Homeschool – Page 6 – Jewish and Homeschooling in an Amazing World

Phew!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah. It was beautiful over here; not too hot, not too cold, and we even ate outside for one of the meals. If the holidays have crept up on you making it difficult to finish planning some of your teaching, or if you just are unsure of what or how to teach the Judaics, Rabbi Resnick is having a free classes week in Room613. Feel free to pop on in by going here. His new 2013-14 schedule can be found here.

Having a fast day the day before school starts was a challenge – especially since DH wanted us to go sell popcorn as well. Before yesterday, the boys did manage to sell $1000 in just 3 days by going just door-to-door! That definitely was a record for us. The new training we had for selling popcorn has sure helped so far. I have even set up several days in the next month were we are going to be selling at a table. I am hoping the new training will help us sell more there as well. After all, we are getting over $4000 worth of popcorn this Friday. Anybody hungry? We even accept credit cards this year. (Don’t be shy, there is plenty for everyone!) 🙂

Yesterday I was running around in a panic – I made my schedule for the boys last week. Even with an added boy to the list, I was still able to get it all on 2 pages. The problem was that I was missing one of the pages – and it happened to be the one I needed for the first day of school. It did not help that there seems to be papers that have decided to procreate, making the kitchen look quite hideous. It is amazing how that happens. Baruch Hashem I found it before I felt I should try to make a new schedule. It took several hours to create the first one. As it was, I did have to recreate an evening schedule, however that was not terrible. The boys ended their day with a green smoothie and Ryvita crackers for supper along with green back-to-school cupcakes for dessert. Thought that would be a great way to start the year off. I even went through the schedule with all 4 boys separately before they went to bed so they would know exactly what to expect from the new year.

The morning started off on the right note. Five out of six of us were up, dressed and ate at the same time. Just the little one was in bed, but he did not have to start at the same time as his older brothers. The boys even got to daven with their father instead of davening with me. Breakfast jobs were done on time. I was feeling great. Everything was going as it should. And then I made *the* mistake. Yes, the one that threw the ENTIRE day off.

I DID NOT CONSULT THE SCHEDULE! 😐 Yes, the same one who said that even after a full year of doing the same thing every week she knows how it is so important to still have a physical schedule to help keep everything going like it should, did not even look at the schedule this morning. The morning of the first day of school. I was so cool that I knew what everyone was supposed to do….. until 8:15 in the morning. How did this happen? I am not sure. I must have been a bit over confident that I knew what was going on until around 11 am that I did not even bother to look. That may not seem like the end of the world, and I would have thought that a small mistake would have been just a little ‘oops’, but that little ‘oops’ affected our entire day. What happened was that I thought that since the boys davened earlier with their father than was listed on the schedule, we had extra time to catch up on some mishnayos that the boys got a bit behind in because of the Yomim Tovim. That would not have been the end of the world if it were not for the fact that we totally skipped out on one of the subjects for each of the boys and I did not realize it until about lunch time.

One boy did not consult the schedule very closely either for he ended up missing a second subject. We did catch up one subject, but it was too much for me to fit in the second one, even at night. Between getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah in a few short months (oh my, where DID the time go?), working on his SAT vocabulary and SAT math (aka algebra) for the SAT he is going to, IY”H, take in January, and the extra subjects he is taking because of his grade (and selling popcorn), we are sure keeping him busy and out of most of the trouble.

That is not mentioning the one boy that was not feeling up to par today with a headache and had to lay down a few times, missing some classes, a boy who tried being a challenge. I think the mild headache I had all day until supper time was due to the amazingly, crazy first day. On another note, I did have ONE boy who got all his work done, even did his organ practising. Must have been the extra morning sleep. Baruch Hashem, there is always the good, just sometimes it is harder to find. The nice thing is that it is always there; if you look, you WILL find it. 🙂

As I am typing, I sit here feeling almost bored. The good is that as soon as I pick my eyes up from the computer screen I am reminded that I am really not bored. I have dishes to clean, tables to empty, the rest of the papers to put away. And that does not include the laundry that is so patiently waiting for me (and most probably procreating as I type.) No, I do not have to worry, I am not bored. I just wonder how long I can keep my eyes on the computer screen…

Sweet dreams and I really should get a little more friendly with my dishes. Tomorrow is another day, and that means the potential for a great day (and humbly remembering to look at the schedule!)

