Hard though it may be, imagine a hot, 95 degree February day.....DaddyHealy left at 5:50 to head to Portuguese lessons then to work. Nobody even noticed.
We start off with a breakfast of cold cereal (because it's already too hot to cook pancakes). Cold cereal is not a common Brazilian breakfast, but it is available. Our choices here are pretty much frosted flakes, cocoa krispies and a few other highly sugared refined grain flour products. We're more the raisin bran, Total, or Wheat Chex type of family, so this has been hard for us. We've come up with "Nesfit" by Nestle, that advertises on its box: "Try it for Operation Bikini!" It's a whole grain, non-sugar coated flake, so we add raisins or fresh fruit and call it breakfast. We have also found some granola by an old friend Quaker, to which the Brazilians would add spoonfuls of sugar. We happen to like it the way it comes. Top that bowl with some ultra-pasteurized, shelf-stable milk (we buy all our milk off the grocery store shelf, no refrigeration necessary until opened, with an expiration date of 4 months out), and a glass of (diluted) 100% orange juice from the juice man, and we are ready to attack our day! Usually we eat our breakfast at the counter in the kitchen, because since moving into our new (unfurnished) house, we haven't gotten around to buying a kitchen table yet.
Several days a week we head to language classes (the kids with like-age expat kids, and me with a private lesson--along with baby H), for 50 minutes at a local language school. We drive the Zafira (our company-leased vehicle..essentially it's the smallest minivan you've ever seen), or walk depending on how much time we have to get there--typically we're running behind--and how the weather looks. It's been HOT and DRY this summer, so rain is usually not an issue. I honestly am not really sure what the kids do in their classes, but at least while they are not in school using Portuguese, we will keep this exposure for them. For me, normally my teacher comes prepared with a subject, worksheet, lesson plan, and I end up talking and asking questions (in between appeasing H's needs) for the whole hour, and well, I guess I learn by exposure! (You know
me, I have a desperate need to talk, and some days this is the only adult I come into contact with!)
If we walk to class, often by the time we get home it's hot and we're sweaty, so we jump in the pool for a while to cool off. Often, the kids watch some Disney Channel or PBS programming on our satellite. (I call this Portuguese lesson #2, since it broadcasts in Portuguese and I happen to have omitted the information that I can actually change it to English).
I make lunch, the main meal of the day here, and DaddyHealy comes home from work around noon. We sit outside on our plastic table/chairs on the covered veranda (because, again, we have no kitchen table). He leaves just before 1 for the 5 or 6 minute drive back to work. He usually takes the moto (motorcycle/dirt bike combination), affectionately called "The Tornado" that he bought very used for R$6000 (around $3500 US) to free the car for us.
Nap time for the girls, homeschool time for D. Everyone is allowed to use their AC for sleeping or schooling. Houses here do not have central heating/cooling. Most people have a window unit or split AC in the bedrooms only. Luckily, in this house, every bedroom has some sort of AC.
We homeschool D, and do light, fun preschool type learning activities with M, because the school system here is not the same as the US. In terms of curriculum, discipline, expectations, I would say that are at least a year behind. I have yet to see a strong curriculum, similar to a US school, at any school here. That said, we love the school choice we made for our kids. It gives them an opportunity to learn language, culture, play, make friends and so on. In terms of educational development, we handle that ourselves.
I have a thorough homeschool curriculum for D, which the company paid for. We go through an entire school day, English/Language Arts--including phonics, spelling, vocabulary, grammar-, math, handwriting, history, geography, Bible/religion, science (complete with experiments), reading and some creative arts. All of this we finish in about 2 hours.
We have a snack, often it is popcorn we popped in our big pot on the stove, and sometimes with homemade limeade. Depending on the intensity of the sun, we may go for a swim, especially if we invited over friends. Otherwise we play inside out of the heat, or put on music and dance. Just this last week we had an AC installed in our livingroom, which makes dancing on these hot days a whole lot more comfortable!
Kids play, or are sometimes allowed to watch a video in English that we brought with us, while I make a simple dinner (usually with Baby H attached to my leg). Often we have something like grilled cheese, salad, and fruit. DaddyHealy arrives home just in time for dinner around 6.
We swim with DaddyHealy, which is far more fun. Hurry to baths and bedtime routines and we are chronically late to bed, with H going down around 8, M at 8:30/8:45 and D at 9 or {cringe}
Momma and Daddy finish the dishes, talk about the day, email or call the US, order stuff on Amazon to have the next person making the trip south bring for us. We say our prayers and go to bed way to late every night. Once in a while we turn on the TV (in English...shhh, don't tell!) to catch some news, or iron, mop or something else exciting like that, but normally we crawl to bed exhausted around 10:30/11 and start again. :)
So, where did I find the time for this post? Opps! Forgot to put M down for her nap and D is long past time for homeschool to start. They’ve been playing Legos together so nice and quietly that I completely forgot! Better go get to it! Monday is the official start of school here and we'll have to figure out a whole new routine.
No comments:
Post a Comment