Homeschool – Page 5 – Jewish and Homeschooling in an Amazing World

A Freilichen Purim!

Finally, I get a few spare moments to breathe. The last while I have felt like I have been going in circles, but it has usually been good. Somehow I have not been able to get much done other than teach and today I seem to have some time, but with it being a fast day, I am not doing much for I know if I do then it will come back to bite me.

A few weeks ago one little (or big?) boy of 4 decided he was going to be a big boy, and while I was busy teaching his older brothers he went around the house and did chores such as emptying the dishwasher and putting most things away, all by himself and ripping toilet paper for Shabbos (and they were all in even square strips!) When asked why he thought of those ideas, he responded that he did not want his brothers to have to do the work. <3 <3 <3

The weather has been absolutely crazy this winter. It was not so much the snow that came, but the COLD that came along with it. Yeah, yeah, I have friends and family who will remind me that I grew up in the cold and I should be used to it. I’m a wimp, and I’m tired of the cold temperatures hovering around 0 F and below (-17 C and below). I do not mind it staying around the freezing mark; I like the change in weather, the snow, the crisp air, etc. and then the warming up and seeing the new buds. It is also hard to send the boys outside to stretch their legs. Many times we had to tell our oldest not to walk to shul in the mornings for it was just too cold, or icy, or windy. Things were just starting to look a bit warmer this week and it was gorgeous for the chassanah that we attended on Monday, but that was just a little Purim joke. And to mention that many of those people have moved out of the cold climate themselves.

On Tuesday afternoon we played some hookie with the weather rising to about 57 F! Actually, it was not hookie, it was a much needed stretch of the legs for everyone, you see, I feel very proud of myself for when I told my oldest that we were going to play hookie, he looked at me and said, “Huh? What’s that?” Ditching school and taking advantage of the amazing weather to finally get a chance to stretch legs and soak in some sunshine and fresh air for more than 2 minutes really is part of schooling, and he understands that as such. 😀 Most of the snow was gone and one boy even wore shorts. Then came the rest of the Purim joke – Late Tuesday night/ early Wednesday morning it started to come. It came and it came and it came. Boy, did it come. Within 24 hours we had about 16 inches of white stuff all over the ground. My oldest used the snow blower at least twice on the driveway, the last time being around 5pm. DH and I went out for a Sheva Brachos and came back at around 9 pm and it was a miracle we made it not only home without getting stuck, but into our driveway! The snow was higher than the bottom of our van! And that was just 4 hours worth of it.

Schooling itself has just been okay. I put our schedule up on our living room wall for all to see. It is a good schedule, I just find myself missing out on things every week. I think the problem is more me than the boys. I have to really have my mindset to be ready by 8 am. We are not scheduled to daven until 8:30 am but I have noticed that my mind is just not ready. Something for me to work on. It is nice to have some quiet/me time before we start and I am up and physically ready, just mentally I am not. Perhaps if I take the time the boys are getting themselves ready (7:45-8:30), i.e. cleaning one bathroom, sweeping the floor, or other small task, I will feel a bit accomplished right at the beginning and that will help motivate me. I did notice that this morning when we got up at 5:45 am to eat a bit before the fast and I took about half an hour to wipe the kitchen counters and table and straighten the living room. I did have the drive to continue on, and would have if it were not a fast day. So, that will be my next task.

We did go out on Tuesday night to get some more firewood in anticipation of the cold weather the next day. We did order a cord of firewood in late December, but with the extreme temperatures (my husband told me this morning that this has been the coldest winter since 1912!) we had only 4 logs left. We had a nice fire for a few hours yesterday. I would have started one more fire today, but there was not enough to make it worthwhile.

In the meantime, I need to make supper now – have to feed some bellies! Wishing everyone a Freilichen Purim!

p.s. Just an update on our new bookshelves – it really has helped out a lot. Some days it gets messy, but it is really easy for boys to pick up the books and they are so enjoying all the beanbags we have in there as well!

The Rest of the Year

My 4 year old, while we are in the car: “Mommy, I want the Bais Hamikdash song!”

I had absolutely no clue what song he was talking about, but he asked me several times while we were driving. I was going through my brain, trying to figure the song out. My oldest bought a few CD’s recently with his Bar Mitzvah money. It was not the Maccabeats, no, we have had those CD’s for a long time. I had Six13 playing and I quickly flipped through the songs for him. No. Well, perhaps it is Lipa. A brother helped me put Lipa in while I drove and we flipped through those songs. No, the only song he knew from that CD was “Hang Up the Phone.” No. No clue. Poor boy was so distraught. He wanted his Bais Hamkidash song! We had to wait and I asked my oldest if he knew what his little brother was talking about the next time we got into the car. It turns out that it was Cantor Helfgot and Itzchak Perlman! I was driving and the little boy was in the back seat, but the squeals of delight as he heard the violin start playing his song was wonderful. Beautiful song and it lasts 9 minutes and 58 seconds, and my youngest was singing along the entire time.

