March 2019

Fifth Grade

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

 

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

Third Grade

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

 

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

Read Alouds

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

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

My Reads

• Scandal

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

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

Summer 2019

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

December 2018 and January 2019

This is a meaty book. It was the book I picked to read and discuss with the fifth grader.

The book is full of themes and covers a lot of world history, a lot of perspectives, a lot of big figures, and a lot of controversies.

It offers an opportunity to reflect by daily answering a question in .a written format.

 Related to the theme of WWII. This was a read-aloud which speaks about particular person, his life, his experience, his view, his battle, his rebellion, his firmness, social injustice and chauvinism, injustice, white privilege, irrational unjustified fear.

Sachiko aligns with the WWII theme. It is the story of a Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor. We also watched the PBS film Bomb. The book is heavy, and offers a view of devastation. So it is tough to swallow and we took our time.

We are still less than 50% through with Wonder. I wish we were done with it because it is getting on my nervous but hopefully by end of February we will be done with it. We will watch the film in Portuguese too.

We are moving so we have not been working as consistently as before. Still we are on track with all subjects. The recent history that we covered this year has been tough so we are going to switch gears and start reading something lighter. The book we will read is Where the Mountain meets the Moon. Fifth Grade:English: read and discuss BombMath: Geometry-congruent triangles; PreAlgebra-DecimalsPortuguese: present and past tense, irregular verbsPiano and Violin: concerts and daily 30-min practiceForeign Language: ItalianThird GradeEnglish: read short chapter booksMath: Logical problems and exponentsPortuguese: present tense verbs and vocabularyPiano: concerts and daily 30-min 
We spent Christmas break ice-skating every day. I was sick for most of it but it did not stop us from enjoying ice-skating.  The next few big steps are actually moving, beginning new school, science fair, math challenge. 

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.

February 2018

A short, yet full month, was the month of February.

Science Fair

We carried out, wrote up, rehearsed and presented two science fair projects. Both were about electricity.

To introduce the concept of electrical charge we carried out a few experiments:

1. I built a simple electroscope- a glass jar, a self-made lid from foam, a small hole in the center of the foam, a metal piece from a paper clip, and two light pieces of aluminum . We charged a balloon by rubbing it against hair, and introduced the charged balloon to the jar. The effect was that the two aluminum pieces separated. 
2. We charged a balloon and were also able to move from a distance, through induction, an empty can. 
3. We inflated two identical balloons. We tied them with a string of the same length. We taped the balloons to the ceiling. We placed a small magnet between the balloons. The balloons separated.  

The eight-year-old's science fair was about Batteries connected in Series. He learned about the inner workings of batteries, the components and their dependencies; as well as the basic principles of current flow. I explained that a battery is a device which pushes electrons around a circuit; it is a device that does work. We carried out six experiments:

1. The first one was using regular batteries. We connected them in series, adding them one by one and measuring the voltage every time.
2. The second on was by building a Penny-Salt-Nickel battery units and stacking them on top of one another. As we would add a new battery unit we would record the new voltage. This was the most successful battery combination; ten battery units produced 3V.
3. The third experiment was the same as above, except that we excluded the salt water bridge (we did not put the paper between the Penny and the Nickel. No voltage was produced. This highlighted the important of the bridge which I spent a good deal explaining.
4. The fourth experiment was to build a lemon battery. On each lemon with a knife a small slit was made; in one slit was placed the Penny, and in the other slit was placed the Nickel. The batteries were connected one by one and the voltage was measured. We barely got 1 V out of 3 batteries.
5. The fifth experiment was to cut one of the lemon battery units in half between the coin slits. No voltage was measured because the circuit was open and no current was flowing and no work was being done.
6. The sixth experiment consisted of him putting one half of the lemon on one palm, and the other half of the lemon in the other palm. The result was a closed circuit and voltage was measured. The importance of this last experiment was to highlight that the human body can conduct current, and one needs to be very careful when handling electrical components.

The ten-year-olds' science fair project was about Ohm's Law. We verified it by using a solderless breadboard, resistors of different resistivity, and 9-V battery. She learned a lot of concepts.