Almost Ready

mishneh torah I have not been able to write for a while for we have one computer in the repair shop, one with a broken screen, and the other is being used quite heavily by a boy who has been doing school work now for about 4 weeks, even though school has not officially started yet.

I firstly want to wish my boys (including Daddy) a hearty Mazal Tov on completing the first sefer in Rambam’s Mishne Torah – Sefer Madda (4 books including the introduction)! For a very special treat, for their siyum, we took them 3 hours to Toronto to eat in a kosher restaurant, daven in shul and drive 3 hours back. Our pocket book is $200 lighter, but it was definitely worth it! For the past month (almost to the day,) the boys have all been doing 2 chapters of Mishne Torah every day, except Shabbos where they usually do just one, but that might be able to change once the days get a little shorter on Shabbos day. They enjoy listening to (and watching) Rabbi Gordon from Chabad.org. He explains everything very nicely and tells lots of jokes to keep everyone’s interest. We had originally planned on doing 3 chapters a day during the school year, but, that is not going to work out. Two boys would have time in the their schedule for a third, but my oldest is now in the next level of Ambleside Online – the House of Education (HOE, years 7-12) and his course load has doubled I think from the previous years! So, two it is. Two chapters of Rambam and 2 mishnayos from the Mishna Yomit program, along with davening and parsha, and that is about all there is room for right now.

The last few weeks I have been feeling not in the mood to do anything. Normally, my summers are filled with stuff in the morning with the boys and then I send them out to play by themselves (or in the basement) or to read. I would have the time to do things like cleaning, purging the cellar, getting ready for next year and just doing absoluely nothing. This summer has been so different. Yes, the three older boys went to camp for a week, but that left me to clean up the house for Grandpa, and at the same be the sole playmate for the youngest. After camp we had our boys start their Rambam, twice a day, as well as mishnayos with the oldest doing other work such as laining, math, SAT vocabulary and SAT math. You would think I would have some time to myself still, but I was the playmate during Rambam and mishnayos.

I found myself trying to hide away at every opportunity but never really getting the break I was feeling I needed for I still had to be on top of the oldest boy doing all his school work. If I go and hide, there was bickering to remind me of my real job. I am not sure why I could not get some boys to go out more, perhaps it was just that their learnings were staggered just so that it was breaking up the day in not so good of a way and I just never had the time to sit and think about how to make it better, I was just running around like a headless chicken. Despite that, I finally managed to put together a schedule for four boys next year. It was not the easiest thing to do! I think I have just about all the work printed out to start school. I just have to print of maps of various times for their weekly map work.

However, a few days ago I found myself bored, actually bored. Yes, there was cleaning and laundry to do, but that was all. I already had cleaned one bathroom and did some laundry. So, I took advantage of the fact that I was not really needed and I went outside for a walk to enjoy the warm, sunny weather. It is good to occasionally be bored; it gives me the drive to do something afterwards!

I have been asked by several people how things are going with my right-brained child. Well, honestly, I have not done anything with him. I have looked at a few things and I think I will be doing Brain Gym type of stuff – mainly exercises that involve alternating right over left, for example, using the right elbow to touch the left knee. Figure 8’s in the air/traced on paper are also great. I think the idea is for me to come up with about 8-10 exercises that I can alternate to make the 5 minute time exciting. But, one thing at a time. I have the schedule done and books in order. Clean up of the house will hopefully happen a bit this weekend while boys are out, for they will be busy selling… P-O-P-C-O-R-N!!!!! Yes, it is that time again! Wow, life is just never dull, Baruch Hashem. May we go from strength to strength. My Cub Scout wanna-be has his popcorn selling shpeel down pat!