It’s been hard to get back into the swing of things after our winter vacation. It took a few weeks, but I finally sat down and redid our schedule. I was so proud of myself and I printed it out (took 8 pages), taped it together and attached it to our kitchen wall. As I was in the middle of taping, I noticed… a mistake. Oops. Oh well, it is hard to find all the mistakes until it is in print. We have made (well, really in the middle of the process of making) major and minor changes.

We had some things that had been working for us until recently, and with growing boys, we have made some executive decisions. Firstly, some of the minor changes I made. We have the older boys going through Rambam while watching videos with Rabbi Yehoshua Gordon on Chabad.org. While trying to be efficient with time, okay, it was mostly out of convenience, but don’t tell anyone, I would have all three boys watch the videos together. As long as I was in the room with them, that was fine. However, it is hard to stay in the room when another little boy “needs” to learn his school work. One might think that this is not an issue, until one realizes that once the parent leaves the room, the other boys tend to think that they can be boys.

So, we are working on getting their tablets all set up so that they can all listen to their Rambam videos separately, and wearing headphones (so they can be with me in the same room and I spend some time with my Bais Hamikdash boy) – which leads us to our major change. In order for them to be allowed to use their tablets, we have to make sure that when we sit them down with the tablets, they are likely to actually watch and listen, opposed to finding other things to do instead and I am not noticing. You know, like checking their email, etc. At first we were thinking that we would remove internet access to the tablets, which meant to remove the actual ability of the tablet to find any internet to try to connect to. To do that, you have to hack the tablet and start messing with the actual programming of it. Well, we got all the way to the last step and we “bricked” the tablet – meaning it won’t even turn on to use. Oops. We had to get another tablet. (We got the lower end tablets, and with a higher end tablet we would most likely would have been able to fix it by re-installing the whole system, similar to when one has to wipe out their Windows computer and re-install the Windows system.)

While waiting to decide what we are going to do now, I made the decision that the desktop computer was getting abused and I finally went and removed internet access to that computer – by pulling the plug to their internet router. We have two routers; one with a password, and one that was supposed to be filtered and with no password. (The filter, for some reason, stopped working.) Once the router that did not require a password was unplugged, there can be no access through tablets. That means we can upload videos through a thumb drive and do not have to worry about boys playing around so much (and don’t have to worry about screwing up another tablet!) Yes, we did get drop and spills protection, but that does not include when we root the tablet and mess up the programming end.

It’s been too cold to go out some days. Boys are kvetchy. Tried bribing them in getting work done fast so we can put up bookcases (a wonderful homeschool treat!!!!) Didn’t work. Bookcases came, school work was not done, and couldn’t get them to finish the work so we can put up the bookcases. A few days later and we finally finished screwing in all the screws to the 3rd and final Bais Hamikdash, oops, bookcase. 😉 We are still working on arranging all the books. With 3 new bookcases, you would think there would be some empty shelves. Right now I have 2 that are empty…for now, however, we are not done.

We have rearranged some furniture from our library (where the bookcases are) to the living room. We rather like it and think of keeping it, at least for now, this way. My chair is sitting right next to the bookcase on the hearth (and it’s within reach of my arms!) and instead of having my papers pile up all over the place, I am removing the books from one of the shelves and replace them with a few containers where I can store the papers and whatnot that I use throughout the day. I am hoping that it will make the fireplace area look a lot neater.

More Thoughts on Boxes

I thought I posted this two weeks ago, but I guess it helps if I press the “publish” button when I am done. (Oops.) In any case, just wanting to wish Mr. Big Boy #2 a wonderful and Happy Birthday! We did not take a picture of the cake that his brothers made for him today, but here is the picture of his Tu B’Shevat cake.

Last time I wrote a blog regarding putting children in boxes – making all people “the same.” I definitely could have written so much more, but that would have taken a book to write it all down. However, it was a starting point and something that was asking for comments. Comments are great for they get everyone thinking. I find that good comments help me think and really get my thoughts out better. I did have one person write me, and I am going to try to summarize their email as well as my response back.

This person was saying that change is not always a bad thing. One of her children is on medication and he feels so much better. Before, he had so many thoughts roaming around his head that he could not think properly, nor comprehend others properly for his thoughts kept getting in his way. Now, he feels in control of himself and is able to make appropriate decisions. He feels very happy with himself now.

