September 2018

First big hiking trip:

Our first stop was the Grand Canyon. When we arrived around 2pm, we immediately went to the rim, to take a look. The views were breath-taking. Crowds were everywhere, on a weekday. We walked to the museum, which happens to be at one of the bus stops, and took part in a ranger program along the walk of time. The walk of times is fabulous. Sample rocks and the time period from which they were formed was displayed and some information was included.  The ranger did a fine job narrating, as well as involving the children in the presentation, and answering the many questions the group had.

That evening we saw an Elk. On this trip we ended up setting camp in the dark under the headlights of the car. Our neighbors were not pleased, but hey, that's life!

The next morning we drove to the rim, and took a 1.5 miles hike down the Bright Angel trail! It was lovely coming down, and super difficult coming out. Thankfully, on the trail a bit past the 1.5 mile marker was a ranger who advised me to head back up. I thank her.

The very same day we headed to Zion National Park. We stopped at Page, AZ to grab some lunch, and continued straight to the canyon. The park is mesmerizing. The drive from the entrance to the campsite is beautiful. You can easily view all the main types of formations, along with some of the inhabitants of this wonderful place. We were thrilled and at awe. As the night before at the Grand Canyon, we set up camp in the dark, but our neighbors this time around were quite forgiving. That evening was nice and warm, but windy, very very windy.

The next morning we ventured into the canyon for some hikes. Four trails were closed so we hiked the Watchman (moderate), the Weeping Rock (easy) and the Emerald Pools (lower, easy). We took advantage of the bus which takes the visitor to 9 sightseeing spots. We also enjoyed the 22-minute video at the museum center. On the way back from the Emerald Pools we stopped to dip our died feet in the cool Virgin River waters. Then back at camp, we took our tent down and embarked towards park number three.

But before we even had a chance to leave Zion, we stopped many many times to observe the wild life. Wild Turkeys. Mountain Goats. Deer fighting and competing for territory and females. And of course, we stopped to look once again at the rock formations!

The drive to Bryce Canyon National Park was about 2 hours. It seemed longer because we drove a lot in the dark. But we did not make it all the way to Bryce. We stopped at Hatch which is 20 miles away from Bryce. I had rented a cottage for 2 evenings. Bryan was starving by the time we arrived, so we had dinner in the cafe across the street. Possibly the only cafe in the entire small town. The food was phenomenal.

Then we slept.

The next day, my oh, my, we went to what was, for me the highlight of our trip.

We stopped at the visitor center, got some guidelines on what to hike and got going. We went down the Navajo loop, around the Peekaboo loop, and back the Navajo loop. The Navajo loop is steep up and down. The Peekaboo is up and down the entire time. This was plenty of hiking for us. Coincidentally, we met a friend of mine, just as we were emerging from the Peekaboo trail and about to head up the Navajo trail. Friends make climbing out of a steep canyon easier. Thank you. Bryan had a friend to chat with. I had a friend to talk to, and Sophia hung around to listen to our stories.

The plan was to head to the visitor center. Watch the 22-minute informative movie; fill the junior ranger activity book, and go home. But on the bus we met a family which was talking about how beautiful the night sky over Bryce is, and that in the evening there would be a program with telescope viewing. So we changed plans. Instead of heading home, we went to the lodge for dinner, caught the last bus to the visitor center, drove to the amphi-theatre where the night program was supposed to be, and participated. We learned a lot about the universe. The kids and I participated in some demonstrations. Bryan won a lollipop.  Then we viewed Jupiter, a constellation, and Saturn! We were exhausted but delighted! And at 11pm we were back at the cabin, and slept soundly that night!

Optics

The plan is to explore optics. We are going to use Explore Light and Optics. We are going to also talk about one of the first real scientists, Ibn Al Haytham. There is a large historic component to his research and the methods he settled on.

We have all the materials for an in depth study of optics but as I am also eyeing mechanics we are going to just go over the fundamentals.




History

We are embarking on a over-encompassing study of history. We are starting of world war 1. No particular reason besides that I want to talk about how stupid the war was and how trust and misinformation and miscommunication has a lot to do with history. We are also going to talk about some of the first true historians and travelers-Herodotus and Ibn Battuta

Fun

We are going to use one-way valves to make a model of the heart and super soakers. Who does not like super soakers!