As I finish up and hope my boys will be done their Rosh Hashanah sheets before the holiday starts, I sincerely wish everyone a most wonderful Shanah Tovah. May you all be inscribed in the Books of Life, Health, Happiness and Success.

Kesiva v’Chasima Tovah!

Bingo!

I have hit the jackpot! Things have been building up over the last while and today was the day that *I* won! We have four beautiful boys, and I love them all, however, there is one that does not think nor act like the others; he is my special one and he has a heart of gold. I have spend many years and many tears and many prayers trying to figure out how this one special boy thinks so that I can teach him the best way for him, and until now I have been at a loss.

My black sheep is intelligent and extremely artistic. He loves to look at something and rattle off 100 different “useful” uses for any piece of garbage that I want to throw out. I feel bad about telling him “no” on almost everything he wants to do, but I know that he will create his masterpiece and in the meantime create this amazing pile of mess to go with it. What’s the problem? The problem arises when he is unable to clean up. It is not that he refuses, it is that he just can’t. This goes for everything from me telling him to put the hat away to cleaning up his room, to just gather all the clothes on the floor and put them in the laundry and it does not matter if they were worn or not, I’ll just wash them all again. He cannot even do that. It is too much and too overwhelming. This is the reason why I do not let him cook or do much in the kitchen. He will make a mess and I will be the one left to clean up. Other boys just don’t make the mess to begin with so they do not have as much to clean up and it is easier for them. My special boy, well, I think it is just part of what makes him special. A mess will be made, and he does not realize he is doing it for he is so into making whatever he is making.

He has a wonderful knack for languages. My husband had to go to the Philippines and so he was trying to learn some Tagalog so he can be polite and say some basic phrases. (Though all Filipinos know English he found out.) My husband also likes languages. For those who have not heard Tagalog before, it requires at least double the amount of syllables to say anything you want to so that is one of the things that makes it very difficult to try to learn. My special boy – well, let’s just say that several months AFTER Daddy went on his trip, and way after we stopped trying to learn, this special boy still had some of these phrases memorized and was able to spu them back out. This was true for other languages that we have dabbled into as well.

This boy cannot learn math facts, and spelling is out of this world. One thing I have discovered over the past year is that unless he gets the right amount of sleep, he tantrums really good, and it can happen over fairly minor issues that usually do not bother him so much. He is a very “feeling” kind of boy and “feels” that people do not like him (and even though we point out that most phone calls for boys are for HIM, not his brothers…. it is still enough to make a mother cry!) Trying to teach him his stuff is very hard. He was a later reader and just this past year has flourished in his English reading. Hebrew reading… don’t ask. We daven out loud and I have spend various stretches of time over the past few years trying to get him to at least point to the words for he has it all memorized. I figured he was a whole word learner and the problem with Hebrew is that he does not know the language, so it is hard to look at a word and have it mean anything. He still learns things differently than his brothers for the other stuff, and I have slowly, through trial and error, found a few things that have helped a bit.

His diet is fairly good. We only drink water and milk in the house, and other fancy drinks (including fruit juices) are occasional treats that are kept to times like kiddush on Shabbos morning at shul. I have not used white flour in years (except one time last year when we were on a trip and I had no choice,) junk food is the same as fancy drinks. I prescribe to the “real food” menu and so I make my own foods from real stuff, not boxed, processed items. He does love his carbs and will eat virtually only challah on Shabbos if I let him, but he does eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, along with his milk and I do not worry that much. No, I do not believe it is food that is the issue. There are no eye issues that would cause reading problems. (He now reads English pretty good, and has made huge strides this year.)

And then, lights went on in my emails this morning! One of the lists that I am on posted something about her daughter that resembled my son. I had emailed her privately several days ago, and today, I got both her response and another post to the email group basically stating the same things which just made everything make sense. My son is a RIGHT BRAINED person! I never really thought about it before for some reason I just associated it with left handed people. (Never mind that my left handed son is not like this at all.) Here is a chart taken from here that shows the main differences between Left Brained people vs. Right Brained People.