As for school and a box, well, 100% agreement on that. And, no, it’s not the number of kids. It’s what the teachers are given to work with. If a child misbehaves, they cannot tell them no or that they are doing something bad. They must be ‘redirected’. So, they never learn, and the teacher has no teeth. Kids act up in class and there are no consequences. An ADHD kid may not always control their actions, but cannot be given a free pass. They need to learn to control, they need to be given the tools to control.

Important things for all ADHD (and non) kids? Exercise, sleep, diet. People were not made to sit for hours at a time. Change school – these kids are not farming anymore. They should be spending a full day in school. They should have a decent break between classes. They should be forced to move. They should have a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. They should have time to work on schoolwork during the day in case they have questions. They should have a minimal amount to take home to teach them how to use their time.

No, this does not work for every kid, but would certainly work a lot better than what we have now!

Now, here is my response:

As I mentioned, there is a time and a place for medicines, and there is absolutely no way I can comment on your son. There are children that should be on medicines, BUT I feel the percentage is rather low.

So, why are there so many people on medicines now? I think the answer is rather simple (though doing something about is not.) You hit the nail on the spot – not that long ago we were all moving around a LOT – farming, etc. It reminds me a lot of pit bulls. Pit bulls have gotten a bad rap for hurting people. Pit bulls are not meant to be cooped up in a city life, they NEED to be running around in a field/meadow/farm, etc. They have so much energy that in a city life it just builds up and without the ability to release it, they snap.

We all need to move around and exercise. We never had to make time to exercise until we stopped farming – not that not being on a farm is a bad thing. Children need to move around, and boys in general usually need more. When we take a child that just has so much energy and make them sit still for 6-7 hours a day, they can’t cope and they “snap” and interrupt and disturb the classroom.

I have heard of the following kind of classroom (not sure where this classroom is except that it is in the US):

They split boys and girls up for girls and boys learn differently. Not sure what they do for the girls, and it might be a boys only school, but especially for the boys, they make them move around on a very regular basis, for example, every 10 minutes or so they move seats. The learning style is more physical and active, not just worksheets. Yes, worksheets are easy, but not always the best way to do something. With the constant movement, the boys are able to control themselves for they are able to release it all. Yes, you are still going to come across a boy once in a while who needs more or something else in addition, but you won’t need to give it to that many.

And no, I am not doing this very well, and I understand it. I am struggling to try to incorporate this into our learning, but at least I understand the need and hope to try harder at it.

And, not to mention that a lot of parents feel that kids should be seen but not heard and that does not help at all either!

So, the answer is to let kids be kids and understand the different learning abilities between girls and boys (btw, girls do well with the standard learning and they will usually do well with more of the “boy” style learning while boys can do the boy style learning but not nearly as well with the standard learning taught today,) and teach each according to their ways. 🙂

Rivkah

The b0X → █

Hope everyone is staying warm and having fun in the snow (those that have!) It’s been a while, I know. I can say it’s been busy (which it has,) and it has been hard to get back into the swing of things after the Bar Mitzvah – between family visiting, Thanksgiving, having a few weeks before getting ready for more family coming to visit, etc. All that is true, but there were times where I could have sat down to write, and I have thought about it for weeks. The real reason for not writing is simply because I could not think of anything to write about; school has been slow. However, as we are finishing our vacation, and hopefully tomorrow we will get back into the swing of things, I came across some videos and readings today that I do want to talk about. The topic is nothing new to homeschoolers, but it seems to be something that few non-homeschooling teachers want to talk about very much, or perhaps better put, something that might be talked about but few think there is much they can or want to do about it.

When we first started homeschooling, about 8 years ago, when asked why we were homeschooling we just answered because we wanted to. That answer was true, but it was not the complete truth. Almost 8 years later I now feel comfortable talking about the complete truth. The real truth, the real reason why we even considered homeschooling is because our son did not fit inside the box. No, we are not talking about the cardboard box that he did fit into, it is the school box – the one that the schools want to put all students into so that they can teach our children the easiest – the box called “NORMAL.” Teachers want each child to have both feet and both arms, both hands and their bodies all in the same box. I don’t really blame them, teaching more than one or two children at a time is not easy, I know, I have 4 children of various ages in my daily classroom and I have taught in a preschool that had 4-5 times as many children all the same age than I teach now. Teaching is not easy and I have great respect for teachers.

