March 2020 – Jewish and Homeschooling in an Amazing World

After Week 1 of the World Staying Inside

Wow. That one small word just sums everything up. I figured I had it pretty easy when I found out that 3 out of 4 of our boys were going to be home. Hey, why not? I went from homeschooling our oldest, ( I think that was 13 years ago… I have lost track of the time!) to homeschooling 2, then 3, then 4, and now down to 1 again., to bringing home 2– who have online classes anyways – not a problem! I don’t have to worry too much about them. Of course, I can do it! Probably can do it better than most other parents, since that is just what I have been doing all these years.

A week later, I am a little bit older and hopefully a little bit wiser. Still trying to figure out where I went wrong in my thinking. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty sure I am having a much easier time than most, so why have I felt so much more overwhelmed this past week than expected? I think there are a few things that I did not consider.

Firstly, I am in Pesach mode. True, I had already cleaned several of the rooms, and today I gave one room to my husband, and the older two boys have their room, leaving just my youngest’s room and the dining room and kitchen, with the latter two being done next week. But still, trying to clean for Pesach while having more people than usual who make good use of the house is a bit stressful. Do I wash all the dishes or sweep or mop? I can get 2 out of 3 of them done but not all three, unless I want to stay up later. But that is usually out of the question for I am too tired.

Secondly, my husband is working from home. Yes, I am thankful he is still working, and yes, he would occasionally spend a day working at home, but this is a bit different. The whole setup is different. Instead of him asking me to come to help with something or just to talk every few weeks, – which I never minded at all – it is now something that is done on a daily basis. I really don’t mind, don’t get me wrong.

Thirdly, it’s this whole being stuck at home business that is slowly (or not so slowly) starting to get to me. Every day I wake up and have to consciously ask myself what day it is for all my check points during the week of the various things we do, or normally go to, are now gone. Yesterday is the exact same thing as today and will be the exact same as tomorrow. The only difference is that once a week we have Shabbos. Baruch Hashem for Shabbos.

I have also been doing extra thinking about other ways I can help my family (other than laundry and cooking and sending them to bed!) For Hashem has basically stopped the world as we know it, giving us the chance to do introspection, to find all those things that we wanted to do and to change, and He has now given us the time to do it. Our lives have gotten so busy. There are things that we would love to do and things we have wanted to change, but there was no time to do it. Now, there is.

What is my bucket list? What things really matter to me that we are not doing already? Family time. Even though we are still missing our oldest (he is working and had planned on coming home for the first half of Pesach, but now cannot 🙁 ,) there are still the rest of us. We cannot all have lunch together because of the time zone difference between one boy’s school and were we are, but we try to all sit down for supper. Just us. No phones, no computers. The real nice surprise came when I only had to tell one boy, once, to please wait until supper was finished. I did not tell anyone beforehand not to bring electronics to the table. People just did it.

I had started, several years ago, little notebooks for everyone to write down things they are grateful for. The last time we did that was almost 3 years ago. I took them out again last week. Unfortunately, we only did them once for I don’t keep them on the table as a reminder. Hopefully, we will get a few more things written in them over the next few weeks.

The other thing that I have been trying to work on is more Torah learning and exercising for everyone. I try to read one or two short Dvar Torahs (Torah thoughts) at supper, and I sent everyone in the house, including my husband, on a bike ride yesterday. (One boy did not have a bike, so he used mine instead of me.)

I think each new thing that I have had to adjust to, on its own, would have been just fine. But, put all the things together, and now there is something new that I did not have before. So, that would explain why I need to go into hiding every day. Very grateful for an understanding husband. 😀

I had been looking at the news several times, okay, many times, a day. Not much new would happen over the course of an hour, though I found myself being compelled to keep looking. I have since stopped. Over the last few days, I have found I would only look at it once, or maybe twice, a day. Last week I was busy doing laundry (one boy had just a couple hours to pack all his clothes from the year at school before coming home – and yes, they were all needing cleaning!) to dishes to food to dishes to food to sweeping to OH! I do actually homeschool one boy for real and I do need to teach him (which that in itself is not going as normal,) to food to AHHHH!!!! to food to food, yes, and to more food. I forgot how much teenage boys eat! I love my boys! Glad they eat, however, with all this staying at home thing and limiting going out, and not being able to find food delivery options very well, the food thing really gets tight sometimes. But it is all good.