Music

Back in the swing of things. Sophia has two dance classes, one piano and one violin class. Bryan has one piano class. Sophia's first violin teacher told me that kinematic exercises are good for establishing rhythm and feeling for steady beat.

Homeschool

History, Science, Math, and Portuguese are in my court this year.

In History this year we are going to cover African Kingdoms, European Navigators, Conquest, New World, Slavery, Early US history, Civil War, Reconstruction, Great Depression, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Cold War. I am taking a very liberal approach to US history, meaning that I will avoid lies at all costs. It will not be a pretty tale.

In Science my focus will be on mechanical and electric devices for computation. We are going to talk about Turing machines and transistors a lot. I am studying this material beforehand. It is fascinating.

Math we are going to do a heavy review of what we learned last year, and we will slowly plow through some new material.  Sophia will begin Geometry and is already working through PreAlgebra.
Bryan is finishing the third grade Beast Academy books.

Portguese is a joint effort between me and their teacher in Michigan. I expect to have both reading and speaking more this year. We are also going to work on learning more verbs and tenses. At the moment we are reading O BGA, and the next book lined up is Nicolau Volta Aos Aulas.

First Grade-Third Grade

It is September. New School year has begun. Here are our short term and long term plans.

Ballet Girl is in third grade. 
She is an independent reader and will be tasked with reading one required book per month (my choice) and anything else she chooses. My goal with this is to keep her engaged at least to some extent with well written and meaninful books. I will also ask for short book summaries, as well as short discussions about the interesting points in the books.
Writing will be primarily devoted to spelling and dictation in the first half, and to retelling of a familiar story in the second half of the school year. For spelling we will finish review the AAS3 she forgot, finish the remaining portions of AAS3 and move into AAS4.
Grammar will be addressed as nuances are encountered. I plan to incorporate grammar with the learning of bulgarian and portuguese. We will mainly be concerned with the tenses this year.

On the math front, Ballet girl is beginning with BeastAcademy, series 4. We finished the assessments for BeastAcademy series 3, and are reviewing some of the points she has forgotten. So far so good. My plan is to move through the BA4 series; to drill units conversions, especially squares; to drill the associative property of multiplication. We will definitely touch on some number theory, geometry and algebra. I will prepare her for the math challenge competition this year. We will start in earnest in October.

Portuguese is the emphasis this year. I am going to stick to individual and group instruction each day. We will finish Vamos falar portuguese and Salpicos 3. I also hope to go over most of tenses exercises in Brazilian Portuguese Grammar book 1. Listening will imporve through read alouds and youtube movies.

Bulgarian will be on a secondary stage for the first half of the year. I am putting portuguese and math ahead for the moment. However, we will refer to its grammar during portuguese lessons, and we speak it daily.

This year we will take it easy with piano.No rush to finish the book by the end of the year. I want it to be a fun and easy piano year. There will be no competitions unless she asks for it. Violin is a slightly different story. I suspect that by the end of the year the first book will be completes, and there will be a recital. I think that the teacher has a solid grasp of timing and expectations, and will help with the heavy lifting. I don't know why the piano book graduations turned out to be so stressful.

Sports will be represented by swimming lessons in the fall, gymnastics in the winter and nothing in the spring. For now, at least. We are planning a trip abroad.

Sunlight boy is in first grade. 

The emphasis for him this year is learning to read fluently in English. He can sound out words, and is already improving. We abandoned the Bob Books and went to AAR 1 which has worked great for us for the summer. We will stick with it and continue onto AAR 2, along with any other school related work.

Spelling is secondary, although he is picking up the basics fairly well. I have started with AAS1 but we will stop, go, review as needed, not as dictated by the school. I don't have expectations on that front.

Math will be interesting. We are still reviewing Grade 1(Challenging Word Problems-Singapore Math-Common Core Edition) material that he knows. He is getting better at some of the quick computations. At the moment we are focusing on time, recognizing time to the hour and half hour. We will start reviewing Grade 2 (Challenging Word Problems-Singapore Math-Common Core Edition) next month and hopefully start on Grade 3 (Sinfapore Math primary books) material in January. I do not plan on preparing him for the math challenge competition at his school. If he quaifies, he qualifies-if not, oh well!

Portuguese means daily 1-1 and group session. We are going over a book teaching reading, but we are mostly using it as a simple way to learn to listen and understand. We are also going to stick with read alouds and movies as primary sources of communication.