Those who read my posts regularly know that I have one boy that thinks really differently than the rest – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and I would not change him for anything. My husband was tired Shabbos night and we were just sitting and talking about ADD medicines. He preceded the conversation by telling me that he was in no way suggesting anything, he was just talking. Oh, medicine would work well on our one child, he would be a textbook patient. His concentration would be great, his learning would jump up, etc. Um, yeah, I think medicine would work well for me too. I get sidetracked often, can’t seem to focus, etc. I believe most of us would benefit from medicine! But No. Not just “no”, an unequivocal No. One thing that most people do not think about – these ADD medicines do one thing I refuse to do to my children – it CHANGES them. Even once off, the child is changed. The child would not be the same kind of child they were before the medicine. There are other negatives to being on these medicines, such as becoming stubborn. The medicine is made to make a person focus. That might be fine and dandy until a child has a tantrum. The medicine makes a person focus on the negative so much more just like it makes him focus on the good. Oh, but then my husband told me that there are medicines they give children for defiance as well. Nice. (There IS a time and place for everything, and there is a small, small, small percentage of children who actually do need it, and should probably be on it. I just believe there are too many people (children AND adults) who are on it that do not need to be and people are just confused as to when the medicine is really needed.) When I hear that there are many classrooms in the country where all the children are on medicines, shouldn’t that concern us? I could go on. We are destroying our children’s creativity when we make them focus with medicines. When someone has focus medicine, there cannot be creativity. Yes, children need to be taught to focus in learning, but by making them focus all the time we remove their ability to be creative.

Why do people like medicines? It makes it so much easier to teach a room full of children if they are all the same. Imagine; 15 or so children who are not able to sit still, not focus and interrupt, or 15 children who are sitting dutifully in their chairs, are quiet and listen. On the other hand, it is hard for me to look at any particular parent and say they are doing wrong for the school systems are set up for almost 100% failure if a child does not fit into a box. It is something that has to change from the top. The schools have to change before we can suggest change to others.

My oldest, while in preschool, had at least 2 arms and one foot outside the “box.” For three quarters of the year the teacher thought my child was not as intelligent as the rest of the children. She told me that my son was not able to compete with them. At the end of the year parent-teacher interview she exclaimed, “Your son is very intelligent!” By this time we had already decided that to keep him in school past the next month was going to be a big mistake. We had already decided we were going to homeschool. As the years go by, I am constantly seeing how every child learns differently, and it is not just that girls learn differently than boys – I have 4 boys and each is very different. We have to expect that. Why? Each person that is created is unique. We know that each one of us has a unique mission to fulfill and if one of us does not fulfill our mission, the world is not complete. Hashem gave each one of us a unique set of qualities that match our specific mission, therefore there are no two people the same. If we know that and understand that, why should it surprise us when someone says each child learns differently?

חֲנֹךְ לַנַּעַר עַל פִּי דַרְכּוֹ – Train (teach) a child according to his way (Mishlei/Proverbs 22:6)

Teaching is not a one-size-fits-all. My answer to my husband as to how to deal with any of the children who I might be having a harder time dealing with – I have to change my teaching style, not change the boy. I don’t want to change any boy, that would be taking away from who his is and his ability to fulfill his mission in this world. I can see all my children when they are older and they are going to be able to live just fine, it is just that right now their parents need to guide and mold them into who they need to be – not change them. I have found, through experience, that by adjusting myself and growing myself, my boys tend to follow suit, on their own, without having to argue and fight with them. I have to change my ways to teach according to his way.

Here are the links that spurred today’s blogging:
The Box Child – Rabbi Dovid Abenson
Rabbi Abenson’s website is: http://shaarhatalmud.com/

Educating Yorkshire – Mushy Finds His Voice
– Short Version – Long Version

Finally!

After a Bar Mitzvah (and since we did a Thursday morning service, we even got pictures!), lots of family (Baruch Hashem!), vacation over Thanksgiving to visit more family, Chanukah, and school reports written and sent in, I think we are ready to get back to some normality again. Not all family was able to come, but the ones that were able to come meant a lot to us. My sister brought over 5 cousins to play with, along with her husband. We were also blessed to have Saba and Savta and one brother over. It is so nice to be able to celebrate with family. We had 16 people stay over in our house and it reminded me of the story The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. I played the video narration of the book for everyone since I could not find our copy of the book to read. I could not help myself and after the first set of visitors left, I transcribed the book, adjusted the words to make it match our family, chose photos to go with the words and voila! I had a photo book full of our memories. Lots of laughs and lots of fun. (My youngest came up to me this morning for he found the missing book!)

It always seems to take a bit to get back into a routine, especially after several weeks of being out of one, though I think we did pretty good this week. We are trying to do as the schedule says, but it does not help too much when I am late at getting myself ready – I just cannot seem to be able to want to get moving in the morning, however, once I am moving it is not too bad. Our schedule has changed over the past month; there is no more Amateur Radio classes for the older two boys, some extra music teaching students have changed days and times, Mr. Bar Mitzvah boy is not laining but he is going to shul for all three minyamin now which is making the late afternoon a bit harried sometimes, and both older boys are happy to be attending chavrusa learning twice a week which has changed some of our evening plans (but I really cannot complain that they love learning!) I really need to be able to sit down and think a little bit about how to make everything work out. Today was a really crazy one and nothing seemed to really work out as it should have.