Below are some links to some articles that I found today. It is such a relief to find something that makes sense. I can now work with it. So much has now been lifted off my shoulders. I even found an online test where you answer questions and they let you know which side of the spectrum you fall in. Yes, my special boy was very right-brained. I have come across some ideas on how to help my child. I think I also now know why it was so hard to get him to do anything – I”m sure it is is very stressful trying to learn in a way that you cannot really learn from, and with me not knowing how to teach him, I just continued on the same broken path, and therefore was very taxing on his beautiful little brain. He would spend a great deal of energy just refusing to do a 30 second job, but that was his way of trying to get some space. Last week was hard for he went to bed late most nights and was tired the later half of the week. I ended up just ignoring his tantrums and let him have his space. When he was ready, he came out and did what he needed to do.

I now feel like I can fly and am looking forward to the coming year and helping him to really grow to his potential. I am still not sure how to do it all, the next step is for me to learn what to do, but just the fact that I know WHERE to look is half the battle! I’m off to bed with a happy heart, those prayers and tears have not gone unanswered, and did you know that Albert Einstein was a right-brained person, as well as Newton, Galileo, Aristotle, and Benjamin Franklin? 🙂

http://www.diannecraft.org/articles-by-dianne/

http://www.throwingmarshmallows.com/right-brained-learning-links/

http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/CraftDocs/RBTeach.asp

http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/CraftDocs/Math.asp

Summer Has Started!

After the third and final birthday party for a very lucky 4 year old, the last couple of days I actually felt it was a summer day for me – I actually got to sit down without having to rush and do some prep for the school year. (The watermelon was carved into the shape of a jeep, along with windshield wiper blades and side mirrors! A brother loved the birthday boy!) The best part of the school year is having all those books come pouring into the mailbox. Most of our books are purchased from Amazon.com and most of them are used so they come from varioius sellers. We have had several shipments arrive at our house over the past week and still have a few more to go.

I am very excited about one of the books that came; How To Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. Yes, I know it sounds like a funny name, but it is very accurate. I have decided to start the pre-reading of new school books by reading that book first. I have read the first 5 chapters so far. It is a very good book which describes how to effectively and systematically skim through a book to learn the main points, as well as how to read it when you decide to actually read it so that you get the most out of the book. I figured this would be a great start so that I could pre-read all the books that come in over the next week or so for I need. I will not have time once school starts to read, or more appropriately perhaps, I will not want to read anything else once school starts except what I will be reading to boys during school time. I highly recommend this book.

It has been gorgeous outside so I threw the boys outside as much as possible. That gave me some nice quiet time to sit, do nothing, and then feel like I needed to and wanted to do something, so I read the book on how to read a book. 🙂 I even took some time to sit outside and enjoy. I had the branch of one of our flowering trees just a few inches from where I was sitting and it was very peaceful to watch the bees buzzing and getting the pollen all over their bodies.

Our summer schedule has not really gone on as I thought it would. I am not too worried about it for hey, it’s summer time! I am a bit more carefree about what is done or not done. I really would like to get more of certain things done that are not being done, but I will not sweat it. Rambam twice a day, along with

mishnayos. Afterall, Torah learning is for every day and it is good to get into the swing of things with some things so when we start school, it is just adding the rest, not doing it all at once – rather less overwhelming for me anyways that way. I also get to see how it is and how I can/need to incorporate time for the newly 4 year old and his all important school work. 🙂 It might be better than I imagined for most days for since all 3 older boys are in the kitchen listening to and following along with the videos for Rambam, and each video is around 40-45 minutes long, I found myself sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor, along with washing some dishes and cleaning of the kitchen. Mr. 4 year old was off playing by himself for one entire Rambam (yeah!) I cannot expect him to do that three times a day, but once a day would be nice and very helpful.

