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.

Olympics

We spent another week at Portuguese Family camp, Mar e Floresta, in Bemidji, MN. It was lovely. A bit cold, but lovely. I met Sophia who is a professor of portuguese language and Sivana who is a brasilian teaching portuguese. I learned about brasilian folclore. I had read some brasilian folkstories but they did not make sense to me. Bulgarian, Russian folclore is straight forward because I am familiar with these cultures. Brasilian folclore also makes sense once some historic background is provided. I was very happy to learn what I did. My kids had a blast. On the way to camp we went to the Mall of America, we visited Todd and Tory. On the way back we went to lake Itasca, met with Minneapolis friends and went to a water park. At camp the kids learned a good deal, even the little guy spoke. The food was fantastic too. The counselors were very helpful, friendly and nice. All the activities were entertaining and engaging. I recommend this camp. I wish more families would participate because it is more enjoyable with more people. I envy my girl now because in her camp there are many kids. She is having a blast. I wish day camp were offered so that the little man would have taken advantage as well. Next year!

Our trip to Minnesota led us to a synegogue which was hosting an exhibit. The theme of the exhibit is what spiked my curiosity. The exhibit had as objective to highlight the strength of civil disobedience demonstrated by the bulgarians during the last days of WWII; actions which, as the exhibit was attempting to protray, were responsible for the saved lives of at least 40,000 jewish bulgarians.

I was disappointed because I have never been present at an exhibit which proves the anti-thesis of its claim. The summary is that under pressure from the third reich, the bulgarian authorities implemented laws which stripped all jewish bulgarians of their civil, political and social rights. Many were sent to labour camps, others were expelled from the larger cities into villages where they had to live in schools, friends' or stranger's homes, and had to rely on hand-downs because they were denied the right to work. Upon further pressure from the reich, towards the end of the war, even after germany began its demise, the bulgarian authorities carried out laws that put all jewish residents from the annexed territories (Macedonia and Thracia) on to trains to the death camps.Towards the very, very end, when the intelligentia most likely did not expect serious repruccusions did it assmble ralleys and demonstrations. A bit too late to be hailed as heros of freedom. Nothing on the scale of rescue effort carried in Northern Europe.

Since the topic came to us, I slowly eased my children into it. We read The Harmonica, The Greatest Ice Skating Race, Baseball Saved Us, and as a counterpoint to the generalization that all japanese were bad, we also read Passage to Freedom which illustrates the true events which took place in the Japanese embassy in Lithuania right at the beginning of the war, and the efforts of the japanese embassador, despite the disapproval of Japan, to rescue hundreds of refugees by issuing them papers which permitted them to travel west, away from the war.

The olympics in Brasil are right around the corner and this is extra motivation to revisit the origin of the games, their revival, talk about some great athletes, and some memorable olympic games. We already read Living in Brasil, which I found quite nice-a beautiful overview of information my kids already knew.

We are going to read about some exceptional athletes that inspire us to reach out, rise from obscurity, dream big and work hard to achieve. We are going to read about Wilma Rudolph, and Jesse Owens. While not related directly to the olympic games which are televised, Emanuel's dream is related to the paraolympic games, which are inspiration in their own right. This year we have been reading very inspirational stories: Ada's violin and the Boy who harnessed the wind, among them. I am inspired to continue finding books that lift the human spirit and human ambition. The book on Jesse Owen is a bit more detailed than what I would prefer, so we will read some and skip some, but we will tie it to Hitler Germany. In addition, I will tell the kids the story of the Boys in the Boat because it is remarkable. I will tell them about WWI, The Great Depression, and the fall out of Germany due to reparation payments to tie it to the rise of Hitler's extreme nationalism in the 30s.






Voices in the park is an interesting book that I found. I was reading Wonder which reminded me of Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. I wondered if there is a picture book which illustrates the literary structure of retelling a story from many different view points. I think this is a very interesting technique. It helps capture what is interesting to each character, and gives deep insight into the character's being. I am very pleased with how the concept is developed and revealed in this tiny picture book. I recommend it.

In portuguese we are currently reading Juca Brasileiro e a Mata Atlantica. I think we will finish and talk about reciclagem before moving on to a story book. There are a few Ruthe Rocha books that I would like to read to the kids before the end of the month. Portuguese is going well. Ballet girl is in camp, is having a great time and is making friends. Sunlight boy is right across the camp with his grandparents. He is in Bulgarian camp in which only two other people speak bulgaria-the grandparents!