The really crazy thing is that I am all of a sudden finding spare time during the day – during teaching time! I am not sure how that is happening. I am even looking at the chart I put on the wall multiple times a day to make sure I am not missing anything. I honestly am not sure what is different, though I try not to complain and try to find things to do such as sweeping, mopping, folding laundry, etc. Though I do admit that sometimes I just sit down… and do nothing, and feel weird about doing it.

I have been working on trying to be more organized. I have tried it before with varied success. I hate coming into the kitchen to work with kids and the clean kitchen from the morning is no longer there. I can clean a house, but it never seems to stay anything like it should. I have been thinking about trying to keep the house better in a different light. It seems to me (at least it does this week,) that organizing a house is like going on a diet – one can go on a rampage and do a house cleaning, but it will not likely stay clean. Same for a diet – one can loose a lot of weight all at once, but almost always those “diets” are very short lived. I am trying a different way; I am slowly re-organizing things so it looks cleaner, and trying to keep the new re-organizing before adding new things to the plate. My goal is to eventually get to the point where everything is usually in the right spot, more often than not, and when it is not, it does not take that much time and effort to get it there. I have been thinking of ways that will work for our family, using how the members in our family work. Reminds me of how I teach; I have to use the strengths and weaknesses of each child and tailor my teaching accordingly. I find that instead of thinking, “this person SHOULD be doing this, or that” and then getting annoyed when they don’t, I try to think “this person is not doing what I would like them to do, how can I get them to do it?” I have a feeling that my organizing process is going to take the next, oh, 14 years or so? 😉

Rolling on to a connected thought, a friend posted a wonderful blog from a stay-at-home mom. So, I will not mind if my house is not organized like I want for the next 14 years or so, for I plan on treasuring seeing a 4 year old all bundled up from being outside in the cold and the snow and walking like a penguin, while I walk towards him the same way and we both laugh. I also plan on tucking away memories of putting children to bed and at 11 pm at night I still have all boys up and awake and not sleeping. (Should I get them up extra early in the morning? 😉 )

I Am Still Here, Really!

It has been a while since I have been able to sit down and write. Preparing for a low-key Bar Mitzvah sure has taken up a lot of time – between making sure everything is going as needed at the right time to trying to finish some needed things off in time, time has sure contracted and as the days grow shorter and a halachic hour is getting shorter, it seems to have affected the speed of the hands on my clocks as well!

Last night I went through some pictures that were almost 13 years old. As I went through the folders on the computer and my husband and I walked through Memory Lane, he told me it was enough to make him cry. He was sad when thinking about the past, how all the boys are growing up and thinking that in the not so near future they will almost be all grown up. I told him that the boys are just becoming to Be. Our oldest is just becoming to be his own real self, who he really is going to be. Yes, each boy has shown their own personality right from the beginning, but they have been busy learning and growing. Now, our oldest is just starting to be his own person. We still need to continue to guide him over the next several years, but it is going to be a different kind of guidance.

One of the boys put on Shabbos music a little while ago and we were all in the kitchen making various food for Shabbos, I know that one day I will be doing this by myself again and I will not be looking at one boy making dough and I will not be seeing flour flying all over the room in order that the dough not stick to the counter, on the floor, clothing, air, and who knows where. However, today said boy made amazing knishes and even cleaned up after himself.

Not everything as been able to have been done school wise for the last few weeks for my oldest for he has been busy practicing his laining and preparing for his speech. He also has SAT math and vocabulary that he has been working on and yes, it has been a lot, however in less than 2 weeks his load will have lightened up a bit. Boys are finishing up selling all their popcorn and my oldest even did his first sewing project on the sewing machine – they are making a tallis in Boy Scouts. He sure did a great job! Even I learned something new by learning how to sew button holes with my machine.

In the meantime, I am enjoying all the wonderful chefs and the delicious smells in the house today. They are sure turning into wonderful cooks. We are almost done cooking and are going to spend a few hours cleaning, writing Dvar Torahs and showers!

Wishing everyone a restful Shabbos.

Our Long Weekend and Scroll Tutor Review

Another busy week has past and another busy week has started. The boys went on a scout campout Sunday and Monday, and since DH was their scoutmaster as well, it was just me and the little one at home for some nice quiet time. Motzei Shabbos I sat down with him and had him tell me what he wanted to eat the next day. We settled on some pasta for lunch (which he made for me) and pizza for supper. I was able to convince him that jellybeans would best be had for a snack opposed to a full meal. 😉 We had a nice lazy morning with some beautiful weather, picked up a tefillin bag for my oldest who starts to put on tefillin this week (!!!) and even got to surprise Daddy and brothers by coming by the campsite for supper (we pushed pizza till the next day and had delicious fire cooked hot dogs and hamburgers instead, complete with roasted marshmallows.) I think the car is finally cleaned out, with all the camping gear still in the living room, however, all boys had showers and all clothes are in the hamper (I think…) I have decided that all clothes are going in the laundry at the same time – This time I will not discriminate between lights, darks, heavy, thin, etc. I believe in all clothes getting the same opportunity to being washed and dried. 😉 (Just do not tell the boys that, for then they will want to do it all the time!)

