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

The pleasant chaos

Kindergarten-Second Grade: Month 1 Update

Our read alouds this month were "Emil ot Lionaberia" by Astrid Lingren, "Toshko Afrikanski" by Angel Karaliichev and "Peter Pan" by Monteiro Lobato. Quite the collection of entertaining pre-bedtime reading. A mischievous monkey, a mischievous boy and a mischievous band of pirates.

 During a typical month we typically read through a good list of books. In light of this fact, the current month is unusual. Yet, it was equally rewarding, because we became familiar with some fabulous characters. We are still reading about Emil and Peter Pan. Peter Pan we will finish but the third part of Emil's adventures we will finish maybe next summer.

Our next stop is history. We will be travelling to Ancient China. October!

Here is a quick update on Sunlight boy:

1. He is going through a creativity boom. He has been building all types of inventions with Legos. He is a problem solver at heart and a charmer. 
2. He finished the first level of the Bob Books yesterday! He is very proud of himself. I am also extremely proud of him. He picked up reading very well, faster than I anticipated. I think he will not have difficulty following Ballet Girl's reading path. 
3. He finished the second grade Singapore Math books last week, and this week we began the third grade books. I am very impressed with him, there are some activities such as given a bunch of digits to construct a certain digits largest or smallest number, I thought would be tough, but no! Very very easy! He handles multiplication well too!
4. He continues to read really well Bulgarian!
5. At the piano he is becoming more at ease. He reads music so we may have to walk a fine line between Suzuki and traditional approach. I am very happy with his progress. I am discovering that both approaches have a lot of strengths that are valuable to him.
6. I think that he pays attention at school, but he probably has an attitude, as in "I know this already, so I won't bother to participate". I never had a problem with Ballet Girl regarding being ahead academically than her peers; she has always been happy to do repeatedly the mundane, which has its brilliance, as long as I ensure that she is challenged enough along the way. Yesterday alone, Sunlight boy made the connection between my mom's comment about "everyone's unique set of mnemonics for remembering the multiplication table" and "schema" which is a word used in school to describe the prior information one possesses about a topic or object.
7. Soccer has been his highlight! He loves it, and we love the passion and energy with which he runs and fights on the attach and on the defense.

Here is a quick update on Ballet Girl:

1. Ballet girl continues to be busy with creating accessories from rubber bands, hair bands, pieces of thread, and pieces of cloth. She loves drawing and is always with a note pad and pencil for sketching and writing.   
2. She learned the multiplication table! Hurray! We finished Beast Academy 3A and have moved on to Beast Academy 3B. We are also going to finish the last few topics from Singapore Math 3A&B so that she can take the tests and we can move on to the next levels in depth. Beast Academy offers fun math, not math drills, and when we get bored from the SM books, I move on to Beast Academy. I have warned before that while really good, Beast Academy has its weaknesses, its points of negligence. I follow my own curriculum and I use these books for support, while also teaching critical thinking.
3. We are continuing with All About Spelling Level 2. We are throwing in words that sound the same but mean different things and are spelled differently. We also talked about some irregular plurals and some irregular verbs. Today we talked about the change in the pronunciation of "read" from present to past tense. I have also begun to introduce the rules of punctuation. We started with the comma and the famous "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" book. Ballet Girl reads at 3.8 level, so way to go, girl! Every once in a while she gets into the groove of reading, but this is not frequent. I don't push her, but I do hope that one day soon, especially in the cold days of winter, the curiosity will overcome her to dig in with more zest.
   
4. I moved her from the 10th piano piece to the 11th. This and next week the aim is to learn the second half and I really look forward to the 12th piece. I hope that by the end of the year, we will be done with that, and by the end of January we will be done with Suzuki Book 2. This year I want to concentrate on music theory and solfege as well. Overall, we have been progressing slowlier, but at least we are moving and not stuck!
5. Portuguese is coming along well for her. She is using more and more words and is understanding better but I want to introduce her to some formal material. I need to push for the Portuguese lessons in earnest for both kids.
6. In November she will start gymnastics which is a long standing wish of hers.

We went to a Pumpkin Patch which the kids loved. We planned next summer too. May, June and part of July, the kids are going to Bulgaria. In July we are all going again to Minnesota. This, of course, followed by August soccer camp.

Overall, a peaceful month. October will be exciting. We have a busy October. One birthday-Ballet Girl, one opera-Marriage of Figaro, and one half marathon-Prarie State on the north side:)

What's the rush?!

When you are ready, you are ready.
When you are ready, you are ready to enjoy your new skills, not be frustrated by the element of novelty.

I never asked my kids to write. I started teaching them to read starting at age 3. I wrote every single letter they recognized. For 3+ years they saw me writing and occasionally they heard me describe what I think the letter looks like or how it can be created from other letters (M is two Ls glued together; Zh is two Ks glued back to back; A is an L with a line in the middle, etc.)

I started the little lady learning piano tunes around 4.5, very slowly, very unsystematically, very unintentionally.

The results:
The young lady, picked up a tune, on her very own at 5 years and 2 months. I signed her up for lessons when I knew she was ready. Her memory was ready, her hands were ready.
The young lady picked up writing around 5. Entirely on her own. I started concentrating on writing-correctness as well as neatness-in first grade. Prior to that, I let her fly.

The young man is only now starting to pop at the piano and try things out. He would sit with me and try to imitate. He is not ready yet. But he is getting closer and closer and it is exciting to watch how
he grows.
Yesterday, out of the blue, he picked up a pen and wrote letters. I was stunned. So, I encouraged him to write more letters which he did. I described how one letter can be constructed from letters he already knows. He was fascinated by this game. He showed everyone what he has accomplished. I was very happy for him and I was very proud of him. I love watching him grow.


The conclusions:
Demonstrate. They will pick it up soon enough. Let them be ready. It will be easier for you, easier and more enjoyable for them. As hard as it is, do not compare your kids to one another and do not compare them to other kids. Let them be fascinated with the wonder of 'I can'.

There is no competition. They will learn to read. They will learn to write. They will learn to play an instrument. But when they do it at their own pace they will learn to enjoy it and it will be a more meaningful experience for them and for me. The skills are long-term skills and we want the kids to bond with them with good emotion.

I know a seven year old can read War and Peace but a seven year old is not wise and emotionally knowledgeable in order to understand the book. Let them grow and enjoy age appropriate accomplishments.