The following are my readings for this month. I am very passionate about the election. I think that the country is in a pivotal spot in its evolution and can tip over. Unfortunately the options are not good. Saving Capitalism is an interesting reading, detailing some of the misconceptions of how the economy works and how it is controlled and by whom, The free market, the hallmark of capitalism, is a game whose rules are designed and enforced by the government. When rich people with powerful interests invest in the government to stir into  desired direction, we have corruption. The modern word is rigged, but it is corruption.

The interest of the few is observed at the cost of the well-being of the many. I also enrolled, late, in the local library's reading program for the summer. The topic is sprots related. I am reading Goldfish towards that goal. So far I find the book funny.  I am also reading Night Divided, which was given to me by a friend. This is a book about the Berlin wall. It is quite interesting because it speaks a lot of things I know for certain occurred behind the iron curtain. I do not like the voice, the "I can defeat them", "I can go against the regime" voice. It did not exist. Even one's thoughts were not harbor such bravery because the thoughts were read and interpreted as well. I am not buying the authenticity in the voice of the book. I will finish and wrap up my criticism.


While the kids are away in portuguese camp, I have been busy with picking up the violin and moving forward with piano. I am also reading more portuguese books that we have at home. I am also preparing for some of the science units that I would like to cover this year: Hydrolics, Microscopes, Simple Machines and Solar Energy. I am hoping that we can use any of these as the basis for science fair project. I feel like I am making progress and this is good.

Update: July 25, 2016

 Ali is a nice biography. It offers plenty of historical and personal references to bring the story into context. I do not like boxing, I find this discipline inappropriate as an olympic sport in the current understanding of the term Olympics, which envokes the notion of respect and comraderie. Boxing is violent. I, as a result of these preconceptions, read the biography out of curiosity, mainly driven by the fact the Ali passed away this year, the both the traditional medua channels and social media went overboard in recognizing him and his convictions. After reading the biography. I have a better understanding of some aspects of US history that I never knew-the Nation of Islaam, MalcomX, the Vietnam war and the resistence to it. I also did not know that the guy who talks about Idea, the ad, is the same formidable George Forman that Ali faced. I never knew, but always wondered, what sort of TV personality was this George ad man. Now, I know. I also respect Ali a little bit more, although I believe his behavior was narcisisstic, arrogant and disrespectful. Reading, I recalled back in the late 80s when Lady Tatcher, the prime minister in UK resigned, I heard someone say: "this is a smark woman. she knows when to step down-at the pinnacle of her performance". The precise opposite happened to Ali. I enjoyed the reading, but I will not cover it in our read-akoud sessions because it touches on too many, too complex issues which at this moment are inaccessible to either child.

This is a beautifully written story about Nadia Kumaneci from Romanian, the first gymnist to score perfect 10 in international competition. The story is well narrated, the illustrations are captivating. Few important historical moments and behaviors are outlined, making this book a great conversation starter for the meaning and the attitude towards the olympics in the last century. We will be reading this book very soon.

This was my Sunday, by the pool reading choice. Clearly, I picked the wrong spot. I find this book rather depressing. It depicts times in history which are feorcious and dirty, hummiliating and revolting. More than that, the story touches on some fundamental elements which make such atrocities possible. In particular, people tend to be naive, and with respect to the likelihood of bad events believe that it will not happen to them. In addition people still, after thousands of years of evolution, and especially a 300 rapid period of knowledge gathering, believe in fictional make-believes, tales dictated by men for some men's goals; tales that should long be irrelevant and yet are, by our collective mentality to believe in something simple, something superior, something perfect. I see it as nothing more than a convenient excuse. Oh, this happened. Well, clearly this was the wish of my god, what can I do. In this regard I have to say that I believe that we bulgarians have the best folklore. Nevolyo!

Simple Hydraulics machines has been our focus during the last two days. From the projects that are displayed we built two-the box and the bridge. Our bridge is two-sided.Before the kids returned from camp I built a hydraulic crane. We will talk about pressure and force in describing the machines. I will use these two projects to intorduce them to some scientific vocabulary. I will also encourage the kids to look around for situations or real machines where hydraulic implementations are possible.
From Hydraulics we will jump into solar energy and electricity. The associated activities are for next month. This month activities thus far have been a success!