Bulgarian will be maintained once a week, through some short reading exercises. Once English is at a comfortable level, then I will upgrade bulgarian to reading twice a week.

Piano continues as before. He is most likely going to finish book 1 this year and have a recital. I think the review for the recital will be easier because we are constantly reviewing songs. I have lower expectations of him at this stage than I did of his sister, because he is not well coordinated yet, so I hope to not be as stressed as I was before.

Sports will be outdoor play, swimming in the fall and gymnastics in the winter, with the low possibility of soccer in the spring.

We are going to attend some classical concerts, but the venue has moved and is not as close as it was before. We are also going to see two kids' theatrical performances at the Beverly Arts Center. This year we will keep it simple. We over did it last year I think.

We have not read any particulary interesting read alouds recently. I highly recommend Mouse Called Wolf, and Leonardo DaVinci by Diane Stanley.

Piano Experience

A little over two years ago, ballet girl finished Suzuki piano book 1. In a school recital she performed  all but one piece. Preparing for that recital was stressful for me. I consulted a friend who suggested recording some practice sessions and critiquing the observations. I found it difficult to juggle many pieces at various levels of 'done', and I was surprised when at the end they all came out well.

Now that Suzuki book 2 has been completed, we are at it again-preparing for another recital. Again, there are many moving parts and nothing is at its final steady state. We are two weeks away and there are two complete songs, and two scale and accompanying cadences that need to be learned. I am uncomfortable. I really dislike rushing. 

What makes me especially uneasy is a competition that took place this weekend with the results of which I am not content. I wish I had taken the contest more seriously, and I wish I had pushed for better preparation from the teacher. Walking out of lesson on Saturday, I could not believe that the song was not reviewed, at all, given that the competition was the following day. At this point, there was one thing I wanted from this piece-even tempo. Ballet girl delivered. I know ballet girl would have played it better if her teacher had listened to the piece and made the few last minute corrections, which from the judge's remark are definitely problematic.

I also feel that I should not be the one doing the planning for the recital prep. I feel that I should have received some direction, or scheduling from the teacher. There are certain things I do not mind taking responsibility for, but the scheduling should be with the teacher. For the book 1 recital and now for the book 2 recital. I doubt that other parents are on the hook the way I have been. I am also struggling with the whole book recital concept - it takes time to relearn old songs, and again, for me it is uncomfortable to juggle songs in various stages of done. 

I came through a web search at a site which among other advice had the following section. I appreciate this, but I still want more help from the teacher. 

“I must not work on any new pieces until I master the one I’ve already started.”

Reality: Professional pianists have 10 or 20 pieces that they are working on concurrently! There are sections within each piece that are at varying levels of mastery. This is really a good way to go about practicing, because if we become fatigued or bored, we become much less efficient with our learning. By giving yourself permission to switch your attention to different compositions or to different sections within one piece, you are actually BECOMING efficient. This happens for two reasons: 1) You are honoring your fatigue level on any one piece. 2) When you step away from working on something, you allow your subconscious to do ITS job and continue processing it without giving it your attention. This dramatically increases the results, better than if you had been exclusively working on the one piece.

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.

Bittersweet March

All journeys have their uphills and downhills. Likewise, homeschooling has been both a source of a lot of joy and a source of a lot of frustration and doubt. Before March, I never before experienced an emptiness and inadequacy, almost an apathy and indifference associated with this particular journey, almost a desire to let it go. Of course, this is not my style, so we trail on.

Accomplishments:

First, ballet girl did wonderfully at the annual math competition that her school holds. She placed first in mental math and third overall.

Both kids participated in the music school competition. Ballet girl performed wonderfully and received highest score. Sunlight boy performed very well as well. He is still walking the walk, and he is walking it with confidence, dignity and hard work. He is advancing very well.

Ballet girl is advancing very smoothly with her violin as well.

Struggles: 

Ballet girl is really bright but it has been a struggle for me to teach her mathematics which is something that I am very passionate about. I have explained, and shown examples, and yet, certain things just did not stick as I expected. I have learned to step back and return to something simple for a confidence boost. I have just wished she would more proactively reach out and do the work. As a kid, I remember early on realizing that the more problems I solved, the better I got, and the more I wanted to solve. I never stayed hungry for problems because we had tons of books. I wish my daughter would one day just reach out and experience the hunger that I had. It is something that I cannot teach. It is something that I can just arm myself with patience for. I wish she were a bit more proactive and thorough.

