August 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 2020 Homeschool Update:

5th Grade:

Math: PreAlgebra Ch 1

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

Portuguese: Simple Past Tense, Simple Present Tense, Lessons

7th Grade:

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

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

Portuguese: Simple Past Tense, Simple Present Tense, Lessons

Read Aloud: Ghost, Sitting Bull

Social Studies: Just Mercy (Movie)

Movie related to a book: The One and Only Ivan

Exercise: Bike, Basketball, Run, Swim, Hike

Here are our 5th and 7th grade curricula:

5th grade Curriculum:

Music: Daily Piano and Cello practice

Arts: Paper & Scissors recreation of battles

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

English Spelling: All About Spelling 5 & 6

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

Math: AOPS Pre-algebra and Geometry

Portuguese: Brasileirinho, reading, Gramatica Ativa 1

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

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

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

7th grade Curriculum:

Music: Daily Piano and Violin practice

Arts: Whatever she finds on the internet

English Writing: IEW- Modern History

English Spelling: All About Spelling 6 & 7

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

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

Portuguese: textbook, reading, Gramatica Ativa 1 & 2

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

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

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

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.

Theme: International Trade along the Silk Route

Officially, we are beginning the study of human history.

Our first topic is trading. We will attempt to answer the following questions:

1. who is merchant?

• her answer: someone who exchanges things such as 'delvi','kilimi', jewels.
• my answer: they can produce the goods they trade or they can buy the goods they trade. if the merchant is a farmer and his cows give too much milk, he can trade the extra milk for flour, or for some other good he needs. if  the merchant  has bought something, he can sell it to someone who does not have anything to exchange; the customer will give him money and the merchant can exchange the money from the transaction for something he needs. people have done this in the past; people still do this today. 
• my follow-up question: what things people trade today?

1. what is trading
2. is trading necessary?
3. who is doing the trading?
4. what is being traded?
5. who takes risks and why? What is a payoff?

We will talk about the exchange of goods in the ancient world (spices, glass, silk, etc.), germs (the plague) , knowledge (numbers astronomy, medicine), plants, animals (horses), people (slavery) and religious beliefs.

We will discuss the same questions as they are realized in the world today- and observe how little or how much the world has changed from the past until today.

My children love the stories from 1001 nights. They are very familiar with three that deal with merchants- Ali Baba and the 40 thieves,Alladin and the magic lamp and Sinbad the Sailor. We will start with these and answer the questions- what is a trade, why it is done, is it needed, what is profit, who was telling these stories and why, is it one story or many stories retold many times and morphed into what we read today (this will lead us into understanding why books are useful, why print is useful and how it has helped the knowledge of the world spread and expand by not having to be recreated/re-discovered constantly). Update 9/22/2014: We read the travels of Sinbad, and we did discuss what a trader is. We did discuss how the merchant becomes richer and richer. The adventures were a little too fantastic and scary for my kids and as a result were not loved but were tolerated. What we actually learned from the book was the location of Baghdad, the port of Al-Bassrah, the Tigres river which connects the two and the location of Persia, as well as why rivers were essential as gateways for merchants and travellers.



We will then read A single pebble, Silk Route and we will read a few books about camels to understand more about the journey people back in the day took on foot. We will, hopefully, end with the need for new routes which led the Spanish and the Portuguese to start exploring the seas. The Spanish exploration of the New World will be next month's topic. Update 9/22/2014: A single pebble travels along the Silk Route from the hands of one child in the East to the hands of another child in the West. If you want you can even relate it to messages contained in the other two books we have read earlier in the summer: Dear,Primo or Same, Same but Different. Silk Route is a fabulous picture book on the subject. 

 Update 9/22/2014: This book is fabulous. Since along the Silk Route people relied on camels during the toughest portions of the trip I figured it is only natural to read about camels. And we learned a lot. We learned a lot about how the camels have adapted to their environment to survive. We learned about their roaming habits which is yet another adaptation. We learned about their evolution and closest relatives. Overall, I highly recommend this book by itself or as part of a unit study on the Silk Route.