Things are not normal. Not even for the beautiful boy that I normally homeschool. I forced myself to understand that it is okay that we are starting late. I am up and working, I just do not start school with him like I should. It’s okay to not do everything. I have chosen to focus on a select few things plus some Pesach learning instead. As homeschool parents know, life skills is also learning, and right now we are doing a lot of life skills. So, we are learning, just different stuff. That is a challenge for me, but I’m working on it. I don’t like schedules, but I find I really some sort of schedule for our schooling (albeit I can be fairly loose with just one boy to teach) and I find it hard when we cannot do it.

This week, there is a feeling of some sort of routine which gives me some time to think. Imagine, a small thing that one can only see with an electron microscope paralyzing the world. How can that be? Obviously, it is Hashem’s doing. There is no other logical explanation. But, why the whole world? It’s not a city or two, or even a country or two, but the entire world. SOMETHING is happening. I am excited to see what is going to be! The entire world has basically come to a complete stop. Everyone is told to stay in their homes. Oh, when have we heard that one before? How about when we were in Mitzrayim (Egypt)? The difference is that this time it is the entire world that is told to stay indoors.

A friend told over a short Dvar Torah to me the other day. She said to make sure that every room in your house is holy so that when Moshiach comes, your entire house will be able to be transported to Israel. What better time to do that than now? Normally, I try to have in mind that I am cleaning all the chometz (leavened bread) out of me as I clean my house. I try to fix me, but honestly, I never can seem to do that for as I am cleaning my house and looking for physical chometz, I cannot focus on my spiritual chometz! I cannot think of what I need to correct while I am paying attention to the physical cleaning. This year, I found a better thing to do. I am going through the house and I am cleaning to make each room special, kodesh (holy). That I can do. I am happy that some of the rooms are done already, and it has given me the opportunity to do some organizing in some a few places that need it (like the garage!) I try to keep the areas I am working on reasonable and not overwhelming. Tonight, I am feeling accomplished. I feel good about myself. I feel like perhaps this year I will feel like I have changed somehow, even if I am not sure how. And when my children sing “Ma Nishtanah Halilah Hazeh…” perhaps the night will be different not only because we are all home by ourselves and not allowed to even daven together, but perhaps it will be different for I will feel that somehow *I* am different.

Grab opportunities. Let yourself change. When you do, you find that you are calmer and happier. And please, stay healthy and safe. Remember, Hashem has a plan for everything, and it is all good! Wishing everyone a very meaningful Pesach.

💖

How to Make Homeschooling Work – Crash Course

Now that almost all the schools are closed, I would like to welcome any parent with a child in (or was in) school to the wonderful world of homeschooling! I say that with a smile, but I totally understand what that means and know it is not an easy thing at all for almost every parent who has been forced into this situation. It is not easy for us parents who have willingly put ourselves in it to begin with. – Oh, and you are already a homeschool parent? This is definitely different (keep reading – we all need reminders sometimes and hopefully there are few helpful tips even for you.) Activities are closed, many cannot even go outside. Just because we homeschool, we still take our children outside!

I want this blog to be helpful and give people chizuk – encouragement. There is so much information that one usually gets and needs before delving into homeschooling, but there is no time for that. So, to the best of my ability, I will try to give a crash course. I have written down 9 pointers to help:

1) Firstly, I want you to know that you are not alone! We are all there. Some of us have some experience, but most, none. Like anything else, it is not easy, but we are told that Hashem only puts us in situations that we can manage. You CAN do this. (Perhaps you want to put this message all over your house to remind you!)

