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

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.
• 
  

May 2018

The last two months flew by. We were busy and tons of progress was made on many fronts.


Academic Update
English:

My daughter has been mostly on her own with reading. She has been, finally, reading books end-to-end. In April she finished Wonder and Heist. As far as vocabulary goes, she finished All About Spelling 4; we also finished reviewing it and began with All About Spelling 5. In addition we are covering one chapter from Get to the Root of It which I found online. Ten new words with common root from both Latin and Greek are introduced. It's great for spelling and vocabulary and is a must SAT prep work. Do it now, consistently, to not wage a uphill battle later.

My son finished All About Spelling 3 and we are reviewing it. He is almost half way through All About Reading 4. He read parts of the first Paddington book, and various other shorter books.
Update 5/29/18: He is now reading a Mouse called Wolf. He is half way through with AAR4 and we finished reviewing AAS3.

Math

My daughter is finishing up Beast Academy 5C, and we will take about 2 weeks for each of the three sections from BA 5D. We have mostly talked about them already and without extra school work in June and July we should be able to finish these. My daughter also enjoyed reading The secret agent training manual. I think in August she and I will work through a Cryptoclub textbook for middle schoolers. I am going to give her a related book to read which are accessible to her and she will enjoy the history behind the field The Code Book. I am very interested in building a mini Enigma with her as well.

My son is finishing Beast Academy 3C and he will finish Beast Academy 3D in the summer. This year neither did very well in the school math contests.

I did a talk on circles and Einstein on March 14 in my daughter's classroom. While preparing I came across two very useful books: Mathlabs for Kids and Shapes in Math, Science and Nature.

Update 5/29/18: We are reviewing all of the math we have covered this year. This means solving all problems again. This is an entire summer undertaking but it was necessitated.

Science

We are going to focus on science in the summer. We are going to primarily explore electricity and magnetism, and electronics. I am not sure if we will go into the engineering or the electronics side, we will see. I do want them to build before they program. We are using Electronics for Kids with the MandLab Kit. 

I am taking a course called from nand2tetris which builds a computer from the ground up. I am also reading about Turing, Godel and Church's work as well as von Neumann, and Shannon. I am barely scratching the surface but I am hopeful that one day I will be able to teach their ideas to the kids. We are expecting a Turing Tumble game in late May, and hopefully this will help us understand Turing somehow.

In my son's class in April I talked about computer programming, and I came up with three simple Scratch games to demo but did not demo for lack of time. I will try to link the demos here.

• Joke
• Falling Balls
• Flower

My daughter one day told me that in school they were learning about engineering. I asked her what that meant and she did not know how to describe engineering. Well, while my blood was boiling, I went to find a solution and the solution was this loverly book-Engineered!.

Update 5/29/18: I am behind on introducing the magnetism. Hopefully, June will be a good month for science.

Read Aloud Update
As portuguese read-alouds we read O Grande Ivan, Capitao Cueca, Diario de um Banana e Diario de Minecraft Zombie.
Update 5/29/18: We are reading Matilda. I lost all patience with the twelfth book of Capitao Cueca so we switched. As warned Capitao Cueca is the source of a lot of mal language so be warned. We are going to portuguese family camp in June and the kids are going to kids portuguese camp in July!

As history read-alouds we read about Medieval Europe (It's a Feudal World), and the Mayan, Aztec and Inca civilizations (Spotlight on Maya, Aztec and Inca civilizations). The goal is to demonstrate that in the lands the europeans conquered after 1492 there were civilizations which deserve our attention and appreciation, and is to combat the myth for the supremacy of the western civilization. In addition, we will read the following three books: Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhuy, Sundiata and The middle passage). The goal with these is to point out the existence of civilizations in what world history otherwise refers to uncivilized part of the world, even today. We will move into the real devastating impact on the new world later, but to me it is important to establish the basis with which to combat the cultural bias recorded in books.

Update 5/29/18: We visited the Maya and the Aztecs. We are reading about the Incas and are making good progress.