Update 9/22/2014: Last year when we read about the Silk Route I read this book but it seamed very detailed so I was not planning on including it this time around. I am so glad that I made the trip to our library in order to get it. This is a fabulous book about the Mongols and the period during which they ruled China. This man reminds me a lot of our Bulgarian great tsar Simeon. The two invested in the sciences, the arts and war, but exhausted all of their resources very easily which eventually led to the demise of their power. This begs the question-just because the empire was at its best during your ruling, if you through your ruling we putting the seeds for disaster, should you really be labelled as a great ruler? I don't think you should be given the praises. Either way, the book is great and I highly recommend it. If you want to revisit this part of history at any time, do include it - teenagers, adults, kids, all will enjoy it and learn sufficiently from it. When we review this book in a few days when we read about Marco Polo's visit I will highlight a few things: 1) uniting the tribes make them stronger, 2) stick with what you know best-land combat if this is your strong side, don't go into sea warfare, 3) excessive festivities, 4) interest in the arts and the sciences, 5) long life span of the mongols because of their discipline, diet and overall rigorous lifestyle, 6) too much land, very difficult to maintain control and current even with the great solution of the pony express.

Update 9/22/2014: We have not read this book yet, but it is a good idea to connect history to the world today. People can use things for good and for bad; people can be good and bad to each other (the mongol tribes were warring one another until finally Ghangiz Khan united them into one powerful army; Khan Kubrat's will to his sons)-in this book people are abusing a boy and camels. It's good to have a sense of how cruel the real world can be. This book we will read tomorrow and discuss the issues. When reading this book I will remind the kids about a few things we learned about camels: 1) people use them for milk, transport, meat and wool, 2) they are well adapted to the desert life (nostrils, fur, calluses, eyelashes, humps, roaming from oasis to oasis), 3) they were domesticated in Asia and hunted out in North America and there disappeared like the Mammoths.


Update 9/22/2014: My intention was to cover The History of Money this month but we will wait to do this in October.

 

The History of Money we will read this month during our discussion of trading, merchants, travelling. Toilets, Telephones and other useful inventions we already read. I am including all three because they are of a very particular genre that appeals to me. A genre of books that creates an overall big-picture understanding of concepts in history-things that textbooks and historians completely overlook when they delve into specific facts and dates. I have the feeling that nothing, absolutely nothing, can be values truly out of its context. This applies to history and to literature equally. The big picture is essential, the details are too. Neither alone is enough. I think that an understanding of money from a historical point of view- how it occurred, why it occurred, how it had evolved-is very important in order to raise responsible youth. Understanding how non-scientific method view of the world led to some of the biggest human catastrophes that almost wiped out humanity from the face of the planet is essential in order to raise generations who appreciate science and align their thinking away from 'oh it makes sense' to 'oh i can convince myself of this'. Textbooks try to bring the big picture but concentrate on 1)wars and 2)rulers and 3)roots and causes rooted into human psychology only. The objections I have are that the roots and causes of historical events are driven by human psychology, geology and state of humanity. Textbooks miss on the geology, the natural world that affects the outcomes and the choices people make. Textbooks miss on the discussion of the state of the world-what people's lives were like, what produced one change or another, what produced agreement/disagreement. For instance, all my life I was taught that King Simeon the Great is the greatest Bulgarian king. He is still looked on with this label but now the reasonableness of his military campaigns in view of the state of the average countryman is being examined and the conclusion that will be reached one day is that the man was a reckless warrior/blood-shedder, who wanted a place in history and sought one sure way to get it.

Language Arts- Reading

I started Ballet Girl on some more interesting stories. Since they are longer, I read them to her before she attempts to read them herself.  The stories that I have picked are funny stories, stories that she can laugh with and stay engaged. This particular story we read as a read-aloud last October and it proved to be very entertaining.







Pirate Mom, oh, my! This is a fantastic, silly story. Sunlight boy could not start laughing. Great story to keep you entertained. If you want to go deep you can discuss if we always know the consequences of what we want. Sometimes, often, we do not know in what ways the world around us will be impacted by a particular action or phrase of ours.