1. What a resistor is, why it is important in a circuit, and how to read and measure its resistivity.
2. What current is and how to measure current flow in a circuit.
3. What voltage is and how to measure it across a component in a circuit. In addition she participated in the boy's science fair, so she learned in detail what batteries are and how they work.
4. We measured the current as we were changing the resistors. We verified Ohm's formula and talked about why it makes sense. The higher the resistor, the more work the battery needs to do in order to push the electrons through; the more the electrons to be pushed through, the higher the work the battery has to do.
5. We also hooked up an LED to the circuit, after we had carried out the previous step. This showed the effect of increasing the voltage through the current-the higher the resistance, the lower the light intensity.

New York Trip

We were in New York for three days. I had to go for work, and the kids stayed with relatives. They met their big sister, they nephew, and other family members. They had a good time. We visited the National Museum of Math. We had a lovely experience there but had to leave because we were hungry. The trip back was an adventure. It took us forever to leave; the delay was due to bad weather. We also almost missed the flight because in my mind I was running an hour behind, but once I saw people lining up at our gate, we rushed for it, and succeeded to board on time, and pick good seats.

Books and Reading

We slacked here a little because of the travel and because of family's visit, but we did read. We read most of the Native American tribe stories. We watched the map for each of the nations. We also watched the Trail of Tears. This saddened the kids but they realized why I am not head over heels with the American History told in schools. We have the Sioux, Seminoles and Iroquois to talk about and then we will move to African American history.

New Year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Ten Little Ladybugs

A friend of mine's daugther is graduating from high school this week. My friend shared a snipped of her daughter's writing in first grade. Sweet Memories. At the same time another friend shared a list of her children's favorite books.

I remembered Ten Little Ladybugs. We have read it hundreds of times and have loved it each and every time. I, however, do not ever remember having read it properly. I always made the text as we went along. Sometimes I talked about colors, other times about animals, and so on we went.

I am reading completely different books to my children now. We always take breaks from heavy reading by returning to the cuteness of the simple picture books. Last night we read these two cuties. Quite simple for my kids, at age 6 and 8, but still received very well. In fact, my older suggested that I read Mamasaurus for mother's day and Gator Dad for father's day.

The good book during the beginning years

I was fortunate to grow up with only good books. The astounding quantity of school books of low quality was unheard of when I was starting to learn to read. Until recently, I did not appreciate that. Having a daughter who is an emerging independent reader revealed that troubling truth to me. I had to beg her teachers to direct her towards shorter, meaningful stories. I was also troubled to find that the students do not read the same text. How, I ask, can these children learn to discuss a book, to share an opinion, to share discoveries, when they do not read the same text? I am baffled.

I was hoping that I can rely on the educators to help pick good books; alas, this is also in my court.

I have decided that I will ask my daughter to read shorter books with which she is already familiar.
The list I have in mind is the following:

• The enormous crocodile (level N) (November 2015)
• The magic finger (level N) (December 2015)
• Grace for President (N) (January 2016)
• Frindle (R) (January 2016)
• Miss Rumphius (level O) (January 2016)
• Mouse called Wolf (level O) (February 2016)
• Pippi Longstockings (level O) (March 2016)
• The mouse and the motorcycle (level O) (April-May 2016)
• Esio Trot(S) (July 2016)
• The Twits (S) (August 2016)
• Dr. Dolittle (September 2016)

In addition, once a week I will ask her to read a fable by Aesope, re-read it, narrate it and we will discuss it. The following day, I will ask her to re-read it and copy one page from the fable. Since the fables are short, I expect to teach her narration fairly easily this way. I want to prepare her for longer narrations and dictation from real literature pieces which we will begin next year.

I wish parents and educators would come together to rid the market of garbage. The magic of the reading experience is not in the quantity of pages read but in the quality of the message consumed. Look at how long the constitution is-it is quite short!

This week I also went to the Parent-Teacher conferences for both kids.

• The K-teacher told me that mirror image writing is developmental and should be resolved by the end of second grade. In first grade, in the second quarter, kids are marked off by having the d's and the b' reversed. How are these two practices consistent? 
• About the grading. Why write on second graders' spelling papers % correct, when the students do not understand the concept? Given that first the students will be introduced to fractions, why not simply go with reporting the fraction of correct answers from all. 