Nothing can be a better teacher of history than the history we are living in right now. This reminds me of a book I recently finished which I would read as a read aloud to the kids when we get to the period-Most-Dangerous-Ellsberg-History

In addition to all of these activities, the kids and I together had the opportunity to explore how public opinion is manipulated through sensational propaganda. This was inspired by two events. One happened with my son whose teacher had given him gun because 'there is a study that shows that chewing gum helps boost one's score on a test', and the other came from my daughter, whose math teacher had told her that using an app called Dreambox 'would boost her score on a math test'. Both claims turned out to be hoax. There were 'studies', both very limited, and both sponsored by the entity that would positively benefit from the conclusions, both with very limited factual results, and both with no publication in peer-reviewed journals. I was grateful for this opportunity to dismantle a myth, but I was saddened that we need to combat ignorance among our very teachers. What is worse, fundamentally, I believe the teachers, resorted to this granny-tales because they are under test-results-pressure. So tests are the culprit.


Music Update

Both have grown with their music training. The girl more so than the boy but he is working hard.

Starting after language camp the boy will begin cello lessons in place of his second piano lesson. He is a singer so he may want to sing in the school choir in the fall as well, but we will see if our schedule would allow it. The girl has one piano contest in 10 days and both have a recital in about a month. Then summer.
Update 5/29/18: One lesson down for both for the summer. More free time should be good. We continue to maintain the discipline and practice every day.

Summer Update

The summer plans are still in the works. What is planned is plenty of summer pool time and two weeks of language camp. I am particularly excited about the summer camp because it will be a chance for the kids to be semi-independent, and it will be a chance for us, their care givers, to get a little break. What I am hoping to be able to do is to take a trip to Europe towards the end of the summer or even in September-October.

New Year

This year we will focus on slowing down. Before proceeding, before committing, before reacting, we will ask: is it useful? The goal is to eliminate unnecessary pressures and to focus on enjoying the journey, and not focusing on the end of the destination.

It has been cold, bitterly cold, yet we found time to venture out. Last weekend we went to 'hunt' for bald eagles. We saw two, we some lots of other birds and spotted various critters. We went to Four Rivers Environmental Center for the first time. It is about 45 minutes away from home, on the Des Plaines river, and is a good 45 minutes closer than the next best spot in the state-Starved Rock. I hope to make a trip to Starved Rock once the weather improves a bit. It will be nice to see the waterfalls frozen. The last two Sundays we also went ice-skating in the afternoon. It has been very peaceful both times. This past weekend, both on Saturday and on Sunday, we took two hour walks around our own neighborhood. We played in the in-and-out-of-freeze hockey field, we observed and listened to birds' conversations, and just enjoyed being out in fresh air, in peace, with no objectives and no time constraints.

In history we are focusing on the Native Americans societies on the American continent. I try to point out similarities, relations, and impact from encounter with europeans. We first talked about the the civilization at Cahokia, and we saw a documentary about Cahokia. The kids (8 and 10) enjoyed it. We moved on to reading about particular tribes. We started with the Apaches because we have heard a story about them. We moved on around their neighbors before finishing with the Indians of the northwest. The Indians of the northwest offered a wonderful opportunity to think about how geography effects history; here, the intrusion of the European settlers was delayed, the harsh impact was inevitable.

1. The Apaches
2. The Navajos
3. The Hopi
4. If you lived with the Indians of the Northwest Coast
5. Cahokia (and for adults this)

For portuguese the kids resumed their weekly lessons with my friend Renata. The lessons are an Vovo Vigarista which is funny and touching. We have not finished because it is a little sad and I worry how my daughter will react. Maybe I will just shorten the ending for her sake. With my daughter, during her portuguese time with me, we read

hour long and are done over skype. The kids enjoy them and are benefitting from them. Together we continue to read in the evenings. This month we read
Diario de um banana 1. We have been dragging this book for a while but I hope to finish it in February and to begin the second book. With my son we are reading and almost finished with
Diario de um Zumbi. It is nothing special but because he likes Minecraft for him this is the most excellent book.