And, last but certainly not least, here is this gem of a silly story about a stinky giant and how he impacts the lives of two kids. Again one can relate it to the message that since we are not alone in the Universe, we might as well be mindful of others our actions and words can impact. I highly recommend this stories for their entertainment value as read-alouds, and as self-paced readers. Since the text is longer than what Sunlight boy has been reading thus far, we split the reading over 3-4 days. Knowing the story upfront helps her, plus before she begins the new section, we review/recall/re-read the story thus far.


My child is approaching the fluency stage; she decodes and deduces from the context with relative ease bigger, unknown words. However, she is not interested in chapter books without pictures or in chapter books with only black pictures. She is interested in funny, silly, colorful child fiction. The series listed above
satisfy her desires.

I do not like the early chapter books that are typically recommended to readers at this stage. The only chapter books that I have found satisfying are the Piggy books and the Mercy Watson books. Most chapter books intended for the emergent reader are plain dull and speak down to the reader. Some even use incorrect grammar and/or spelling. My main complaint is the content. I am glad that there are interesting, simple non-chapter book alternatives that we can resort to at this stage.

Good Books

Oh, so funny! The story is narrated from the point of view of Charlie, the dog. He tells us about a typical day in his life on the farm. Aside from a very pleasant reading this book offers a great opportunities for teachers-practice telling a story from the first person including what a typical day in once's life is like.

 A very pretty book! As with many picture book biographies or introductions to historical figures or events or places, the picture book fails to be the communicator of the information; it merely serves as a supplement. I think this is a failure of this genre of books. I pick them up expecting them to carry out the information that they often contain in the back. I felt disappointed by the like of We're going to Mexico, We're sailing the Galapagos for this reason. Sadly, this book, while very pretty, fell in the same trap. I would recommend it for children who already know something about Mozart and Wolfgang and who are at least somewhat familiar with Europe and the period during which he siblings lived. It is a great, refreshing supplement at that stage of growth but not before.                                                                                                          

  

This is a series a books which both parents and children will enjoy tremendously. The characters are borrowed from oh-so-well-known fairy/folk-tales, but the problems and the challenges and the solutions are oh-so-modern and oh-so-real that I challenge a single parent not to see himself being caught in at least one of the situations presented in the series. Children will view the presented circumstances and solutions differently but this is precisely the reason this books will not fade from popularity any time soon and will bridge and be relevant to many age groups. I loved them and highly recommend them to all ages to enjoy, either as a read-aloud, as a self-read, or as an easier independent reader.

Adults love to think that kids are very sophisticated. Sorry to break it to you, stupid adults, but kids are kids and I like them that way, simple and honest without the burden of reality on their shoulders. Many books, such as this one and many other award-winning books are forced into the classrooms and turn our children away from finding the joy in reading. It worked for me, after seventh grade I hated reading. I resorted to cliff-notes type of aides for two reasons 1)they gave a flat-out opinion and defended it 2) they contained all the information I needed to pass silly tests and 3) they deciphered a lot of mystery. After a while I stopped even trying to read-I went straight to the cheat-sheets, and I cheated myself out of the joy of reading and I blamed myself and put myself down. As an adult now, I realize it was not my fault. It was the fault of all adults who thought I was an adult before I was ready. The solution America found was-the easy reader series. Boom, another extreme. Sorry, but a bunch of dumb stories is another sure way to turn kids away from enjoying reading. So, I have embarked on the journey of finding the middle ground, the just-right books-good for mastering the skill of reading and good for satisfying the mind. About this book. I loved it. But this book is not for children to read. It is for children to be read to. It is a great supplement or even a spleen for a unit study of Peru or South America, but it needs to be supported with a lot of visuals, and with a lot of historical and geographical background. It can be used in a fifth-grade classroom, even a fourth-grade, and the children can be assigned readings of related easier texts, but this one should be read by the teacher and the discussion should be led by the teacher. Do not torture your children, do not put them down, enrich them and support them. Update 8/24/2014:  I finished this book today. It took me a while and it was driving me crazy with its monotone. This book could easily be abridged to 5 pages without loss of any information. I understand having hiked in the Andes that the stillness and the short sentences are perfect for that setting but the journey to the traveler is one thing, the journey to the reader is  whole another experience. This book simply overused and abused the settings. The book had many inaccuracies/ inconsistencies, the most remarkable of which is the thoughts of the boy at the sight of the monks. The kid knows nothing about Catholicism but lo and behold! he says their father is God and their brothers are the other monks! Seriously! (While typing this review I noticed that the program insisted on capitalizing Catholicism and insisted on single l for traveler but when I deliberately spelled with lower case god it did not insist on capitalizing it!) This book is no different than the Alchemist by Paolo Coelho, so I am wondering who stole from whom? Lastly, I question the committee that gives the Newbury Medlals for literature. I am still to find a good winner with this one being no exception. I have been reading them because in fifth grade the kids are required to find one Newbury winner book and read it and write a report on it. With so many lousy choices I am not surprised kids do not like reading. 