This morning is the first morning that my oldest put on his new tefillin! As I woke up early and saw father and son leave the room, I made sure to remind my husband, for the third time, to remember to take at least one picture for me. No, I am not excited in the least. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now between trying to figure out what to do with the scout popcorn this week as well as work on details for the Big Day next month. But, have no fear, the nice thing is that even if I don’t do anything, time still goes on! Ha! And yes, that does comfort me as I try to juggle everything for Time comes and Time goes, and Life really does go on and I won’t get stuck in a rut. C’est la vie!

There is a new website that has just launched call Scroll Tutor. They have 10 minute videos on Chumash and they are starting off with Parshas Shemos. Right now, there is a new video once a week and they are sending out a weekly email with the next video link. I received the link to the 3^rd video this weekend
and finally got around to pulling up a video to watch. I figured that I could afford to spare 10 minutes to check it out especially with everyone out of the house.

The videos are definitely geared a little more towards children, though, as an adult, I did enjoy watching it as well. (They do advertise it is for both children and adults.) The videos are very similar the kind of videos done on Khan Academy. The speaker has the Hebrew text on the screen, goes through it and translates it, talks briefly about it and then pulls up Rashi to answer some questions. He puts in some clip art in as well to help the viewer better visualize what is being talked about and to help keep the interest of the viewer. He underlines the words as he goes, which I thought was great for there was regular motion to redirect delicious minds to keep focused on the task at hand. 10 minutes. Nice, short and sweet. Very easy to fit into busy schedules as well. There really is no excuse not to fit in 10 minutes into the day. Right now there is one chapter sent out every week, with about 6 six videos per chapter. After all, 10 minutes a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks, that is 520 hours or 21.7 days more of Torah learning a year! And hey, if even one of my children learn 21.7 extra days of Torah learning a year, that is 21.7 extra days of credit that I get on my account, and I have 4 boys, so that is 86.7 days and if I sit down to learn with them, well, it is starting to look mighty good. I know, I’m just thinking of myself. 😉

I thought of my one little boy that I am the one struggling to understand better, who really is taller than me, and thought he would really benefit from videos like these. So, as I prodded one little boy a few times (this one really is shorter than me still,) to keep awake while finishing up the Rambams they were doing and then sent 3 off to bed, I kept the one boy behind to show him the video. Even though he was tired from the campout, he was really good at focusing and listening.

I asked him what he thought about it and then what he liked and what he didn’t like. His answers, in order, are 1) he liked the pictures and 2) he liked how it was taught. (The teaching style.) I asked if he liked how it was underlined and if it helped keep his focus and he said yes. He did not have anything he did not like. He also told me “too bad he does not do videos for trop,” my guess he is thinking about HIS bar mitzvah that is coming up in the not so distant future. As he walked sleepily off to bed, he asked me if he could watch more tomorrow. They are planning on having a subscription for the videos, but right now you can sign up for a free trial.

I think campouts are a great thing, and think they should have more of them for within minutes, the room with 4 boys was silent. They all fell fast asleep.

Back to Reality

After all the wonderful holidays, we are back in reality. I really felt it on Shabbos even though Yom Tov went directly into Shabbos, when Simchas Torah was gone, so was that special feeling. This week we are back in the real world. It has been quite busy this week, with popcorn selling, popcorn selling and more popcorn selling. I have two boys who are taking Amateur Radio classes; one boy is going for his license, and a second boy is going for an upgrade to be able to use more radio bands.

Even though we have not had that many real school days so far because of the Yomim Tovim, I finally figured out why we always seemed to be missing 15 minutes in the morning, right at the beginning of the day. I am not sure what I was thinking, for I really did give only 15 minutes to something that should take 30. I was able to rearrange the schedules to include that extra 15 minutes, as well as fix some of the other issues that arose as well. That’s the nice thing about being the boss of the schedule. J This week went a lot smoother than previous attempts.