In Math for fourth grade we are working in Beast Academy 5B finishing Fractions, and Multiples & Factors, as well as our first encounter with proper algebra. We also covered train problems. We covered two mental math strategies-multiplication by 11, and multiplication of two numbers whos last digits add up to ten, and who first digits are the same. Next month the focus will be on rates and ratios. For second grade we are finishing BA3B-perfect squares, and will move on to the distributive property. So far so good.

In Science we started talking about electricity. I introduced the periodic table of elements. I talked about the structure of the table corresponding to similarities in the structures of the atoms; in particular I mentioned how certain atoms tend to lose easily electrons from their outer shell and how other atoms tend to gain easily electrons in their outer shells. I emphasized the role of neutrons in keeping the nucleus together. I emphasized the weight difference between the electrons and the constituents of the nucleus. I emphasized how fast the electron moves and how uncertain one is about where the electron actually is. (We will watch videos on the reactivity of elements later. We will also listen in some crash Chemisty videos.) Next month we are going to carry about the science fair experiments. The boy wants to explore batteries in a series. The girl wants to explore Ohm's law.

• We did the double slip experiment to demonstrate the wave nature of light. (we will demonstrate the particle nature of light later). We talked about how waves add constructively and destructively.
• The kids played with their snap-circuit sets. My daughter noticed the polarity if the motor and the polarity of the LED.
• We investigated that battery alone in a circle drains the battery i.e shot circuit.
• We investigated that batteries in series add up their voltage.
• We investigated static electricity and induction using a balloon and cans of soda. (we will do the experiment with water eddy).

We played the following Games:
Sport It-my dad agreed that this is a great game to practice concentration and to practice foreign language vocabulary
Origami Revolution and Origami Shapes-quite delighted that my daughter took to this hobby with desire. I told her about all the practical uses of origami, from medicine to space. She was thrilled. I expect to hook her on to the mathematical way to looking at origami.
Minecraft Paper Crafts-quite delighted that my son found this site; yes, there is a lot to print, but it is better to have him build this way than to buy plastics. My son has started putting small pieces of lego inside the paper craft pieces for stability. His intuition is amazing to me.

Music  was my motivation to let go of the reins and to enjoy the ride. Since the shift in attitude all lessons have been enjoyable. Both children are progressing beautifully. My daughter is going to participate in a piano competition in late spring, and a violin group concert in mid-March; and both kids will participate, hopefully, in the Bulgarian piano festival in May.

Springtime and blossom all around

Ballet girl took part in the Music Connection's second solo contest. She performed Sonatina in G Major by Beethoven and received a perfect score and a wonderful review. All students whose performances were excellent were invited to a Honors Recital. This was a very happy occasion.

Sunlight boy should have performed as well. His performance of French Childrens' song was judged only one point shy of perfect. He has become a very good audience member and has been cheering for his sister most of his life, so we do not have any dramas.

Both kids are advancing very well and are way on their way of making good music. Sunlight boy is half way through piano Suzuki book 1. Ballet girl is one song from completing piano Suzuki book 2, and she is making astounding strides in violin Suzuki book 1. All teachers are raving about the kids' efforts and results. I am too. Music education is a wonderful opportunity to learn discipline, to learn that good effort equals good results, to learn to be critical, and to learn to deal with hard moments. Music is a wonderful way to make good friends and to avoid going down the wrong path.

The highlight for our spring is music. May will offer two opportunities for performance (IMA competition and Annual Bulgarian Piano Festival), and June will offer two more (Guild and End-of-year recitals). Then we will settle in the calmness of summer.

We will be spending the summer in the midwest. Portuguese family camp and Portuguese Youth camp for the young lady in Bemidji, MN. My folks will spend a week in Bemidji with the young man as well.

