Audio Books

During the school year it is difficult to maintain Portuguese fresh. We stumbled upon audio books and we found them to be a wonderful and most importantly painless addition to our routine.

• O Leao, A feiticeira e O Guardaroupa

• O cavalo e seu menino

• Principe Caspian

• O extraordinario

• Volta ao mundo em 80 dias

• Volta ao Mundo em 80 dias

• Robinso Crusoe

• Don Quixote

For some books in English we also resorted to audiobooks, especially ones which come with some explanation of otherwise difficult concepts and words:

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry    

We also find lots of movies and cartoons that are on youtube and are in the target language. This is especially helpful when you are fluent and just need to polish some structures, keep some consistency and maintain the language. 

In addition we have two tutors. One tutor focuses on grammar and the second tutor focuses on conversation. 

• Carmen

• Preply

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.

The one and only Ivan

Ivan O Grande is the district-wide one-district-one-book reading. Except that this year the district has decided to rush through this wonderful book. Well, the district can proceed as it pleases. We know better.

First, we will be reading the book in Portuguese. We have already read it in Bulgarian a few years ago. As the children are older we will focus on the deep truths and messages embedded in the book. I will be updating this page with our progress and our discussions as they arrive.

Before we began, since we are already familiar with the story, and since the kids are already discussing the book in school I decided to start with real images:
Video of Ivan from the shopping mall and Ivan after being rescued, at the zoo

If you watch the video you will hear that Ivan was bought in the 60s from Belgium's Congo. This immediately screamed to me the three things listed below. Today I only briefly mentioned only Dian Fossey's work with gorillas in Rwanda but we will cover all three topics in the next few days.

• King Leopold of Belgium, and his reign in Congo, the Hitler you hardly hear about
• Dian Fossey and the mountain gorillas of Rwanda
  
• Current restless Congo and Crash course episode on Congo

The following are the notes from our reading and discussions on Monday, January 29, 2018:

1. We focused on the meaning of the opening quote by George Eliot: "“Nunca é tarde demais para se tornaro que você poderia ter sido.” This is the thesis of the book. It is never later, despite all suffering, despite all injustice, to turn and embrace the real you, even if you never knew him.
2. We discussed how people measure time and why they bother-we marvel at the great constructions and elaborate mazes that ancient societies have built in history class, but not in literature class. In ancient societies people measured time with respect to regularly occurring events on which their livelihood depended, similar to how animals in the wild are aware of the passage of time and the changes of seasons. I mentioned the ancient Egyptians, the Cahokia people whose life aligned with the lifecycle of corn, the Hopi whose life aligned with rain, the plain Indians whose life aligned with the the buffalo migrations, and the north-western Indians whose life aligned with the salmon and the whale migrations.
3. “Com o passar dos anos, aprendi a entender as palavras humanas, mas entender o que os humanos dizem não é a mesma coisa que entender os humanos...Precisei de algum tempo para aprender a reconhecer todos esses sons humanos, para ligar as palavras em uma coisa só. Mas fui paciente.”  We discussed how similar genetically apes are to humans, and how overtime humans have disproved much of their own misconceptions about these animals, and all living things. Since we are familiar with Jane Goodall I mentioned her pioneering observational studies with chimps in which she disproved the statement that what differentiates humans from apes is humans' ability to make and use tools. In the sentence above, Ivan makes the point that learning and understanding new tasks, and adapting are not exclusive to humans either.
4. “Todos nós somos primos distantes e desconfiados...Sei que isso é problemático." This, of course is a reference to Darwin's theory of evolution and how hard its acceptance remains within the creationist groups. Fortunately or unfortunately our DNAs differ by just a little. Imagine how much smarter than us is the live  form whose DNA is another 1% different from ours. I also brought in the inherent and wrong human assumption that humans are superior to all other life forms. As we study history we learn that throughout history europeans, in particular, have been making the assumption that "I as a member of my tribe am superior to all other tribes and their members"; this assumption grew into the exercise of genocide when unlike groups united against other unlike groups. One needs to call these events and label them properly as they are encountered in history, otherwise one can never learn to recognize them as they occur when they occur in real life.
5. So where is that shopping mall? I-95 stretches along the east coast from Canada all the way to Florida. I explained, using this map, that the east-west routes are even (I-80 is a familiar example), and now I-95 is our north-south example. But Ivan actually lived in a mall in Tacoma Washington. So, there is a discrepancy. Why?
6. Sense of humour: " Certa vez pude desfrutar de um livro que um dos meus cuidadores deixou em meu domínio. Tinha gosto de cupim.” Did we expect a sense a humour from a gorila?

The following is from the discussion on January 31, 2018

The One and Only Ivan:
Chapter: TV
Page: 50

Portuguese:
“Bob diz que os faroestes não se parecem em nada com a vida real.”

