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.

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.

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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.”

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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:

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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.

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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.

Despite Barry’s comparison of me to Imelda Marcos when it comes to boots, none of these are mine. My three boys have caught Havaiana Fever—and as of writing this post there are actually two more pairs to include in the current total!

How does one thank the kindness of strangers? I shall recount the ways…

The flight attendant on TAM (Brazil’s national airlines) for being patient with our Portuguese and letting us practice. Barry and I were thrilled to communicate successfully in our first conversation en Portugues. He was also very sweet with Ezra, who requested extra candy as he ate his brownie first when dinner was served. We had a great experience on TAM—clean, friendly service, professional staff, roomy seats with individual screens and extensive library of movies to select from; we were all ecstatic! Despite the fact that Ezra (and I) did not sleep well on the overnight flight we give TAM a thumbs up (Brazilian caramels upon seating goes a long way)!

Teo the handyman from the hotel next door; who on our botched arrival to a rental house not ready for us ran out to buy us new phone cards and ordered water to be delivered to refill our empty dispenser. Apparently one cannot live without water, or a working cell phone.

The representative at the TIM phone store (Brazil’s equivalent to Verizon or AT&T) who sat with us for almost 2 hours trying to figure out which phones Barry pre-bought for our trip would work with which cards since nothing seemed to be working. Going 3 days without our own way of calling people for information or just plain connection was very disorienting. Can’t tell you what a relief it was to finally get a working phone (eventhough that meant buying yet another phone)—it’s amazing what a sense of security having a phone provided us.

Rose “hip-hop” Ribeiro, a lively woman we met in town while sipping fresh coconut water. She overheard we were looking for the Capoeira school and she freely volunteered to show us. On our walk there she pointed out important places along the way: bank, post office, florist, and basically gave us a quick tour of the town, out of the kindness of her heart—a kindred spirit in dance. She and Sidney played some Capoeira moves and she tried to get Ezra to dance Lambada with her. Few people in NYC stop in the middle of their city-routine to answer a question with a smile much less walk a few blocks to show someone exactly where a place is located. Rose was an angel and her kindness unlocked the “secret” of the town for us. After that we had a much better idea of what the town offered us.

In the beginning, we tried to find out where everything was located on our own, trying to be very self-sufficient. But that method can only get you so far. Eventually we had to open ourselves up to ask for help. Showing vulnerability was an uncomfortable place to be, but once we surrendered to it our boundaries became less of an armor and more of an open door.

Obrigada por tudo meus novos amigos!

I can’t believe we’re about to depart for our six-month adventure to Brazil. It’s been two years in the making.

It all started with an article I read in Mothering magazine reviewing books on experiences of families living abroad. It struck a chord with me as I had been wishing to “shake things up” in our family and get us all out of our comfort zone. Watching my boys growing up so fast I saw their childhood slipping away and I wished to carve out more time to really soak them in before they start not wanting parents around. I thought living in another country for an extended period of time would not only satisfy our passion for travel, but it would also give my boys an experience of how life could be lived outside the US—that without the excesses of such a privileged nation their eyes would be open to more resourceful, creative and compassionate ways of being.

So when my husband, Barry, was awarded a sabbatical from his school to learn Capoeira in Brazil realization of our dreams started to take shape.

The past year has been packed with Portuguese lessons, investigation of Brazilian culture, researching places to visit and apartments to rent, preparing our home for renters and figuring out what to take and what to leave. Once we deduced that private American school in Brazil was too expensive we committed to home schooling our kids during our travels. This would afford us flexibility in moving from place to place, and that quality time with the kids I was seeking (maybe a little too much, but we’ll see!) Thankfully the teachers and the school have been super supportive in helping us gather all the materials and curriculum needed to keep our kids on track. I’m already envisioning a little “learning corner” in our apartment where we’ll set up our home-school and meet 2-3 hours each day. I’ll write more on that once we find our stride.

It goes without saying that in the flurry of preparations and after all the last minute home repairs, scrambling to get our travel vaccines and making time to see friends we hit a wall one morning when Barry woke up early with a panic attack. Heart racing, head spinning and a deep-pit feeling in the gut. It took some time to calm down and recollect. I realized I too had it hit me the day before. All the worries and fears about taking two young children to a foreign country where we had no relatives or friends or a regular doctor began to surface. As a parent you start running through all the worst-case scenarios and it’s just plain scary. It’s the nightmare you never want to have but you know you have to prepare for.

My reaction was to make an Emergency Action Plan: list of all the contacts we did know in the country. Numbers, addresses. Location of the closest clinics or hospitals. Barry had ID bracelets made for the kids. And a plan of where to meet if we got separated or who to go to for help. I wanted to make sure the kids knew the plan too so they would have the tools necessary to help themselves if the event arose. Putting it all down on paper was helpful. At least it helped my mind to feel as if there was a plan.

Fear of the unknown can be terrifying and debilitating. I felt my heart closing. But then I remembered the purpose of our trip, the support and love from the community of friends and family, and most importantly I was reminded by FAITH and TRUST.

My Filipino-Catholic parents instilled in me the value of gratitude and humility. That there’s a greater force at work—and whether you call it God or the Universe or any other name that suits you, that force is there to support you, to see you succeed.

Then there were 2 things that happened post-panic: My friend, who is a brother of the Jesuit order, reminded me that if I am a person of faith I believe in a divine plan—that experiences come to us to enrich our spirit, that whatever experience we have it is for our own spiritual growth and evolution. Trust in that journey.

And at synagogue services the next day, our rabbi called our family up to the bimah (altar) and before the congregation thanked us for being a special part of their community and gave a blessing over all of us for safe travels and wonderful adventure and a safe return back home. All my fears melted and tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes. I sighed a breath of relief that only Faith and Trust could inspire. Yes, we were on the right track.

Step one of our journey begins.