I was thinking about my right-brained son last night. I am sure there are readers that are wondering how things are going, and what I am doing differently in teaching him. The truth is, I have been so pre-occupied with the wonderful Yomim Tovim that I have done nothing. Though I have felt so much more at ease just knowing he is right-brained. I know that there are resources out there that can help me teach him the way he learns best and that knowledge in itself has been quite comforting. What I have done this week is give him a… calculator. (Yikes!) The questions they were asking were using rather large numbers and to do them in my head would take some time, let alone this boy. The questions were about finding the lowest common multiple of two numbers. For those who do not know what that means, it entails doing the multiplication tables for two different numbers until you find a common multiple. The lcm(8,16) is an easy one – 16, but the lcm(25,35) is not as inherent. He understood what was expected of him and instead of having him just guess the correct answer for he felt it was impossible for him to do, I gave him the calculator and off he went. It took a subject that he was not excited about and changed it to one that he actually seemed to enjoy. This was hard for me to do for there is a stigma that giving a calculator is liken to cheating. But, I am not asking him what 6×6 is, I am asking him to go a step further. If one does not know what it means to find the lcm(25,35), using a calculator will not help. The next time math came up in the schedule, he went to grab the calculator, paper and pen and just went about his business. Needless to say, he got many more questions right in such a short time.

We were forced to try another change in different area. I had been having all three boys listening to their Rambam videos together, but unless I am in the room it does not work out very well. I went out Motzei Shabbos to listen to a speaker and my husband and 3 boys were home, all learning with DH learning something different than the boys. I took one boy and gave him a computer and headphones and sat him beside his father in one room, and the other two boys were on another computer in another room. The boy who learned by himself liked it so much that he asked for it again. It worked out really well.

On Friday, our library next door was having one of its quarterly book sales. I usually let each boy choose one book a piece and then I go and find potential school books (i.e. the classics) as well as other free reads they might be interested in and ones that I would approve of (historical fiction usually.) I needed Shakespeare books for two of the boys and noticed several complete books of Shakespeare. I decided to choose 3 of the books – one for each boy. For $1a piece, they were a great used book bargain at the library. I inscribed a short message to each boy and handed them a book. They were all very excited. Yup, they are homeschooled boys. Love my job!

My house is a mess; I was selling popcorn all day with my boys. I keep telling myself that it is almost done – this part of it anyways, though the next part is the easy part. We are pre-selling the popcorn and collecting all the money so all we have to do is go and deliver it and not have to worry about the hassle of trying to collect the money afterwards. However, I did get ALL my dishes washed up after Shabbos last night. Need to remember to look for the good.

I am off to LaLa Land, and as I remember that this past Shabbos my oldest wore his new Shabbos hat, and oh, looked so spiffy in it, I am going to be dreaming of Bar Mitzvah invitations that I have to come up with now. All for the good. J

Gut Moed!

Gut Moed everyone! It has been beautiful over here. The boys have all been able to sleep in the sukkah several nights now, and it looks like they will be able to continue to sleep in it through Yom Tov. Unfortunately, I have not been able to sleep in it for one reason: There is no bed or space for a bed for me! It would have been nice, the fresh air is always so refreshing to wake up too. Perhaps next year. Just one note of caution: Do NOT place a pillow anywhere near a heater that is turned on. You just might find the pillow slipped off the bed and is laying on top of the heater creating a fire. Not a good thing. Just saying. Baruch Hashem, the boy who found it turned the heater off and it just melted the pillow. Life lesson learned – keep heaters FAR away from anything in the sukkah. I told the boys this morning that Hashem was really kind to us for it was just a pillow that melted and had to be thrown out. He was giving us a second chance and we need to learn from it. I do not think we really need the heater at night anyways, not with all the sleeping bags and blankets they use.

The first days were wonderful. Busy, but wonderful. We had guests for many of the meals and went out for a couple. It was decided that instead of finishing up the second sefer of Rambam this weekend, they were going to skip to the sefer on Sukkos. It definitely has been a lot of fun learning about the halachos of the holiday during the holiday. It was also exciting when we took our old lulav from last year we were able to open it up and understand what the Rambam was talking about. For those that have not looked, if you take a look at the lulav (palm branch), each part of the leaf is actually doubled over and is twice as wide as it looks. Quite interesting. Science learning as part of halacha. 🙂 They even learned that you can have a sukkah on a boat. So, we took them to a sukkah on a boat this year. With chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, building of cookie sukkahs and boys only (with Daddy) pool time, it was a good day and lots of fun.

We usually just do Judaics during Chol Hamoed (the middle days of Sukkos and Pesach/Passover), for it is really still like a Yom Tov, though the boys are sifting through their lego pile now to find all the pieces for Lego Club at Currclick.com. The Lego Club is a free monthly club that the boys can sign up for. They did it a few times at the end of the previous school year, but we have not done it in a few months. Not sure what we are going to do (if anything else) tomorrow, perhaps we will go apple picking. We’ll see.