Some other updates:

1. English:
• Ballet Girl is an avid reader. She devours books of any kind. When she listens she listens with understanding and offers a lot of questions and logical commentary. She is a few lessons shy of completing AAS 3. I think we will finish AAS3 during the first weeks of school in August. I am focusing on review of what we have practiced to date. She is also very interested in writing original stories. I happened to come across a Usborne, write-your-own adventure story book while visiting Seattle. This book has served us well, and have offered us the basis to discuss the structure of short stories and also books. Quite informally at this moment but sufficient to set the stage for future discussions.
• Sunlight Boy is reading well as well. We were reading the Bob Books and reached the fourth set when I decided that it is better to switch him to AAR1. I am glad I did. The level is quite simple and offers us the opportunity to practice the essential building blocks of reading. I am seeing the young man starting to read in his head. I am hoping that this level will bring him to reading with understanding and expression, and will help him to decode better. So, we are going simple for the rest of teh school year and the summer. I think that in first grade, we will go with AAR2. I bought it for Ballet girl because I was overwhelmed when I realized that I may have to teacher her to read, but she did not need it; she was a few levels ahead of AAR2 when she began first grade. However, with my slower reader we will take full advantage of AAR2. The boy is also beginning to spell phonetically. We may or may not start AAS1 next year. Depends. AAS1 worked for my daughter but the child has to be ready. He needs to  be a strong reader first, and then we will work on the spelling.
2. Art:
• Ballet Girl loves art. She draws, she builds sculptures, she loves chalk now that the weather is on her side. She expresses herself very confidently with art. 
• Sunlight Boy loves art too. It is the new great activity he discovered in Kindergarten this year. He has been coloring, drawing, cutting, molding. He made himself a sword by drawing it on paper, cutting it and taping it to a stick from a game. He also made a terracotta warrior from cardboard boxes, and has been punching this thing for days. I have always said that boxes make the best toys! His imagination is wild. He gets inspiration from movies, books, conversations. Earlier in the month he asked me to make a copy on the printer of one of his favorite characters. I did. He cut the image and used some cottom balls which he taped in the back of the image, and then taped another piece of paper behind that. This was a stuffed super hero toy! This child is amazing. 
3. Math:
• Ballet Girl is advancing really well. She is a few problems shy of completing Beast Academy 3C. The plan is to move through Beast Academy 3D before the end of the summer. The only thing she needs to work on is not panicking when facing a problem she has not seen before. Once she puts her thinking cap she can tackle the problems very easily. 
• Sunlight Boy is also making great advances. I am holding him a little back at the moment. He is very close to doing 2dx2d multiplication. We are currently covering fractions. Over the summer I am planning on covering with him challenging first grade challenging problems; formal addition, subtraction and multiplication strategies; and mental math tricks. 
4. Portuguese

1. Ballet Girl has been interested in speaking for a while. She has no problems remembering conjugations of verbs. The grammar she gets easily. She is also reading quite well. I will continue to read through our textbook with her, continue covering grammer and will download all Carrossel episodes she wants on her Kindle. 
2. Sunlight Boy is also doing well in portuguese. He is not readily interested, but he understands a fair amount and reluctantly repeats. He is close to finishing one textbook and I will move him to the next level.
5. Sports: There is no time for sports. I am relying on plenty of free time in the park and in the garden. I will try to enroll them in soccer in the summer for a full week, and hopefully, there will be an option to enroll them for weekday-only games in the late summer/early fall. During June the kids will be in a full-day summer camp near the house. In July they will be away to MN for a week. Hopefully, during the first week of August they can play soccer again. The rest of the time will be pool time:).
6. Cultural Activities
• We have been attending a lot of events. Locally we like the Illinois Philharmonic. 
• We recently went to a Bulgarian Folk Festival. We did not expect to sit through the entire three hour event, but we loved it and we sat through it.
• We also watched The Producers, a very funny musical, quite relevant to the political campaign that is happening in the US.
• We also saw a few movies this month. We watched Zootopia which we loved. It was very clever and the first movie Ballet Girl was able to make connections between references and the real world:). She, I and a friend also watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which was funny and light-hearted, nothing spectacular, but definitely not crude. How could we miss the jungle book?! Yes, we saw it the first week it came out. I loved it. It was mostly true to the book, and the visual effects were wonderful. I still need to sit and talk to the kids about the meaning of the story. Maybe one day we will rent it from the library, watch it and discuss it. I recommend the Jungle book and Zootopia.