There is a blog that I follow and it featured this book as a read-aloud in first grade. I picked it up and found it dull right away. The design of the plot is nothing extraordinary, in fact, it is painfully ordinary. Here is the summary-an unpopular and unlikely pet saves the day. You are done. I also found this book difficult to read because it contains a lot of London-specific terms, so unless you cover London and England well prior to reading, many parts of this book will be enigmatic. Since I was not interested in talking about London, I chose to not even bother reading aloud this book to the kids. If  they find it on their own and choose to read it and find it enjoyable, I will be very pleased. I do not think this is a good read-aloud at any grade level.

Book Recommendations

I participate once again in the my local library's summer reading program. This year the theme is numbers-read books which contain numbers either in the title or as a strong motif and you earn more tickets towards prizes.

This book is the first number book I absolutely loved. It's great for busy families. For parents and for children who are so soaked into following their dreams. A few years ago at one of my daughter's birthdays I was taking so many pictures that I completely missed the party. I remembered this when I was reading this book. It's wonderful. It's very human, very simple, touching, funny, witty. It speaks to the potential of all kids, to the dreams of all kids, to the struggles and ingenuity of all kids and the adults in their lives. Please read this book with and to your children. You will laugh and you will feel closer. I guarantee it.


Then there was this gem. One beetle too many. I missed on learning about evolution while I was in school. Mind you, I also attended one of the top science schools in the country and in the world! My career has taken me into the exciting path towards thinking about evolution, thinking about how small changes to a system can have profound long term effects, something clearly cut for a dynamics studies. Well, this book is a wonderful and may I say, cleaner account of evolution and the genius of Darwin and the people who believed in him. The theory that very easily could have been so wrong if it wasn't for the genius of this man who happened to believe something unfathomable. It took generations and a lot of learning and understanding to finally believe this theory. One more reason to admire people with ideas and to let them thrive. Today, when funding is scrutinized by people who do not understand how science works, who do not understand how you can spend hours and hours on something and turning in nothing or something completely different than what you started on to look for. Science is the drive, and the discover is just the cherry on top of the ice-cream. Darwin was the foundation. It took, however, many scientists, many lives, many visionaries to make him as renown and his theory as revered.
Here is a You Tube narration of Charlie and the Kiwi, which explains in a very simplified and incomplete way the concept of evolution-a good beginning, but only a starting point.

Speaking of understanding Evolution, this book offers a fabulous starting point. Very little biology is required. The book clearly walks through the evidence that Darwin had in support of his theory along with the exact arguments and objections and exceptions he had considered. From a historical perspective, the book offers not only a point in time account of Darwin's genius but also long-term to current day account of the support that science from various fields has provided for the theory. After reading this book carefully, I also recommend: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago as well as What Evolution is by Ernst Mayr


The kids have also been participating in the kids' summer reading program and along with the other books I have listed already, here are a few additional once we have enjoyed in the last week:

                         

From Head to Toe, I used in Portuguese and we sang Cabeca,Ombro, Joelho e Pe. We will use it again when we are learning the parts of the body. Marco and his adventures we also used in Portuguese to talk about travel and destinations and animals we know of in our other languages. I am happy with this use and highly recommend it as an alternative to buying bi-lingual or foreign-language books. If you know sufficiently a language, or better yet if you are native speaker, there is no reason you cannot translate. You should for your children's sake! Happy reading!