Everyone’s family works differently and what works for one family – or even one child, does not mean it will work with the next family, or even the next child in the family. Treat it like an experiment. “Hmm…. Well, that did not work, I wonder why that did not work,” or even, “Wow, that worked! Let me try that again!” If we get into that mindset, even setbacks can be just a tad less harsh and easier to manage.

2) The second thing to note is that whenever a child starts homeschooling after being in a school, they need to deschool. Deschooling is letting the child learn to transition from a school learning environment to a home learning environment. The length of time is generally around 1 month per year in a school. Yes. I know what I just said. I said it takes, about 15-30 days for each year a child was at school to learn to adjust. Don’t try to rush it. This is something that most likely all of you need to adjust as well.

3) The next thing I find is most important, and what it really means varies from family to family, but you need to create some sort of schedule. This could mean that children get up, dressed, and eat at a certain time and then there is davening and everyone is going to learn for 1.5 hours and then that is all you can handle so the rest of the time is “free” time, to something else. You just need SOMETHING. Even in the summer when we are “off of school,” I found we have to do a subject of something each day – could be something really fun, but I needed to put that into our morning and then it did not matter what happened the rest of the day for we accomplished something. Our day was meaningful.

Many schools and yeshivas have transitioned to online schooling, which definitely helps, but comes with its own set of issues. Please, just make sure you check up on each of your children a couple of times during the day so you know that they are where they need to be. It is good for the children as well, so they don’t feel so isolated and know you are around and care. You don’t have to talk to them, but just walk by and pause for just a moment. If they are doing independent work, just a quick hi and asking how they are doing can do wonders.

4) What if a school is not able to provide online schooling, or you have younger children who are not in school and now your attention is taken from them? You can go to my previous blog where I list a few suggestions here as starting places that can help.

5) Don’t forget about You. You are important. You need time out. You might even find you need to hide in the bathroom, with the door locked, for it is all getting on your nerves. Believe me, probably every single homeschool mom knows that trick and has made use of it more than once. When you are the only adult in the home and no one is there to relieve you so you can take a 15 minute break, you resort to what you have. (And yes, it really does help!)

6) All the activities are closed. You are stuck in the house. Please follow whatever guidelines are found in your area at all times, however, here are some suggestions that might help.

– go outside the door (while staying on your property!!!). Take a chair or two and just sit outside of your front or back door. Even if you cannot leave your property, there is no reason why you can’t get some fresh air. It really helps everyone to feel happier.

– you can do jumping jacks, jogging in place, jump rope, sit-ups, and many other exercises and stretches while staying in one spot. Make a game out of it. Who can jog in place the longest, or do 5 minutes of jump rope? Make it as fun as you can. Get creative!

– if you have a bit more space like a backyard, you can expand to tossing a ball, running around the backyard, potato sack races, 3-legged races, wheelbarrow races, and a variety of other things.

7) Schedule Quiet Time. Have 30-60 minutes a day where everyone is quiet to the best of their abilities. Have a baby or young child that naps? Great! Everyone will have quiet time at that moment. They can read, rest, quietly work on a puzzle (jigsaw or puzzles on paper), etc. but it has to be quiet, and everyone should be by themselves. We all need time to decompress from our day. You can even call “Quiet Time!” whenever you feel the tensions rise and you find people need the break.

8) Assign one chore/task to each child, according to their ability, to be done at its proper time. Tasks can include wiping the table after each person puts their dishes away. One child is responsible for sweeping a certain room each day. Taking out the garbage, putting a bag in the garbage can, putting one load of laundry on on a certain day (older child), folding one pile of clothes, each child making sure their bed is made up, emptying the dishwasher, filling it up and putting it on, etc.

9) Tell everyone you love them. All the time. In the morning, when they have sent you to the ceiling, and when they go to bed.