History and Science:

We talked mainly about ancient Greece. We talked about democracy and the way of life in the city-states. We read a few fiction and a few non-fiction books.

We will continue to cover this topic with more non-fictional books during the month of April. We will also study simple machines and learn how they helped the greeks.

This month we also did a quick impromptu run through the major religions my kids are aware of.

Reading, Writing:

Ballet girl reads independently. We are half way through AAS 3 and I am delighted with the progress she makes. We cruise effortlessly and would have advanced more but I don't think it is necessary.

Sunlight boy is reading really. He is also attempting to spell. He is quite aware of the fact that he knows how to read. He is working on finishing the Bob Books 4 set, and we will continue practicing with AAR 1.

Portuguese:

This is our weakest link. We have been reading the adventures of Hercules as presented by Monteiro Lobato. It has been a bit too long and all the characters are a bit complicated and disconnected and connected all at the same time. I bet that if you were hearing these stories over and over, the characters will eventually sink in. We will continue by returning to the adventures of Peter Pan, again retold by Monteiro Lobato.

During April, I am hoping to follow up more seriously and consistently with portuguese lessons and intense practice.

Read Alouds:

We finished the first part of the Jungle book. We like it but we will rest before we venture into the second book. I have grown tired of translating so I have been reading more and more translated literature in bulgarian.

Currently we are enjoying the bulgarian folk stories. We read about three per night and we talk about them. Nothing fancy, but I share my uncommon views with the kids. For instance on the story with the bird and gardeners, I said that the bird is not lazy - it just  has no business doing the work of the gardeners. This is not the moral kids are supposed to walk out with. I think we will read short stories for a couple of months because they are easy going and you don't have to keep track of anything monumentally complex.

Activities:

Gymnastics is ending this month. Ballet girl asked to try figure skating next year instead of gymnastics. I will probably have her try it in the fall and either do gymnastics of dance in the winter and the spring.

Sunlight boy loves gymnastics but he will be happier with soccer. Next fall is soccer once again for him. I hope he can do gymnastics again in the winter and the spring. It is good for him.

The summer both kids will be in summer camp for a month and in July we will all be back in Minnesota for two weeks, for Portuguese immersion camp.

Hands-on with reality

This is the year we are going to focus on the engineering disciplines. The aim is to learn about the engineering process and to start noticing the great engineering solutions which are all around.

We begin with civil engineering. Why? In our history readings we finished reading about Ancient Egypt and China, and  we are nearing the time of the Roman Empire - all times full of examples of superb engineering advancements. Let's not forget that grandpa and grandma are here on hand to reinforce the conversation backed by two-lifetimes of professional experience.

We have started with learning about bridges. The following books have been remarkably well put together and full of insightful and inspirational directions. We have learned about the basic types of bridges and we have conducted some of the experiments in order to learn more about the weaknesses and strengths of the different solutions. We have also learned about the importance of considering the available materials and the environment.

These are the books with which we began to gain appreciation for the diversity of structural solutions.  This book offered us an opportunity to bring out the map and check out the locations of this marvels of human ingenuity.

We continued by focusing on the Brooklyn Bridge. The history of the bridge is remarkable and inspirational. The books we used were considered wonderful by civil engineers.







We are going to watch the following DVDs. We have the VHS but it will be a hassle to hook up the VHS player so DVDs it is. I have watched these films about 5-6 years ago, or maybe more, and I am excited to watch them with new eyes, ears and intention.








Ballet girl is interested in the solar system. She and a friend are going to try to build a model of the solar system for the science fair in February. There are plenty of solar system kits on the market, and plenty of home-made alternatives, but I am keen on taking advantage of the mountain of legos we own. Everything can be prototyped with legos. Here are a bunch of links - NASA link and MIT link - which I hope we use for this year's science fair.


I recommend this series of books to get brief exposure to engineering process and the different engineering disciplines. We are going to read the civil engineering book this month. Next month, we may continue with looking at buildings, and I will concentrate more on materials.






January is the month I dedicate to learning about money. Money is a very subtle concept that we do not ponder often, but it is unquestionably one of the greatest inventions of humankind. We will talk about what money means and as we proceed in history we will talk about the importance of money in all historical episodes.