English (translation):
"Bob says that the westerns have nothing in common with real life"

Hollywood has been a very racial institution from its very start. Over the years bad guys have emerged from all areas in which the american white had to be the good guy. Critical thinking dead, the american white supreme character reigned, it was expected and it was sought. 

We started reading "Western Expansion" by Steve Sheinkin, in which it is revealed that cowboys were not white initially, they were primarily ranchers, and overall anything depicted in western films is baloney. This article helps too.

Critical Thinking. Critical Reading! Every sentence in Ivan is a bonanza to ponder and question. Think about it a dog (which is sometimes used as a derogatory term, but is also an animal humans view as their best friend) tells that to a gorilla, one of our closest relatives. This is an amazing sentence.

The Time of the Board Games

One rainy Saturday I found the kids playing board games in the garage with their granddad. They were playing "Gobble Up" and chess. To me this Saturday served as a clue that we may benefit from an upgrade. Upgrade we did.

The kids loved Carcasonne instantly. It is a relatively simple game, but it requires strategical and forward thinking. Both kids, 7- and 9- year old, picked the rules easily and settled into the game with enthusiasm. They also appreciated the game as it came, for the fun experience, not for the win. Their 9-year old cousin also enjoyed it.

Then I introduced Ticket to Ride-Europe. We had played the junior version during a toy expo in Chicago. The europe version of the game is more complex, with more and longer journeys. This game requires a lot of strategical thinking and patience. Again, it was hit with both kids and their 9-year old cousin.

Rainy days, we are ready for you.

The next game I will introduce will be Settlers of Catan. I consider it a more complex game as one needs to plan, to trade, to bargain, and of course, one must keep track of his own victory points. I think we will like it.


Update: We did like The Settlers of Catan. It is a much slower game. A few great things came of the first round. First the kids experimented with a few strategies and realized on their own that one had to mix strategies and take advantage of all rules in order to gain points. Second, the kids learned what bargaining/trading is all about. They have not realized yet that they can trade in a any-to-any ratio, but the concept, at least, is colid. I am impressed. Next week, we will go to a board game expo and check out Pandemic. I think they will like it too and maybe we will upgrade to that one as well.

This year I have not paid consistent attention to the third grader's reading progress. I was hoping to have her read from a required list of books, but I failed to stick with this. I was hoping to cover grammar and spelling consistently. Alas, these also fell through the cracks. Thankfully, not all hope is lost since we had done a good job with spelling in the previous two years, and with grammar through portuguese. Yet, I decided that until the end of the school year, I will resume the required reading book list, and will require a daily narration and discussion of the completed daily reading.

The first book was "Where are you going, Baby Lincoln?". It is more complex that I envisioned but to my delight the third grader had understood much of the character development and parallelism. She provided a great narration, great opinions and conjectures. The next in the list is "Rickshaw Girl". In between the required readings I have allowed one "pleasure" read. The girl picked "Ribsy".

Our portuguese reading is Wonder. We are taking it slow but are already a quarter in. I love the statements which the English teacher introduces the students to. We discuss the characters' responses, and craft our own opinions. This book is magical. It is full of meaty material to concentrate on. Especially with my third grader already exhibiting the signs of growing up.

In portuguese, with the third grader we are reading stories and going over the LP program for third grade. With the first grader we are reviewing the Math program for first grade. When I learned English, I learned it through math. I was comfortable with math, and I used my math knowledge to figure out the corresponding English vocabulary and once I felt confident I little by little translated most other areas as well. I figured with the reluctant portuguese speaker, a familiar subject is worth trying.

The third grader is steadily moving on in piano Suzuki Book 3, and is almost finished with violin Suzuki Book 1. The first grader is almost finished with piano Suzuki Book 1. This year we will have two graduations, hopefully merged into one. Both kids participated in a music competition and came short 1 point each. The third grader has two more competitions in May. Both kids will perform at the fifth annual bulgarian piano concert in Chicago.

This summer we will keep a low profile. We will stay put, mostly. We will go to Niagra and Phoenix. In the winter, we will travel to Brasil, and next year Spain!

Update 4/30/2017:

Before we close the month, we opened and tried the remaining board games that we have. We love Splendor. It is very quick and it offers good strategical thinking. It involves some math in which we are all very strong so it is wonderful to compete more or less on equal footing with the kids. Seven Wonders is a great game. I familiarized myself with the rules and will most likely lead the kids into it next week. I thought that the directions were good but the Quick Rules were rather weak; I assume they were meant for players who had played before and served as a reminder. Both games are sturdy and of great quality and I expect them to last for a very, very long time. The last game I have my eyes on is Pendamic but I will wait for next year; there is no rush- we have a great selection and we are excited about it.

Then there are also the usual supsects-Spot It, Connect Four, Bananagrams and Gobble it Up!. These are all quick and straightforward, and again, we compete on the same footing- nobody is at disadvantage or advantage, With a quick turnaround it is easy to do a redo and have  a new winner. Rainy April 2017 has been the board game month in the house.

  

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.

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:)

New School Year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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