This month our read-aloud time has focused on Lunch Money, Tools of Ancient Greece and Simple Machines. We are also going to read about the Librarian who measured the Earth and Archimedes.

I love Tools of Ancient Greece. It is a book I will have my kids refer to later on when they themselves get to explore the ancient world. I view our current exploration as a very nice sneak preview, but probably the real learning will happen in a few more years. Simple Machine is wonderful because it really well explains a lot of physical concepts which again will become more approachable at later grades, but this is a fabulous foundation. 

Lunch Money is a book I adore. First because it offered a wonderful illustration of principles of story telling that were discussed in the Usborn's write-your-own story book, and also because it is a very thoughtful read. We talked a lot about money, how money are made, how money is being used, what money really means. We talked about competition, price, value, charity, and many other concepts. As with all learninig, I have learned that unless a topic is encountered many times and discussed from many viewpoints, the topic is not really learned and understood. Hence I again see this book as one of the many books we have used to think about money.

The pleasant chaos

Kindergarten-Second Grade: Month 1 Update

Our read alouds this month were "Emil ot Lionaberia" by Astrid Lingren, "Toshko Afrikanski" by Angel Karaliichev and "Peter Pan" by Monteiro Lobato. Quite the collection of entertaining pre-bedtime reading. A mischievous monkey, a mischievous boy and a mischievous band of pirates.

 During a typical month we typically read through a good list of books. In light of this fact, the current month is unusual. Yet, it was equally rewarding, because we became familiar with some fabulous characters. We are still reading about Emil and Peter Pan. Peter Pan we will finish but the third part of Emil's adventures we will finish maybe next summer.

Our next stop is history. We will be travelling to Ancient China. October!

Here is a quick update on Sunlight boy:

1. He is going through a creativity boom. He has been building all types of inventions with Legos. He is a problem solver at heart and a charmer. 
2. He finished the first level of the Bob Books yesterday! He is very proud of himself. I am also extremely proud of him. He picked up reading very well, faster than I anticipated. I think he will not have difficulty following Ballet Girl's reading path. 
3. He finished the second grade Singapore Math books last week, and this week we began the third grade books. I am very impressed with him, there are some activities such as given a bunch of digits to construct a certain digits largest or smallest number, I thought would be tough, but no! Very very easy! He handles multiplication well too!
4. He continues to read really well Bulgarian!
5. At the piano he is becoming more at ease. He reads music so we may have to walk a fine line between Suzuki and traditional approach. I am very happy with his progress. I am discovering that both approaches have a lot of strengths that are valuable to him.
6. I think that he pays attention at school, but he probably has an attitude, as in "I know this already, so I won't bother to participate". I never had a problem with Ballet Girl regarding being ahead academically than her peers; she has always been happy to do repeatedly the mundane, which has its brilliance, as long as I ensure that she is challenged enough along the way. Yesterday alone, Sunlight boy made the connection between my mom's comment about "everyone's unique set of mnemonics for remembering the multiplication table" and "schema" which is a word used in school to describe the prior information one possesses about a topic or object.
7. Soccer has been his highlight! He loves it, and we love the passion and energy with which he runs and fights on the attach and on the defense.

Here is a quick update on Ballet Girl:

1. Ballet girl continues to be busy with creating accessories from rubber bands, hair bands, pieces of thread, and pieces of cloth. She loves drawing and is always with a note pad and pencil for sketching and writing.   
2. She learned the multiplication table! Hurray! We finished Beast Academy 3A and have moved on to Beast Academy 3B. We are also going to finish the last few topics from Singapore Math 3A&B so that she can take the tests and we can move on to the next levels in depth. Beast Academy offers fun math, not math drills, and when we get bored from the SM books, I move on to Beast Academy. I have warned before that while really good, Beast Academy has its weaknesses, its points of negligence. I follow my own curriculum and I use these books for support, while also teaching critical thinking.
3. We are continuing with All About Spelling Level 2. We are throwing in words that sound the same but mean different things and are spelled differently. We also talked about some irregular plurals and some irregular verbs. Today we talked about the change in the pronunciation of "read" from present to past tense. I have also begun to introduce the rules of punctuation. We started with the comma and the famous "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" book. Ballet Girl reads at 3.8 level, so way to go, girl! Every once in a while she gets into the groove of reading, but this is not frequent. I don't push her, but I do hope that one day soon, especially in the cold days of winter, the curiosity will overcome her to dig in with more zest.
   