As far Portuguese goes, we just finished Pippi Meialonga which we loved. We are going to move to Os Egipcios and then to the first adventure of Lobinho. I am delighted that both kids are paying attention during reading time and can answer questions on the spot.







This month the kids are going to play at Smith Crossing retirement home in Orland Park which I am very happy about since the next concert opportunity is in May. In May during this year's IMA competition Ballet girl will play Minuet in G-Allegretto by J.S.Bach from Easy Classic to Moderns Vol 17, a selection at the Junior 1 level. This will be followed by the Piano Guild Auditions we will review all of Ballet Girl's book 2 and hopefully, the year will conclude with the book2 graduation.

We attended a ISO concert in December which featured holiday favorites. The way the little man experienced the music during the performance impressed a lot of people. He also went up to the singer to let her know that while he enjoyed her singing, he found her singing to be very loud.  We attended a fundraising concert for the South Suburban Youth Orchestra last week which we loved and which further inspired Ballet Girl to pick up the violin. We are probably going to attend the High School Musical presented by the Lockport Youth Theatre at the end of the month.

Ballet girl said that her school is going to distribute Charlotte's web for this year's One-School-One-Book initiative. I was surprised because her teacher has been reading it to the kids as a read-aloud during snack time already. Ballet girl asked me to start reading it because she is not always there for snack time. I and the kids love this edition because it has colorful pictures. I found an interesting list of questions.

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:)

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.

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:

What's the rush?!

When you are ready, you are ready.
When you are ready, you are ready to enjoy your new skills, not be frustrated by the element of novelty.

I never asked my kids to write. I started teaching them to read starting at age 3. I wrote every single letter they recognized. For 3+ years they saw me writing and occasionally they heard me describe what I think the letter looks like or how it can be created from other letters (M is two Ls glued together; Zh is two Ks glued back to back; A is an L with a line in the middle, etc.)

I started the little lady learning piano tunes around 4.5, very slowly, very unsystematically, very unintentionally.

The results:
The young lady, picked up a tune, on her very own at 5 years and 2 months. I signed her up for lessons when I knew she was ready. Her memory was ready, her hands were ready.
The young lady picked up writing around 5. Entirely on her own. I started concentrating on writing-correctness as well as neatness-in first grade. Prior to that, I let her fly.

The young man is only now starting to pop at the piano and try things out. He would sit with me and try to imitate. He is not ready yet. But he is getting closer and closer and it is exciting to watch how
he grows.
Yesterday, out of the blue, he picked up a pen and wrote letters. I was stunned. So, I encouraged him to write more letters which he did. I described how one letter can be constructed from letters he already knows. He was fascinated by this game. He showed everyone what he has accomplished. I was very happy for him and I was very proud of him. I love watching him grow.


The conclusions:
Demonstrate. They will pick it up soon enough. Let them be ready. It will be easier for you, easier and more enjoyable for them. As hard as it is, do not compare your kids to one another and do not compare them to other kids. Let them be fascinated with the wonder of 'I can'.

There is no competition. They will learn to read. They will learn to write. They will learn to play an instrument. But when they do it at their own pace they will learn to enjoy it and it will be a more meaningful experience for them and for me. The skills are long-term skills and we want the kids to bond with them with good emotion.

I know a seven year old can read War and Peace but a seven year old is not wise and emotionally knowledgeable in order to understand the book. Let them grow and enjoy age appropriate accomplishments.

The Fall Recital

went very well. It was nice and short. The performances were all good. (I've sat through some very painful ones, and I have trained my ears to handle screetching and scraaatching but there was no need to resort to drastic measures today.)

Overall, my impressions are: the kids' hand positions are plain awful; the tempos are plain awful too.
There was one exception to this among the pianists and this was Ballet Girl. There was one exception among the violinists and this was a five-year old girl.

Ballet Girl chose to skip the repeats which is completely fine. She did not make any major mistakes. The piece did not sound polished - most notably, the dynamic was absent- but the tempo was right on and consistent.

My take away is that Ballet Girl needs to associate a story with the piece in order to understand the dynamics, and this is something I will have to work on with the teacher.

After the pretty miserable Barnes&Nobles fiasco, I am glad that this performance happened. We move on to better piano times.