The themes for this month have been:

1. Evolution - We have dwindled on the subject for a while but I will at it for another month. It is very important as it can allow me to show the kids how science is done-how pieces are put together, how sacrifices are made, how fights are fought, how one person cannot do it all, how history interferes, etc. All important lessons, to be repeated and reiterated many times in the future.
• We read about Jane Goodall. We read about the ideas of Darwin-why evolution, the discoveries in the geological record, why natural selection. We also are reading a book about apes which we find very interesting. It talks about Chimps, Gorillas and Orangutans.
• I read "The Lucy Man", and am currently reading "The origins of man" and "The cartoon guide to genetics". I will narrate the information to the kids in shorter format next month. 
• We watched "Chimpanzee" and "Born to be wild", and we will see "Mountain Gorilla". So far the kids have enjoyed these types of films, some of which we have seen in the science museum theatres.
2. Ancient China
• We did not read much this month on the subject. We just watched a DVD we borrowed from the library and I recapped for them the main messages. Overall, we are golden on Ancient China. Before jumping to the Roman empire, we will revisit some old stories to link the two great empires and emphasize their similarieis and differences.
3. Free Style:
• Picture books never fail. We read "How Santa got his job" and "How Santa lost his job", "Dear Primo" and "Same, same but different". We talked about how people can be different because of where they live but how they can remain curious and respectful towards each other. We also talked about how the little things one learns to do can add up to something big, and how sometimes the biggest ideas can fail.It is good to have a plan B.
• "A long, long line" and "Thse darn squirrels" are our new wonderful finds. The former is surprising and cute. The first one is fantastic for budding engineers and is plain funny and good natured. Picture books are a real treasure that we take away from children too early!
• We continue to read The one and only Ivan. It is a hard book to read. Maybe I picked it too early but I thought it makes sense in the context of evolution-this Ivan thinks like us, feels like us, but is overpowered by us; yet, we perceive very little of him. We are half way and I intend to be done in the next week with it.
• I also read "Crenshaw". I was thinking of reading this for December. Goodness gracious, no! Such a bad book! Yes, the style works great for Ivan, but fails big time here. Sorry. The glove that fits them all is only a glove.
• I also read "The war that saved my life". I found this a very harsh book. I was uneasy throughout. It is very well written, the message is wonderful; in fact, all messages are wonderful. Definitely for a mature reader, somewhere higher middle school, high school. I am very happy I read this book even if I was left depressed.
4. Movies - Thanksgiving became Nerd Weekend
• We watched "The revenge of the nerds", "Spaceballs", and the three "Back to the future" movies this month.
• We also watched "Annie"
• I intend to have a Star Wars spectacular in the next few days, but I am waiting for the library to supply me with "New Hope" so that we can follow Machete Order. Nope, we did not like the Satr Wars movies. I have to confess that they never meant much to me, I managed to sleep through them consistently (the Matrix too). I am not surprised that my kids did not like them. 
5. Magformers:
• We got two sets which we love. One is the robot and the other is the rinabo 60-piece. Both are fabulous and allow for hours of free play. Both are challenging as none offers diractions just pictures of good perspective so that you can experiment and figure out the shape. 
• In addition, we received a free puzzle book, which we love. I used it to demonstrate how people imagined the constellations. I have never enjoyed the staring at the sky and trying to figure out where some group of stars is, but to understand how it came about is worthwhile. With the puzzle, we also learned that more than one solution to a problem is possible. This is quite a break-through, quite an advanced step for little kids, who only think of one solution and happily move on.
6. ThinkFun games:
• I am a big fan. Nowadays there are so many gadgets that are advertised as teachings kids how to program. Oh it is so easy to give in especially when understanding how invaluable the skill of programming is. However, I do not see better introduction to programming than the ThinkFun games, which teach you in a sneaky way, to follow a bunch fo rules to achieve a goal. 
• I would like to take that a step further. Science works in the following way. We are aware of partial information and we seek the rules that lead in a continuous way from one piece of information to the other. I value these games tremendously. I think they make a great gift.
• The games teach a lot of patience. 

 

In the summer of 2003, I got a temp job at a local museum. It was not a job, but rather a one day gig. I was supposed to check visitors' stabs to a particular exhibit and after lunch I sat bored at coat check. For a rather unremarkable gig, this turned out to be a rather remarkable day. The day I first heard the name of Jane Goodall. Wait! For a highly educated person, it is highly surprising that I dismissed her achievement as rather mundane and I did not pursue my finding by getting a book and learning more. In my defense, I was burnt from four years of college, having just finished, and frustrated that I did ot see value in what I had learn in the previous 4 years, and even the previous 16 years of life. So, sitting around and observing chimpanzees was hardly something I cared about in my insecurity.

