Impromptu geology lesson in Buzios.

In Brazil, the academic school year begins in February/March (whenever Carnival ends) and breaks for “winter” in July, then continues from August to December. Since we knew that our time in Brazil would be from January thru mid July, it didn’t make sense to place our kids in a new school, with a new language, for only 4 months. So we decided to homeschool them ourselves. I learned that Brazilian kids go to school from 8:30am to 12:30p, or from 1p to 5p—that’s right: only 4 hours each day. The upper school kids go in the morning and the elementary kids go in the afternoon (in some areas that is reversed). The instructional time seems so short compared to schools is the U.S. and other European countries whose hours are usually a full 8-hr day. But during the off-hours Brazilian kids usually have their physical education and sports schedules much like afterschool in the US, but instead it happens before school. Barry and I basically stick to those hours, setting aside two to four hours, 5 days out of the week to cover the curriculum our kids’ teachers provided us with. During the remaining hours of the day the kids get their physical fitness in the form of capoeira, snorkeling or swimming.

Pool break with neighbor, Elizabeth.

Originally we were concerned that Sidney & Ezra were not going to get enough interaction with other kids, but they’ve been fast at making friends wherever they go. And obviously, language lessons are “built-in” as we have daily interactions in Portuguese. Ezra’s favorite phrases to say: “Eu não falo portugues” (I do not speak Portuguese), or “Posso jogar?” (Can I play?) Sidney loves asking for his “aqua com gas” at restaurants and can determine if hotels are at full capacity or not based on their “Ha Vagas” signs. Many friends have asked how the homeschooling has been going so I figured I’d write a little about it here. I’ll include a couple of lesson plans that were thankfully successful in case there are any homeschoolers out there. Things don’t always go as planned when homeschooling our boys (read more, in my newsletter). But every once in a while we strike gold as parent-teachers.

One thing that helped bring more creativity to our homeschooling was letting our kids take the lead. Here’s some lesson plans that worked really well: One day, I planned to cover sight words with Ezra. He’s a quick learner and claimed to already know all the sight words and wasn’t interested in doing that for that day.

So I asked him what would he rather do instead? He wanted to make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. Always up for something crafty, I agreed that was a good project for the morning. So we made a set of binoculars together and while we were making them I got the idea to make bright notecards with sight words on them. Then I posted the cards all around the house. The mission today, I told Ezra, was to go on a Sight Word Safari. He was to use his new binoculars to find sight words in our “word jungle” and make note of all the words he found in his “field journal” by writing down each word. He LOVED it! Ezra was so proud to use his new binoculars and he giggled each time he spotted a new word. Plus, he was writing down the words I wanted him to learn. It was a total win-win.

Sight Word Safari

Materials Needed: 2 toilet paper rolls, tape, string, bright notecards, pad/pencil

• Tape two toilet paper rolls together to make your binoculars. Punch holes on either side to attach the string. Have the child decorate to their liking.
• Write one sight word (ex: the, and, with, she) on a notecard. Make at least 10-15 of them. And place them around the room.
• Ask the student to grab their pad and pencil and new binoculars to “Go on a safari to find 10 sight words.” When they spot a word with their binoculars they are to write it down on their “Field Journal.”

On other days, we’ve been open to letting the local landscape inspire our curriculum. For instance, the country’s capital city, Brasilia, is an ideal place to explore architecture. This planned city, in the shape of an airplane, is filled with the futuristic buildings of Oscar Neimeyer. Brasilia is like Tomorrowland meets Soviet Russia meets Suburbia, geometric buildings with planetary curves stand side by side with clusters of concrete rectangles housing government offices. So for our architecture lesson we read about Oscar Neimeyer, then visited some of his buildings (because we could!), and sketched what we saw. To practice being our own architects we took a flat sheet of paper (something 2-dimensional) and explored all the different ways we could make it 3-dimensional using elements of movement to inspire us. The process looked like this:

Architect Adventure (2D to 3D)

Materials needed: various sheets of paper, cardboard, tape/glue stick

• Ask yourself: How can we show “Roll”, “Fold”, “Twist”, “Curve”, “Leap” , “ZigZag”, “Ripped” with a sheet of paper? Take time to look at each element from a different perspective: does it stand on its own, what does it look like from atop or on its side?
• Make note of things the new structure reminds you of: something in nature? or in a machine?
• Can you make your own structure using paper, glue and the new ideas you just experimented with? [allow 15-20m for this] What could your new building be used for? Give it a name.

I actually had fun myself doing the activity with the boys and we were really happy with our results. Taking a little initiative to learn more about the environment we were visiting gave us all a chance to connect to the place on a deeper level, and to experience the things we were seeing with a new perspective.

We’ve also taken some pretty awesome field trips while we’ve been here:

Pataxo Indian Reserve/ Coroa Vermelha [see Sidney’s post]

Memorial of the Epic Discovery – Porto Seguro, Coast of Discovery

National Zoo/ Brasilia

Villa Rosa Cacao Farm & Chocolate Factory – Taboquinhas, Coast of Cacao [more pics on barry’s post]

Find out more about our homeschooling adventures in my March newsletter for SoulShine Life.  All of us keep learning more as we go along. Some days are easier than others. But the fun part has been watching the kids learning process happen in real time and picking up some new information for myself in the mean time. With Barry and I both keeping our own learning experiences transparent, speaking a new language or in dance class, our children get a glimpse of how their parents are students too.

Family playing music with capoeira class.