November

Books

A very good book. Well written, well paced, interesting, simple and yet can lead to wonderful conversations and explorations. I recommend it both as a read aloud for kids as young as Kindergartners and as a self-read for a child 9 years and above. Adults will enjoy it too. The European vs the American theme is a bit too naive and silly

After very little thinking, completely spontaneously, despite having intended to preserve this story for next month, I dove into it last night. As I was reading chapter one, the kids did express interest but mid second chapter asked for a break. We will go on because this will be a fabulous journey which will get better and better as we go on.

Every once in a while Ballet Girl interrupts, Her teachers at school have taught her to 'guess' what is coming next, what's the story is about, etc,etc. Sorry, while I do see some value in this 'technique' when one is learning to read, when a text is being read fluently, it is better to just sit back, relax and concentrate on what the author is presenting. Very simple.

This is the first book in the Narnia series and provides some answers to questions that may come after reading the LWW. It was a good, fast and interesting read but definitely not better than the LWW. I am glad that I read it, I recommend it but it's not a star book. This is the extent of my review.

I have found myself undoing a lot of unnecessary damage produced by the school. Also last night, while Ballet Girl was practicing her reading, upon encountering an unknown, not-easily recognizable word, she would lift her head from the text and her eyes would stare around but not in the text. After observing this a few times, it was time to interject and repair the damage-the word is not written on the fridge, on the ceiling or on my shirt. The word is written on the paper, you are better of looking there and putting some thinking into deciphering the word. Aye, Aye, Aye! What a major headache! The schools with their 'techniques' and 'strategies' are making the simple things be unnecessarily difficult. 

This is the first book I read this month. The paper used for this edition is pretty poor so on first glance I thought the book will not be interesting. It most certainly is. I don't know about accurate, but interesting-yes.

It is a Newbery Medal winner. I tend to be cautious with these awards. For instance, I object to the deCamillo's books, A Year Down Under, Holes, Maniac Magee, Secret of the Andes, Strawberry girl and the Voyages of Dr. Dolittle. King of the Wind deserves an award. 

This is what Ballet Girl is reading now. There are a few more books in the series for her to read before we find another series. So far the stories from the series that she has read have been very interesting. The stories are about horses, and girls interactions with horses; some feature 'real' girls, others feature princesses. For a beginning reader with interest in horses, I recommend this book. The reading level is 2.3-2.5. My daughter is 7 years old and in first grade.

LegoFest

We went to Indianapolis to visit friends, celebrate kids' birthdays and to enjoy LegoFest. I liked the event but I think this is the last LegoFest we will go to. It's the equivalent of LegoLand in Schaumburg with more sculptures, perhaps. From hiegene/health perspective, both the event and LegoLand are a brow-raiser. The bricks on the ground were not clean, as could be expected so we travelled with a hand-held sanitzer bottle.

No more BALLET

Ballet girl has not shown enthusiasm for dance this year. Is she tired? I don't know. It is hard to say, but the classes were not giving her much joy. So, after missing three weeks straight, I took the decision to remove her from all classes, along with Sunlight boy who was taking the boys' class.

Thus we are left with one weekly activity and much calmer existence. Wednesdays the little man can enjoy his entire nap and Fridays I do not need to rush but I can begin my weekend calmly.

Schoolish Things

For History this month we are reading about the conquest of America by the Europeans. We are looking at the European treatment of the locals, the life of the locals up to that moment, and we talked about pilgrims and The Pilgrims but we will talk more about them over Thanksgiving. 

For Science this month we haven't done much yet but we plan to talk about the seasons and health issues.

For Portuguese: we have read on and off because we have been busy with out bulgarian guest, but now we are back on track. We have listened/read Peter and the Wolf; we have read a few books; we have watched a few Disney animated movies. All good! Now we are going to proceed with reading the book again using different versions from the library, and we will listen to the Disquinho version. Next we will read Snowwhite and we will listen to Disquinho and we will watch the Disney move.

For Math: With Ballet girl we are learning about the concept of area, slowly, and she is learning the multiplication table by doing exercises (she has understood multiplication for well over a year already). With Sunlight boy we are learning about adding three digit numbers.

Both kids are reading bulgarian 3-4 times per week.

Piano-Ballet girl had a Halloween concert on November 1st and Barnes & Noble. It did not go well initially but ended well. She played her piece beautifully despite forgetting how it started; I helped her. This weekend she is performing at the schools fall's recitals. She is performing the next longer piece. She is ready and I hope this experience proves positive for her.

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:)