Bittersweet March

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

Accomplishments:

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

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

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

Struggles: 

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

History and Science:

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

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

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

Reading, Writing:

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

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

Portuguese:

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

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

Read Alouds:

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

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

Activities:

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

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

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

April Books

This will be a random/ad-hoc book month because we will be travelling away from base camp. In the past few weeks we have read a few books which lead to great themes but we have not explored the themes in depth. So while the foundation is laid out, we will build upon it in the next few months.

This month if we weren't traveling we would have been reading about Spring, Easter and Evolution. My recommendations for the themes for my kids' age groups are below.

SPRING

The Curious Garden is a wonderful book to discuss 1) cycles in nature (seasons) 2) how human activities impact nature 3) discuss ideas of how we can help reverse what humans have done to our environment 4) discuss that small actions by single people can have profound effect on many people and the environment 5) discuss how to care for plants 6) discuss how plants survive without being taken care of by people. This is a book we will be referring to a lot in the future.

How a plant grows and How a seed grows are beginner science books. We will read them, learn about the parts of the plants. In May we will apply and test what we have learned in these two books, by growing our own plants from seeds and observing their developmental stages.

We will also read the Vegetables we eat, Farming and Early people to connect how people came about growing their own foods, and how people have learned to selectively modify the plants they grow.Update 7/25/2014: We did not read these books






As a humerus addition I would also include  the Magic Finger by Roald Dahl, it does mention how birds build their nests and how people don't think of animals as equals.  As a self-read, related to birds and nature I would also include the Best Nest which will also open up the doors for discussion about 'home'. (Кокло мило колко сладко е при мама и при татко, Птичка в кафез, Стара спретната къщурка, Облаче ле бяло). I found Flap your wings to be a perfect and humorous self-read addition to the theme.

                            

EASTER

Since it's Easter month we will also read about rabbits and eggs. We will read Peter Rabbit, First come the egg, The goose and the golden egg and Green Eggs and Ham.Update 7/25/2014: We did not read these books

 

EVOLUTION

Evolution we started with One Cool Friend. We read about how volcanic islands are created and die (Island, a story of the Galapagos). We talked about the Galapagos Penguins and how they are thought to have arrived at the Galapagos Islands (Galapagos Penguins). From there we will move to Charles Darwin's voyage (Darwin's Beagle) and the process of arriving at the theory of evolution which explains his observations (Evolution and Early people).

UPDATE 4/24/2014

SO WHAT DID WE READ IN APRIL?

We read The Curious Garden, One Cool Friend, The Best Nest, Flap Your Wings, Switch on-Switch off, The shocking truth about energy, Pinocchio, Гатанки, various Bulgarian folk stories. We just started reading

. I read it during my trip to New Jersey and I think this is a book adults should read and discuss with their children of all ages. This book touches on a fundamental problem of human societies and history-humankind has been held back centuries by prejudices and irrational, unmotivated fear. Yes, there is brutal death in this book but don't allow that to deter you. What you can teach and learn is that death is inevitable and that one can be smart (Ragweed is very smart and asks the right questions) but one carefree, bold decision is all it takes to ruin your life (we have in-house real-life examples of that). I love the language (even if I am translating it), I love the descriptions, I love the suspense, the tension, the adventure, the drama, the ever-present generation gap.

I read this book last week. It contains elements of each of the following titles: Pipi Longstockings, the Hunger Games, Huck Finn and Карсон които живее на покрива. This is a very quick-read story and it can really let the reader's imagination run wild. I enjoyed it tremendously. I did not like the ending as much, so when reading it aloud I will add the ending that I would find satisfying. I think we will read this book after we finish Poppy. We will take a small break in between.

I think it is important to read about ordinary girls who even when frightened and faced with a a challenge do their best and persevere. Our girls need to strive for knowledge because knowledge will come handy when you need it and also and most importantly when you least expect it.


 SCIENCE FAIR

The kids' school had a science fair this month. I received the formal guidelines and I found them too rigid, too conformist, and too dry. Science fair is supposed to inspire-kids are to ask and seek answers to any question that intrigues them. For little kids (elementary school kids) no question and no answer is impossible. This and the rigidity of the guidelines were clearly in conflict. Science in its core is a story, a logical story about observable phenomena based on physical observations. So, if science is a story, why cannot we present our projects in this format, as a story.

What are our favorite characters-Piggie and Elephant. Thus, we came up with the characters who will tell the story.

What was the question-how the electricity comes to our house? What we did-we built an ultra-simple electricity generator following the guidelines presented  here. Building it was not a piece of cake. First it helps to know that I wound the wire the only wrong way possible. When I unwound, the wire twisted, tore and I was plain miserable. Finally, I resolved to obtain a second wire and repeat. Still not results. I had tried building the structure from Legos rather than cardboard too, but that did not make the generator light the bulb. Then I had the sudden idea, the aha-moment, to try and measure the presence of current. I connected the generator to a AMP-meter and yes the arrow moved! I had produced current.  Finally, I connected the ends of the light bulb to the ends of the coil via alligator clips, and then the light did light. The generator, the moving (rotating) magnet, did induce electric current in the coils. I was content.

Ballet girl told a good story during her presentation. She was very excited about this project. And yes, she did win the kindergarten science fair.

What are my take aways:

1. Science is not a school subject. Science is a word that summarizes our human endeavors to seek answers to questions we have about all around us. Since we are making observations and looking for answers, we might as well do that. We must be engaged with what we have a question about. We must observe and we must ask questions and we must record not only our observations but also our questions, always.
2. When answering a question we might as well answer in the form of a story to make it natural to the audience who is supposed to learn something from our investigation.
3. Since the question is about something we investigate, we might as well get our hands dirty, and make mistakes and acknowledge them. Aha-moments, the best moments in the world, the light at the end of the tunnel moments, can only be achieved if we have made mistakes, if we have been frustrated, exhausted, disappointed, almost given-up. We have to try, strive persevere, keep on going. We have to learn patience. We have to learn humility and the immensity of science teaches us this.