Update 6/16/2014:  Due to some teething issues on my end, I was home all of yesterday and I spent the day reading. I read the following very good books-I enjoyed reading both but without the training as a kid I would have fallen for the first one without much thinking. The first book is nothing but a really bad propaganda piece and should be studied as such with all of its incompleteness and mistakes pointed out. As I said, as a child I was bombarded with similar propaganda and while the stories were fascinating, early on I realized they are a BS. The second book is great-a fairy tale from the Oriental that may very easily appeal to girls 6th grade and up. 

As I have already pointed out in prior posts we are reading a lot about the Rainforest. Tthe kids' portuguese books emphasize recycling and the need to care for the Rainforest ecosystem.  Since we are learning about South America, I have decided to extend out study and read stories from South American countries. For some of these, I have visuals to enhance the comprehension and the learning: pictures, newspapers, other books. Here are the books I absolutely loved (there is one more on the way about Argentina):

This book is a fairy tale from Argentina, and the importance of rain to the people; it's about the beliefs that they held and how they acted on these beliefs.Update 7/25/2014: We will not be reading this book because it is complicated to understand by little kids. I will come back to it when we discuss legends and various peoples' beliefs.

Update 7/28/2014: This book, On the Pampas, is wonderful. It's about a real girl who spends the summer at her grandparent's farm away and learns to care and ride horses. Ballet girl is starting to enjoy books about real people and real places. Sunlight boy is absolutely fascinating with South America because the Ring of Fire passes through there and anything related to volcanic activities is highly prized in his world:). I am going to print a large (2x2) South America map that we will use in our studies of the people and the countries. I am going to use the maps available at this site. 

This book comes from Chile and points out two characteristics of the country-its wine production and its earthquakes. Great for putting into geographical context the kids' knowledge of the tectonic activities in this area with the outcome-rich soil and unpredictability. This is a sweet book.

 This is my person favorite. I can support it strongly with personal records which makes it that much more special to me. The book is very easy flowing, very colorful, very truthful. My favorite part were the last 4-6 pages which present a very concise but also very appetizing summary/insight into the Inca culture-then and now. A very good read.

 This books is fabulous. With very simple images the authors teaches the contemporary american child about simpler life and connection to the earth and true friendship. This book comes from the author's personal observations of a Costa Rican family and how they related to each other and their land. Touching story, beautifully narrated and beautifully captured.

Update 7/28/2014: We are also using the following books from the Country ABCs series. Costa Rica ABCs and Guatemala ABCs. I found the information in them very good and relevant to the current news. Today many immigrants, especially children, from Central America are escaping into the US. It is good for my children to understand how lucky they are to have been born here and how much people elsewhere struggle, and the reasons for that.

Movies and Concerts

The buzz about Frozen has been so huge that it picked my curiosity and I ordered the movie through our library. Yes, it was a good film, but this is as far as I am willing to go with the praises. The ending was nothing new if you already know Shrek. The movie itself was nothing more than the drawing board for a big money musical on Broadway. The humor in the movie was light and it appealed to me. I like movies which appeal to the child in me and do not remind me that I am a grown-up. On that point alone I think the movie does deserve a five-star rating.

While we were at the library on Sunday, Ballet girl started talking about Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I was surprised that she knew about it. Turned out that during her music class some of the musical numbers were shown to the kids. Since we happened to be at the library, I picked up the book and we collectively picked up the movie. We saw it later that evening and it was very well received. I liked it too. I did not discuss the story but I think that if the kids choose to read the book as a read-aloud, we will discuss the characters and the consequences and the behaviors, and then we will watch the movie again. I will put it to a vote for next month's big read-aloud.

Update 6/17/2014: I purchased the DVD from Amazon for $3.96 and I was pleased to discover that Brasilian Portuguese is one of the language options and one of the subtitle options. Very beneficial. Lucky find:)

We also went to an outdoor concert by the community band. It was quite nice, actually. The music selection was very pleasant. The kids listened, played. 