New School Year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curriculum for 2014/2015: Pre-School and First Grade

Below is the curriculum we will follow during the 2014/2015 school year. Our curriculum will include a lot of reading, a lot of hand-on experiences and live events. I will continue to keep a monthly list of the books we have read aloud and the events we have attended and of otherwise the interesting things we have been exposed to.

Sunlight Boy

Sunlight boy will be one more year in Pre-K here at our local public school. The goal for him at school is to continue to improve his English. As was the case with his sister, we will keep the educational component of life simple and plain fun.

Math: During the summer of 2014, we will finish Singapore Math-level 1 books. During the 2014/2015 school year we will study the Singapore Math 2A & 2B books; most likely we will begin these sequence in October. Update 10/8/2014: we started 2A this week., I couldn't believe that the boy whom the local public school considers behind in everything imaginable and who didn't know the numbers just a year ago has finished first grade level math! He is not even 5 yet! 


English:  I rely on the program at the public school to help him learn English, grow his vocabulary and understanding. On my end, starting in January 2015, I will begin to work on letter/letter-combo--sound correspondence. We will start with what is the first/last letter of <> word. Starting in May 2015, I plan on introducing the first Bob books; this may happen earlier if the previous step is solidified earlier than I envision.

Bulgarian: I will continue to practice reading words with him until the start of the school year. We will move to sentences starting in September 2014. We will aim to be comfortable reading 20 words/evening by the end of 2014 and will continue reading at that rate for 2015. Update 10/8/2014: the little man can blend the sounds now, and he can make a guess as to which word he is reading. We are still on the level of reading isolated words but soon will move to little poems. Update 12/1/2014: still reading separate words, typically aim for 8-10 per evening.

Portuguese: I will continue reading one story per evening along with Q&A. I will continue to pair our stories with movies from YouTube. More details will be provided in Ballet girl's section below.Update 10/8/2014: What is fascinating to me is that the little man is willingly repeating. His sister started willingly responding last year, but I think the internal competition is helping. I am also going to include a session on Portuguese during our one-ones during the week. Both kids seam to need it, but we will continue with the current read-aloud together scheme and Q&A sessions.

Music: During the fall of 2014, I will try to reserve one day of the week to review proper technique and position and the piano, along with some familiarity with the keyboard. On another day of the week I intend to introduce him to simple, short melodies and slowly build his repertoire and confidence at the piano. I will wait for two signs before signing him up for formal classes: 1) better hand coordination and 2) persistent interest. I suspect that while with Ballet girl both requirements were met at age 4.5, I delayed her lessons until after her 5th birthday, once she showed real interest during our vacation in New Jersey. So, I will wait until the right moment.
Update 10/8/2014: the interest is there, the coordination is lagging, but a few times I caught him at the piano fooling around, which is a superb sign. He continues to sing and accurately. I will need to organize the CDs this weekend because the colder days/inside days are upon us! Update 12/1/2014: the little man sings a lot of songs and eagerly demonstrates. He sang a turkey song, a turkey dinner song and jingle bells for the family multiple times this week, completely spontaneously, unprovoked, un-requested, but very welcome:)!

I will also organize our CDs collection so that he has a larger selection to pick from.
I will also consider signing him once again for dance class.


Sports; In the summer of 2014 both kids are enrolled in swimming lessons. In the fall of 2014 both kids will play soccer. Sunlight boy is signed up for a 6 weeks Mixed Martial Arts class staring in August. This is a trial and depending on the outcome we may or may not make further plans along these lines. Update 10/8/2014: we are in the last week of soccer. Soccer has proven fabulous for our household. The kids have played soccer all summer and fall. They play regularly in this one little green area at the recreation playground. I am thrilled because I love that game.

Ballet Girl

Ballet girl will begin first grade in our local public school. She will attend the classes: language arts, social studies, music, art and physical education. Science and Math we will study at home.