In the meantime, one boy is making lunch, one boy is cleaning the living room, and one is cleaning the table. Then, I need to go grocery shopping and get a menu ready for the last days! I am going to miss all the Yomim Tovim. There are no more Yomim Tovim until Pesach (not including Chanukah and Purim, which are not real Yomim Tovim for they happened after the Torah). I once heard that all these Yomim Tovim now are supposed to give us the spiritual light to tie us through the dark of the winter months when we get re-jew-venated with Pesach and then Shavuos. I have to remember to add pretzels and fruit rollups to make edible Torahs for Simchas Torah – both ingredients that I do not usually purchase, but I do occasionally make exceptions. 🙂

Wishing everyone a happy and energizing Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah!

Reflections

I was telling one of my boys, I forget which one, that Hashem is just so amazing. We have all year to do teshuva (repentence). When the month of Elul comes in we sound the shofar to awaken up our neshamas to do teshuva. Why? Because He knows we get busy and Life happens. Then comes Rosh Hashanah, the time that Hashem judges the entire world and decides what is in store for each of us for the coming year. But that is not all – He gives us 10 extra days! Why? Because He loves us and He created this world and knows that Life happens. On Rosh Hashanah He wrote in pencil. He is very patient and even after making His decision, He leans closer to us… and waits even longer. He yearns for us to reach up and do teshuva. When we do, on Yom Kippur our sins will be removed. So wonderful, but this is still not all! Our year is then inscribed in ink, but not just any ink, a very slow drying ink. So slow that it takes until after Sukkos to dry. Why? To give us yet another chance. Wet ink is a little bit harder to remove than pencil, but with a little bit more effort, it can be sopped up. We must be loved.

This past week has been really trying. As I mentioned, the first day of school was all but a mess. Tuesday did not fair much better. I was all ready to start the day when I remembered we had some change of plans – from going to a bris to taking a few minutes break at home before heading to a levaya (funeral). Needless to say, I did not really feel like teaching for a while afterwards. The last two days have been not too bad, though remember that I said I planned on taking the day before school to make sure I had all the books ready for the boys instead of going popcorn selling? Well, I probably should have not gone popcorn selling for I did miss several things that needed printing off!

The plus side to things is that because all the craziness of the week is now behind me, on the night before Yom Kippur I *finally* have time to recap (and drink water!) I have tried to sit down and do this before, I really have, but I would find myself sitting and trying and just getting too antsy to sit still any longer. Now, I have time. I have found that the past day or so I have been asking myself, “Am I being the best mother? Am I being the best teacher? When a beautiful boy is being who he is supposed to be and not listening, am I listening to what he is really trying to say, but can’t?”

A few weeks ago, I went for a short walk with my 4 year old. He wanted to ride bikes, but I was not wearing a skirt for biking and I just wanted to walk with him. He finally agreed as long as he could take his pen and paper for he wanted to make a map of our trip. No problem. It took me three houses before I realized that making a map meant that we would have to stop at each and every house so that he could plot our route. I really just wanted to walk. I was good though and very calmly tried to convince him that we needed to walk a certain distance before writing more down. When we reached the destination I gave him a few moments to draw his route. Did I mention, he loves to write his name and can write all the other family members’ names (or initials)? Being a lefty, he also tends to write right to left. I stood and watched him, really trying hard to not seem too ready to move on. He started writing and I looked from above. I watched as he wrote, “Mom <3 Matti” And then it was one of those moments. You know, the one that makes you feel like you were hit pretty hard. “Oh, you wrote that Mommy loves Matti?” “Yes!” “You are right, Mommy does love Matti.” (*tears in eyes*) [Just look for the biggest heart in the picture!] Somehow I was just not as anxious to walk for the exercise anymore. I don’t remember if we stopped at all on the way back home, but I enjoyed every second of it with him.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are not just about all the not so good things we have done, it is also about being a better Me. If I look back over the years, I do see improvement, maybe not as much as I would like, but it is there. I have to be happy about that. Change is not easy, but it is doable. I am hoping the tiny successes will inspire me to keep moving along the lines that I need to go in. I am not going to worry that the first week of school is one that I do not want to repeat, and so glad I can’t. The Days of Awe are still here, even if it is just for a short time more, I still have time to set a plan for the year. If I change myself, the boys change as well for they will mirror me. Children are funny that way. I have a feeling this year is going to be a good one. I not only love what I do, I feel very blessed to be able to do it. No, I’m not the best Me, but I am confident that I will be a better mother and a better teacher. It helps that I think I now have everything printed off for school. 🙂

In the meantime, I continue to count my blessings, and I thought most of you might would either be able to relate to the following mother or find another good reason why you homeschool (or both!)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claire-wapole/thirty-minutes-tops_b_3861853.html

Wishing you all a Gemar Chasima Tova, an easy and meaningful fast and a most amazing (homeschooling) year! Oh, and popcorn pickup is tomorrow afternoon, my garage will be full!