our study of world rivers. This is an easy, elementary and decent text. I think I will try to find a more detailed picture book and use this as a supplement, independent reading material.

We will combine this with the previous book on snow but I do not put a whole lot of emphasis on this book. If we get to it, we get to it. Eventually we will study it and learn from it. If not now, there will be snow next year. The pictures are breath taking so I recommend it. I think that some knowledge of water, its cycle and properties will be needed. (We read this book and the kids liked it but I did not read it again. I think I will bring this book again next school year in December and we will explore more seriously snow and its properties)v

Speaking of water, this is very simple book, but if you handle it properly, you can teach a lot about earth science using it as a spine. I love this book, the sequence, the details I can fill in myself.

Another gem. We read a similar one already but this is so good that we are going to read it to reinforce the idea that the europeans did not discover America. America was already well known to a whole lot of locals. Setting the record straight is important to understanding the devastation that the europeans caused. I think it is fair to say that the conquistadores were on equal footing to Hitler and other dictators who had no respect whatsoever for human life and dignity. (We will read this book in October 2015)

The kids' school has a one-school-one-book program. A copy of the same book is given to each family represented in the school, and the family is asked to read aloud the book together. This year's choice is wonderful. I recommend this book. It tells you a lot about how to look on school, what to strive for, how to persevere, how to be true to yourself, not to fear and be brave and daring, and how the american society works which has always astounded me-much ado about nothing. People in this country become rich out of trinkets, unbelievable. We bulgarians do not waste money on trinkets so none of us became rich that way, but the bulgarians borns and raised here tend to fall for trinkets because it is the american trap. Wonderful book, lots to talk about and definitely will be a required reading in a few years. I like the program but I did not like the previous choices very much. The mouse and the motorcycle was ok but Humphrey was dull and boring and I refused to read it.