Remember there will be hiccups and sometimes the day (or days) can get really stressed. It’s normal! Sometimes just surviving is the best that we can do. The internet is not working? Your children are getting way too much screen time – and that is the best you can do for YOU need a break? It’s okay! You are doing an amazing job. Tomorrow is another day.

My Children Are Bored (aka HELP!!!)

With all those children at home, it can be a bit overwhelming. With schools and yeshivos closing, along with many public events, and children not being able to play with friends even, it can be hard to keep them busy and out of trouble; aka, hard for us to keep sane!

It is definitely a stressful time, never mind who has much time now to think about what all this really mean. For us homeschoolers, it is more like a huge winter storm when all the friends are home from school, but homeschooling families just chug along with school as if nothing is wrong. It does get a bit different when the storm lasts several days and normal out of the house activities are not available, so we can get cabin fever as well, just takes a bit longer for us.

I have our two boys who are in yeshiva, home with me, and very happy (in various ways) that they are able to keep up with their classes online.

To try to keep everyone sane, here is a very small starter list. (If you have anything else that would be helpful to others, let me know and I can add it to the list!):

(As with all things internet-related, even though I have been to these sites personally, please do your own research as well and only use what best fits your family.)

Room613 – Offering interactive, live classes for Jewish homeschoolers.

Yeshivas Mordechai HaTzaddik – Put on by the Chofetz Chaim. Call in Monday-Thursdays at 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm EST. 30 min presentations start on the hour and include recesses and raffles! 646-726-9977

They also have The Children’s Hotline available 24 hours a day
212-444-1119, 718-305-6960, 845-738-1066.

Torah Live – Torah Live is offering free access to their accounts on 60 day increments – If you or your school would like to take advantage of this opportunity, go to http://www.torahlive.com/schools and use promo code TORAH.
Aleph Beta – at the top of the page they have a link for those who are stuck at home for free access.a
Chabad.org – is a great resource to begin with, but they have a wonderful children’s site filled with games and videos.
Akhlah
Torahtots
Chinuch.org– Is a Torah U’Mesorah website that has resources available to download for all age levels and all Jewish subject areas.

Want to help with the secular side of things as well?

Khan Academy – Includes extensive interactive math classes, along with coding. It also has so much more available, and all for free!

There are many places where one can download out of copyright books to read on a computer or to print out for free.

Gateway to the Classics (used to be Mainlesson.com) Has a huge database of children’s books. Click on “Library” and then you can go to the “Browse” link to browse by author or by title.
Gutenberg.org
Manybooks.net
Google Books

Want audiobooks instead? Try:
Librivox
Gateway to the Classics – Click on “Library” and then go to “Listen”
Other resources can include Amazon Kindle books.

Great time to pick up some new language that sounds fun!

Duolingo – can be done on the computer or app. There are others, but this is the one that I use.

Other ideas:

Take the time to reconnect. About 4 years ago I bought a small spiral notebook for each of us in the family. I tried to remember a few times a week to give each person their book and told them to write one thing they are greatful for. We have not done them in 2.5 years. Tonight, I decided to bring them out again. IY”H, we will be using them most nights.

In a time of technology, some old forms have been forgotten. Now would be a great time to bring them out. Have your children draw pictures or write cards or small letters to someone. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. It does not have to be long, just something small. The mail them. In the snail mail. 🙂 Maybe they can be “penpals” with their best friend who lives next door – if you can get out – paste the note on the front door in the evening and they can paste one on your door the next night!

Start a Reading Time (or Quiet Time), perhaps in the afternoon or evening after supper. Take 30-60 minutes and everyone reads a book.

We might not understand exactly why Hashem has decided this was the best thing for us, but let us say “Thank You!” and take advantage of all that was thrown at us!

If you have any other ideas, please leave a comment, I am sure there are many other people who will be excited to hear about them.