Move forward 13 years, and I am very jealous of this Jane Goodall. Somehow she was lucky enough to want something at an early age, and to remember it, and to pursue it. I also adore Jane Goodall, and now is the right moment to share her inspirational story with my daughter and my son. So before we hit science, we will learn about the people who make science possible and who make progress possible.

"Untamed" is a great introduction to the scientist and the person Jane Goodall. It is presented by National Geographic and is filled with engaging photos and vivid stories which capture young minds. "The Watcher" is the picture book with which we began. It is wonderful - it is simple and points out the wonder of this woman's life.

"Gorillas" is a facts book. Aside from the illustrations and the maps there is nothing inspirational about this book. However, the illustrations are so beautiful that it is a must skim through for young readers and students when learning about the great works of naturalists like Charles Darwin and Jane Goodall. 

"Primates" is for older kids so we did not read it but I did. It is good and walking in, it is useful to know something about Leakey, Goodall, and the other two ladies. Great illustrations, definitely a wonderful read, but for middle school or even high school kids.

"Bone by bone" is wonderful too, to get little kids thinking about the human body, and what differentiates and connects us to other living things. Before jumping heads on into evolution, I decided that this is a fantastic stepping stone. I loved it.It engages the kids by invoking a response and teaches them at the same time.

"The truth about Poop". With little kids you can never get enough of poop talk. It is a favorite topic. For my purposes it is also a great vehicle to think about in what ways people and animals are alike in regards to poop. In what ways people and animals alike take advantage of the mere existence of poop. Strategies, thinking is demonstrated by various creatures and it is worth learning not to dismiss them as simpletons. And don't forget to emphasize that this encyclopedia of facts could not have been accumulated hadn't there been someone actively observing the creatures in their natural environment.


"The one and only Ivan". I love this book, it ties nicely with people and nature, as well as with our topic of evolution. We have already read the shorter version, which clearly states what has happened to Ivan. Now, we are about to venture into the story about Ivan, told from his point of view. I want to hear what the kids' reactions are before I provide my commentary.

We already read the real story about Winnie, now we are putting real living people into the picture in order to make the story even more valuable and real. Nature inspires us. It inspired the stories, the movies, an entire empire of amusement parks. The jungle book and Dr. DoLittle inspired Jane Goodall to study, love and protect nature. Books are fabulous tools for us to grow. This is the ultimate message that I will drive home. Books inspire us. Be inspired. Dream and pursue your dreams, however unconventional they may be. Go for it!

Fall in Focus

Little by little we are moving forward with history. Ancient Chinese history is particularly interesting because China and India's riches were the motivating power for the rise of imperialistic Europe. We start with fictional stories which contain sufficient real information to tie to more serious readings I weave in as the month progresses. Thus we started with "Adventures in Ancient China". The story is silly, but the important thing is that the characters are familiar and the format is fabulous. The characters are reading a book which takes them to experience the life during the time of the Hans dynasty. The travel guide reads like a textbook, but the kids are seeing with their own eyes, what archaeologists work hard to deduce. It's fabulous. Since the story referred to the Great Wall of China, I opened up the "The Great Wall of China" by Fisher book which I find quite well written and appropriate for my audience. Last week we visited the Field's museum and walked through an exhibit about China. Funny enough, we tied things we saw at the Ancient Egypt and the Vikings exhibits, to things we read about Ancient China. Example is the fact that when the smaller kingdoms were united they were quite different-used different money, different measures, etc-and this made the governance of the united entity difficult. We saw examples of different measures and money in the other exhibits and the kids understood that.

 We also briefly went back to picture books. Since we saw a Mammoths and Mastodons exhibit at the Fields museum last week, I figured it will be appropriate to read something, somewhat related. This is the silliness that I found in the library catalog. Nothing memorable, really, not by any stretch of the imagination even good, but otherwise, super easy, free flowing, and light in spirit, that I really did not mind reading these pair aloud one bit.


Here are the jams of the month. The adorable bear, a real bear. A real bear, a real boy, a real veterinarian. And then a real gorilla, mistreated by men, and then loved by men. The kids were saddened by both, but also left hopeful with the knowledge that something good happened. A war ended and a book for many was written. A resilient gorilla survived beyond anyone's wild expectations and taught people about the wild.  We will read the story "The one and only Ivan" after we acquaint ourselves with Leakey and Jane Goodall.

We are moving well along.

Soccer season is almost over and we are taken a two week break from sports activities before gymnastics begins! I am excited about gymnastics. It will carry us through the end of January.