Finally Summer!

Finally, it is summer-ish! We have had a few 80+ degree weather days. We have been spending most of our time outdoor. We even went to the pool on Saturday, May 31-the earliest EVER!

Our Bulgarian friends are planning to move to Indiana in August, so we are spending as much time with them as possible. The kids are. They really play well together. Especially, after this crazy winter which had us all pinned inside for SO LONG!



Ballet girl went on a field trip to the zoo with her class. I chaperoned which was very enjoyable! However, be warned that a bus full of kindergartners is much closer to one's understanding of a zoo than the actual zoo. As I put it -I went with the zoo to the zoo! I have to add that my observations revealed that there are some very creative kids out there and I implore parents far and wide not to stop their kids from killing the boredom of a school bus ride with creativity. These three very energetic boys who sat in front of me invented a fishing game-they used their school ids which were tied to a string as a fishing rod which they passed through the opening separating the seat from the back of the seat. Clever and Fun!  Sunlight boy also went on a field trip. His class visied a wild life preserve in Joliet. Both trips were fantastic experiences for the kids. Thank you to the school district for sending all elementary classes on a field trip this year.

School will be officially over next week. Dance will be over too-the recital is on June 14. The piano recital is on June 15. So, summer is really knocking on the door! The activities that we have planned are: Lego class in mid-June, swimming classes-2 weeks in June and 2 weeks in July.

 First, and foremost, we plan on following closely the World Cup. Especially com Brasil em mente e no coracao. Vai selecao! A gente ja tem o fuleco em casa, graca a nossa amiga Fatima do Recife. A gente ja tem uma bola brazuca, a bola mais cientifica das todas as copas mundial! Vai ser uma festa mundial no Brasil. Eu gostaria muito de ficar mas nao planejou bem, entao a gente so vai assistir.

Yes, we loved Poppy so much, her adventures with Mr. Ocax were so well enjoyed that we went on to read the adventures of Ragweed, technically the prequel to Poppy. When we finished Poppy, we spent one evening reviewing the book. We talked about our favorite parts-Sunlight boy loved the fights and the part when Poppy gets into Ereth's bathroom; for Ballet girl-the thrill was the daring journey to the New House. We also talked about how the characters change during the story-how Poppy changes from a scared, timid mouse to a daring, questioning one; how Mr. Ocax changes from a villain to a very intimidated by a rival owl, the clear sign of a bully; how Lungwort changes from a leader, to a fearful messenger, to a lost, hopeless loser, to a bragging told-you-so unnervingly boasting attitude. The amount of information the kids remembered was astounding, and the book was a good starting point for deeper discussions. We started with Ragweed, and right off the bet, we started comparing and contrasting the two books-how Ragweed parts with her family versus how Poppy parts with her family; how Ragweed feels starting on his journey versus how Poppy feels emerging onto hers; what Ragweed fears versus what Poppy fears; how Clutch is different than Ereth; how Silversides is different than Mr. Ocax. How the boy in the book about Poppy plays a different role than the girl in the book of Ragweed. I love these books. They get me to have good discussions with my kids and to lead them to think not only at what is literally in front of them but also to think in the context of what they have already encountered and experienced. The books in this series will be required reading in either fourth or fifth grade along with a book report and a creative activity attached.
Aside from discussing the characters as they are, we have also talked about survival in nature. Yes, Mr. Ocax terrifies the mice but in order for him to survive he has to eat. Yes, the mice have to survive so they have to find food, and have to migrate towards where there is abundance of food. What happens if there is not enough food? The mice split or die. We discussed this dynamics in the context of Evolution-how the changing environment, in this case lack of food, shapes the choices the population has. We discussed why there is one owl and many mice, the food chain, and how the number of each animal is controlled. As I said, I love this series of books and I highly recommend them to educators and parents.

We did not talk much about plants as I had hoped. The last two months have been occupied with ad-hoc activities which had taken a good chunk of our reading time. This book however is great. One page per topic with very good illustrations. We are reading one page per night, and after we are through, we will re-read but also demonstrate or observe during nature walks what this book indicates. I am excited.