The Topsy-Turvy World

Well, it certainly has been a while since I have written a post. It is not that I did not want to, it is just that I did not feel I had anything to say. I went from homeschooling 4, down to 3 and then 2 a few months later and since last year I have been down to 1. Every time one of my boys grows up, it changes at home. I had been thinking that it was time to start migrating to my other passion, especially since our youngest is just a few years away from going to Yeshiva himself and leaving me all alone! (Yikes, I don’t even want to think of that right now!) However, today, I feel like I have something to say.

It may not be too homeschool related, but then again, homeschooling is about learning all the time and learning to learn from everything/everyone that one encounters.

I am not going to talk about the coronavirus that is going around. We have all read more than enough news about how to protect ourselves and those around us as much as possible. And, I am sure that everyone reading this has been getting email after email from businesses and community leaders, etc. telling us, yet again, to wash for 20 seconds with soap and water and to stay home if we have ANY illness symptoms, no matter from what. What I do want to write about is a little bit about my thoughts.

I look at the world, and all of a sudden it has been turned upside down. It is not just cities that are shut down – which I find hard to imagine to begin with – but whole countries. It is not just one part of the world, it is the entire world. From travel to entertainment to grocery stores to the stock market and the schools and universities. Just a few months ago you could have asked me and I would tell you that it is hard to believe that the morals of people have changed so much over the last 20 years. Now, I say that it is hard to believe that the whole world has changed so much over the last 20 days.

I had one boy who called me yesterday from Yeshiva to tell me that where he is, the girls’ high school, the elementary school and the shul have all been shut down. It is only a matter of time before his Yeshiva is shut down and he is sent home and he is afraid about not being able to graduate. Yesterday, he had only one secular teacher come in to teach, and the rest stayed home. [Since writing this, we got an email stating the Governor has closed all k-12 schools. We just bought a ticket for him to come home.] Just a few minutes ago, I got an email from the local Yeshiva where another son goes, and for now, they are having school next week. However, any parent who is concerned can bring his child home and there will be online classes.

On the upside, for there always is an upside, I would guess that in the next week or so, we might be a thriving homeschool family again. 😀

Over the last 24 hours I have been getting community emails that went from “No children’s programs and no kiddushes this week” to “all services have been cancelled.” Yesterday I read an article that the Chief Rabbi of Israel has stated that people should not go daven at the Kotel. I think that was the one that really made me think even more than I have been. What?! To tell me that the Kotel is standing there, under Jewish security and I should not be going there? Only a Jew knows what that means for a Jew.

What is going on? The one and only answer – Hashem. He is trying to tell us something that we have seemed to have forgotten. He is in charge. He runs the world. He wants to give us blessings upon blessings but can only do that if we recognize Him. We are told to stay in our homes, not go to shul, not even the Kotel. Maybe this is His way of having us reconnect. If we are home, we have the opportunity to think more. Think more about what life really is all about. Time for connections. Connections with our family. Connections with ourselves. And most importantly, connections with G-d.

The physical world is just a mirror of the spiritual world. To know what is going on in the spiritual world, we just have to look here in the physical world. The entire physical world has turned upside down. We just came out of Purim – a holiday that was all topsy-turvy. G-d’s name is not mentioned once in the entire megillah. It was the first time in history that G-d hid Himself and did not produce open miracles. We dress up on Purim to remind ourselves about that. Hashem has hidden Himself since then. It has been hard to see who really runs the world. Until now. It is really easy to see that there is a G-d running the world. All He wants is for us to “find” Him.

Like Mordechai told Esther when she said she cannot go see the king – We will be saved. The question is, do you want to be part of it or not?

The question we need to ask ourselves is – Hashem runs the world. Big things are happening. The question is – do I want to be part of it?

Let us do our part and wash our hands, and cough in our elbows and take the time to do our own personal introspection on life.

Wishing everyone good health and happiness despite all the craziness that is going on.