4. I moved her from the 10th piano piece to the 11th. This and next week the aim is to learn the second half and I really look forward to the 12th piece. I hope that by the end of the year, we will be done with that, and by the end of January we will be done with Suzuki Book 2. This year I want to concentrate on music theory and solfege as well. Overall, we have been progressing slowlier, but at least we are moving and not stuck!
5. Portuguese is coming along well for her. She is using more and more words and is understanding better but I want to introduce her to some formal material. I need to push for the Portuguese lessons in earnest for both kids.
6. In November she will start gymnastics which is a long standing wish of hers.

We went to a Pumpkin Patch which the kids loved. We planned next summer too. May, June and part of July, the kids are going to Bulgaria. In July we are all going again to Minnesota. This, of course, followed by August soccer camp.

Overall, a peaceful month. October will be exciting. We have a busy October. One birthday-Ballet Girl, one opera-Marriage of Figaro, and one half marathon-Prarie State on the north side:)

Readiness

My daughter showed interest in the piano about two months after she turned five. We were visiting a family member who had a piano and whose children played. My daughter was fascinated and wanted to try it, so she sat and experimented. Then I found her a few simple tunes she could try and she memorized them in no time. OK, I said to myself, it is time for formal lessons.

When my son approached five, I sat him at the piano. His fingers were too small, and too rigid. OK, I said, you are not ready. We will try again. Few months passed by and we tried again, and nothing had changed, so I waited for another opportunity and another and another until one day when I said, OK we will start gently now. Initially, I was discouraged and thought to myself, it is going to take us years to get through one song. But no, it took us one week of 10 minutes each day to go through the song. During this week, after just a few consecutive days, I saw how something clicked, some connection was made in his brain. He was able to not only play and memorize, but he learned to read the notes from the book. I say learned because he taught himself to play a different song by following the notes. Piano at the moment is joy, he wants to try it, he has discovered something he couldn't do before and now is all excited about it. I am very happy.

Why I am writing this? To basically confirm that yes, kids are ready when they are ready. No reason to push them based on some expectations. Adults are ready when they are ready, there is no reason to push them. What I wanted was for my kids to find the joy. They did. I didn't want them to be grand musicians. I wanted them to be happy about music, to love to play the piano, to love the sound they discover and the abilities they acquire which will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Here is an article which promotes this same tactic for reading and other academic disciplines. What is the rush, I ask. Consistency and persistence, positive attitude and enthusiasm will carry you further than artificial efforts and ambitions.

Here is the book we use:

Venn Diagrams

The English teacher in first grade showed the kids what a Venn diagram is in the context of the content of books they have read in class. They read two books and drew two circles representing different characteristics and based on these two the students classified to which region in the diagram the books they had read belongs. They also drew Venn diagrams to show the common and the uncommon themes discussed in the books they had read.

I did not know that when the teaching/learning took place. I only learned about this when Ballet Girl and I encountered Venn diagrams in the context of shapes in Beast Academy 3A. I was delighted to talk about Venn diagrams and bring about again the idea of classification. The first example I coined was about bird belonging to the class of animals but not all bird being able to fly, and not all flying animals are birds. Then we went to the library and saw the different ways books are classified and discussed how there is always some element which produces an overlap, just like the game Spot It!-there is always an overlapping element in the cards that are presented!

I can only rave about the Beast Academy books. Even if your child is not a math whiz, these books are so entertaining that your child will extract something useful from them. Again, I encourage and recommend these-not as a curriculum, but as a supplement to a regular curriculum.