Portuguese is going very very well. We read Macaco Danado, Abraco, Familias Divertidas, Se voce grita no zoologico, Choco encontra uma mae. These books went well with the zoo theme at school and with mother's day which took place in May. The kids remembered a lot of the vocabulary. They can both answer simple yes, no questions-they understand the questions that are asked and answer them. They also occasionally offer in their response the correct word. Since we have been reading a lot about mice, most of the portuguese books we will be reading will include mice as protagonists. We already read O rato do campo e o rato da cidade, O Rato Roeu a Ropa do Rei de Roma. There is the Rato e o morango maduro and some others. I have also started reading some Contos da fada. I received the book pictured here from Brasil. It is a first grade-learn to read and write portuguese book. It is great but we will mostly use it to learn to speak starting now, and in second grade we will use it to learn to read. The progress I have seen in my kids in the last few weeks has been very encouraging. Com a copa mundial eu tenho ainda mais esperanca, e como a communidade brasileira organiza uma festa juninha sera ainda mais especial. Este ano e o ano da Lingua Portuguesa na minha casa. So da sorte!

February Books

In January we read The Adventures of Pinnocchio by Carlo Colodi, all 256 pages. 

Before moving to a new chapter, we reviewed what has happened thus far in the story. We would comment on who is good, who is bad, what would be an alternative, more desirable behavior. Then we will dive into the new chapter. 

For Sunlight boy this was the first big read-aloud. He was thrilled and enchanted by the unlikely adventures which are simply so fascinating. He kept on talking about Pinnocchio and anticipating the evening readings.

The book is lovely and offers plenty of ideas to explore. We read about Whales; we made paper boats and paper ships; and we made a Pinnocchio doll from craft sticks and colored paper.

We also watched the Disney movie in Portuguese. Thank you, YouTube!

In February we read A Mouse Called Wolf. Ballerina girl and I read this book during the summer. 

One evening, as we were approaching the end of The Adventures of Pinnocchio we brainstormed which book to read next. One option was 'School Days According to Humphrey' by Betty Birney. This was the book, the school which my children attend read together this month. (last year the selection was 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' ). However, when I pre-read the story, I did not like it. I told Ballerina girl: 'You can read it when you are older. I simply did not like it enough and I don't think I will do a good job reading it aloud.' This was accepted well and we continued brainstorming. Since by the cover it was clear that the story is about a mouse, Ballerina girl recalled The Mouse and the Motorcycle. I agreed that this is a fantastic option, and I will go in the basement bookshelves to find it.  Before I went anywhere, Ballerina girl thought of this lovely little book. She remembered it and she liked it. She was also thrilled that it is about a mouse and a lady who plays the piano, because Ms. Ballerina plays the piano too. 

'A Mouse called Wolf' is a very simple book. Simple and yet very touching. There is a lot to remark and to notice-the loneliness of the lady, the gift of music which fills her days (something I relate to deeply), the friendships music creates, the friendship with the least likely characters, acceptance, values, abilities and hidden talents, hard work and persistence. In our daily piano practice Wolf comes up a lot (we do not offer chocolates though).

Ballerina girl liked Flat Stanley. We discussed at length the pros and cons of being flat. It's a fantastic book to get a child to think about 'what if' and 'if I were'. Let them imagine. What would they find in a manhole? Where else would they want to go unnoticed? Sunlight boy did not like this book. He was burned by the back-to-back lengthier read-alouds.







Ballet books loved by both children:

Three read-aloud tips:
1. Pre-read the book. Make sure you like it. If you don't, it will show.
2. Read slowly and discuss plenty. Guide the discussions so they don't roam the world.
3. Space the read-alouds. There is not rush. There is no gold medal. Reading and listening should be enjoyable, not a duty.

Happy Reading:)

Update 2/28/2014:

The books I have been listing are not an exhaustive list of all we read. Every evening I read one book that I pick (recently, these have been the chapter books I have listed), one book that Sunlight boy picks and one book that Ballerina girl picks. We read Lego books, we read princess books, we read fairy tales, I make sure we read Bulgarian poems too.