Math: During the summer of 2014, we will finish the outstanding topics in Singapore Math 4A&4B. During 2014/2015 school year we will cover the materials in Singapore Math 5A&5B and we will work through the problems in Singapore Math-Challenging problems for 2nd grade. We will start this sequence in October.  Update 10/8/2014: We continue math as usual; we are so far ahead and the scheme we use works so well that I realized there is no need to make changes. We continue with the informal-lesson, some practice and call it a day sequence. There is no rush, we just started tackling geometry and ballet girl finds it fascinating. I do too. Geometry has always been my favorite subject and I took a lot of care to prepare so that I can share my love for it with her. It has worked.  I do use the books, but the sequence and the method is completely my own. Most of the fifth year is review so we will spend time learning the multiplication table, learning division, and learning to be better at multiplication. Geometry is just the cherry to keep us fascinated. Update 12/1/2014: we will add Beast Academy 3A to our curriculum, once per week, starting in January 2015

Science: During the 2014/2015 school year we will follow the topics listed in Singapore Sciences series 1 and 2. We will heavily supplement with library books and home experiments, nature walks and observations. We will also cover the corresponding topics from Marcha Crianca Ciencias in Portuguese.Update 10/8/2014: We are following the topics mentioned above and are combining science topics with geography lessons. So far we have talked about classification of things into groups, what nature is, what shadow is and how people figured that the earth is roundish. All topics are accompanied with hands-on exploration.

English: This I more or less will leave to the school with the following exceptions. 1) I insist on pretty handwriting. To this end we will do copy work from familiar books and later on we will do simple dictations. We technically do dictations but I rely on the magnetic letters which accompany the All About Spelling series.  2) I insist on regular Read-aloud-we leave 2 days of the week to completely relax. Update 12/1/2014: we just finished AAS-Level 1. Great program! Our schedule tends to be as follows: New Concept (Sunday), Reinforcement(Monday), School Words review (Wednesday); Copy (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday), Dictation (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday)

Bulgarian: We will begin reading the first grade reading book during summer 2014. We will move towards the second grade reading book in the 2014/2015 school year. Informally, I will talk about Bulgarian grammar and the rules of the written language. Update 10/8/2014: Ballet girl reads slowlier in Bulgarian so we started in September with some simple same-root, conjugation-of-verbs quick reads to get her confidence up; then this month I moved her to 'gatanki' and we will finish the month of October this way. Next month we will start with short poems and stories from various books and bukvars. We will incorporate copy work starting in November and starting in January we will incorporate short dictations. This should parallel the English curriculum. Update 12/1/2014: the reading book on the left is done; the plan is to read the stories in another first grade reading book before moving to the second grade reading book. Great progress!

Portuguese: This year we will concentrate on building conversational Portuguese. During the summer 2014, we will read short stories, we will review basic vocabulary contained in Timi, Timi 1 and Salpicos 1. During the 2014/2015 school year we will study Marcha Crianca Lingua Portuguese Ano 1. I will not teach reading. I will use the book to teach vocabulary and comprehension. We will aim towards reading three longer books this year. Update October 10/8/2014: We have tackled mostly seasonal topics-fall, school, nature, witches. It's going well-the kids are starting to speak and volunteer their own sentences. Update 12/1/2014: we are reading aloud the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Tonight the kids saw the BBC movie in portuguese and were all thrilled.

Music: This year we will continue with the music lessons (regular 30-min class, 60-min piano enrichment class once a month and 60-min piano club class once a month) . We will aim for 20 minutes of practice per day. Dance will once again be part of our lives-Ballet girl requested to participate in Jazz and Hip-Hop classes. Update 12/1/2014: Ballet girl quit dance this year.

We plan on attending outdoor concerts in the summer of 2014, and other local concerts during the school year.

Sports: During the summer of 2014, Ballet girl will be in swim class. During the fall of 2014, she will play soccer; she will be the oldest but this is the best I can do with her other activities. Both kids will be enrolled in a Mixed Martial Arts class for 6 weeks in August-September to avoid hassle with all other school-time activities. This is a trial and depending on the outcome I will make further plans if necessary. Update October 10/8/2014: The young lady has requested a pony for her birthday. Well, this is not happening, but at least she will enjoy horseback riding lessons in the fall:)

Out of Townn

Guess what we did! In northern Michigan we skied. It was lovely. The weather was perfect. Sunny and no wind. The kids love the experience which was first for both. Ballet girl picked the skill with ease and stunning enthusiasm. Sunlight boy liked it but 2 hour lessons were a bit too long. One hour would have sufficed for him. Ballet girl cried on the way back because she missed her instructor and then cried at night before she went to bed. She also wished she could make cookies for her instructor. Sunlight boy forgot Goofy in the hotel. Our dearest Goofy. We will replace him but it's sad that a piece of the little man's history is lost.

This is the young lady herself. All enthusiastic about the sport. She improved 4 levels from the time she got on the skis. Four levels in two days, or one level per hour. She knows more than me now. I am very very happy! Go Girl!