I also encourage parents and teachers to think outside the box when presenting concepts. When I was little we were told to memorize and retell, but when I hit high school, we were told to come up with our own examples. By that moment, this task was incredible difficult. So, my recommendation is, in order not to scar your children, think outside the box for examples, and most importantly after you have thought of a few, let your children come up with their own. Learning with all senses is the most lasting learning.


Happy math Happy learning!

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 .

Beast Academy

Beast Academy is a series of books, a set of a textbook and practice book, which go beyond typical math-they take the simple and make it fun and take you on a discovery adventure. The teaching is done by beasts who are themselves learning along the way. The practice books are great. There are three level problems-easy, medium and hard. If you grew up in Bulgaria the word for the practice book is Сборник.

I remember when I was in third grade I used one for the first time. It was not entertaining and I dreaded the three star problems. But I remembered them! I remembered why I couldn't do them on my own and I remembered my mom and dad helping me with clues, struggling themselves and basically showing me the process of trial and error. Problems do not typically come with a clear cut route to follow. Problems are just problems. Among many tools you need to pick some and take them as far as you can, hopefully, to a solution, but if you fail, you just pick better tools, walk the walk and so forth until eventually you become better at picking the right tools for the jobs at hand.

Yes, these math books help your child get their taste of problem solving. This is for everybody. Forget about the gifted and the non-gifted labels. The reason labels are bogus is that they are preconditioned and are nothing more than profiling. All kids deserve to taste the magic of problem solving. All kids can be really good at it but of all, all kids have to be really good at it if we want to live in a good world.

Thumbs way up high for Beast Academy!

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:)

Small Victories

Victory 1: My kids giggled big time as I was reading The Twits. The premise and the whole sequence of tricks these two bad people play on each other were so amusing that I kept on reading and reading.
Victory 2: I have been teaching Sunlight boy math since August 2013. We started with the K-level books of the Singapore math series, and we only recently switched into the Grade 1 books. Most of what we cover now is review. Today, we counted 1 group of 10 flowers and 6 alone flowers. Before I even came around to asking how many flowers there are altogether, he said 16. Score!

Not a victory: Math for Ballet girl. She is very smart but today she said that math is not as fun as reading. Actually, this is to be expected. She is just getting into the 'I am reading fluently' phase, and this new freedom is exactly that-freedom. She can pick and choose at her own time. I am moving on very slowly with math right now because we encountered a stumbling block-adding fractions with different denominators. So, while we are still set to be done with 4A and 4B by July, I will drag subtraction addition and subtraction until the end of March. Then we will go on cruise control with most other topics which we have already one way or another touched on.

Update 2/28/2014: Last night Sunlight boy correctly, before counting to confirm, stated that 10 sticks and 7 sticks are 17 sticks. He proceeded to correctly calculate for a few other examples. We always confirm by counting from 10 up to solidify the understanding and the confidence in the process.
I feel as thrilled about this milestone as I felt when Ballet girl understood this (she was a little younger than Sunlight boy is now). This is the single stepping stone to all of math from now until fifth grade. The second the child understands that we collect things in groups of 10s and 100s just to make our lives easier and not because of any other reasons, the door for complete understanding is wide open. Math becomes a meaningful flow, not a mystery.
Yesterday I showed ballet girl some shortcuts to addition (people call it mental math). We calculated the addition in a few ways to demonstrate that there are some convenient ways of rearranging things so that we easily recognize the answer.  Here is the example. What we typically do is this: 7+8=8+*******=(8+**)+*****=10+5=15. Since she knows without thinking that 5+5=10, I showed her this:
7+8=(5+**)+(5+***)=(5+5)+**+***=10+5=15. We easily recognize that 10+5 is 15, so we try to get the 10 in the easiest possible way.
Mental Math should not be introduced until the child has a solid grasp of the meaning of the mathematical process and is given a justification, a solid basis for the reason the shortcut is good, efficient. Kids appreciate efficiency, we might as well, say it-what we tell you is nothing new, it's just a convenience. As is the ATM-you can go to the clerk and wait in line or you can drive through-same outcome, different interaction.