One boy is finally learning what it means to be busy. We have him busy. We are trying very hard to get him ready to take the SAT’s – and no, he is NOT that old yet that he is taking it for university, he is taking it while enrolled in grade 7 so as to see how well he does and perhaps help him get some scholarships for education camps, etc. He has his Rambam and mishnayos, 2 sets of math, SAT math book as well as SAT vocabulary words to work on, and not to mention his laining and the reading of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

A 4 year has been begging me to let him make his ‘experiment.” What he wants to do is use salt, water, sugar and flour and let it sit. I guess that is one way to learn. I instructed his oldest brother to make sure he makes a VERY SMALL concoction, and to oversee everything and make sure there is no mess. Good thing we used only food items – he wanted to test it before he let it sit! The little things that make them happy. 🙂

As I am listening to DH playing the organ for me, he really is saying it’s bedtime and I need to go. ‘Night!

We’re All Back!

Firstly, I just want to start off by mentioning a correction to the previous post. Room613.net is also geared towards teenagers, it was just my impression that it was not (not sure how I came to that impression.) That said, we are still continuing on with our Judaics for the coming year that we have mapped out. Secondly, when you start tea time, expect to continue the tradition. 🙂 Cucumbers, watermelon and small bite sized pieces of brownies are all good, along with tea (or hot lemon water in our case.) 🙂 We have not been able to do it the last two weeks, but today boys were complaining, “We did not have tea time today!”

The last two weeks have been almost entirely away from home. We went to the same cabin on the 350+ acres that we went to last year. Other than the 90+ degree weather with no A/C, it was pretty good, but I do not think we will be going there next year. (And the best thing to do on a really hot Tisha B’Av with no A/C is to drive in the car that has AC all the way back home for an hour to drop off camp stuff!) If nothing else, I found out today, after I had to take my van into the shop to get fixed, that the porcupines that live by the cabin not only eat away at the balcony and the support beams underneath it, they like to eat away at wires under cars… The mechanic asked if I keep my car in the garage, no, outside. In the back? No, in the front. Apparently, rodents like to chew on wires under vehicles, but not usually when the vehicle is kept outside, in the front, on the driveway. I asked about porcupines; we not only heard them on the porch, but actually saw one underneath eating away at the support beams. Yes, porcupines + vehicles in fields = lots of damage and money to fix the damage. He could not give me even a rough estimate when he called for he was not finished taking everything apart to see the entire damage. He will be putting some cover over my wires to help prevent this from happening again. Since we only have one vehicle, I am carless for a while. The bonus to all of this is that we get to walk to the store or any other place we need to go and that means good exercise for all of us! There is a silver lining in everything. 😉

The first Shabbos at the cabin was rather quiet – just one little boy to entertain. Sunday morning we all got up to drive 4 hours to fetch the really missed brothers from camp. It was good to have everyone back home. I really missed them. I think the lone brother missed them the most. It is not easy to want to play with someone and only Mommy is around and Mommy sometimes cannot play. Boy, it sure is good to have brothers!

Aside from that, the train, Corning Museum of Glass, blueberry picking and horseback riding were some of the main activities with horseback riding coming in tops for everyone (and blueberry picking a close second)! The youngest was too small to ride a regular horse so he got to have a pony ride around the farm. He then was lucky enough to be able to brush down and wash the pony. Both the pony and the little boy really enjoyed it. Oh, and I cannot forget about the birthday party #2 – afterall, it is not everyday that Grandpa comes down to visit! He was one lucky boy – a visit with Saba one day, and Grandpa the next, two birthday parties (and presents to match from each grandfather), and not to mention that this weekend there will, IY”H, be a THIRD party (for the same boy) for he was insistent that his friend comes over for a party, and since neither of the previous parties were at home, I promised him we will have one with his friend. Baruch Hashem my boys are very happy with simple things – a simple cake and a card and a small present is all that is needed to make someone happy, oh, and the occasional friend.

The Corning Museum of Glass was very interesting to go see. We have not been there before. The first section with glass art was not my cup of tea, but I really enjoyed going into the history section. They had the history of glass making, from the early times until the present, with all sorts of interesting facts and artifacts. We even got to see some glass making demonstrations such as the hot glass show and the flameworking.

Well, we got to pick up our sefarim yesterday! 3 sets of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah (English and Hebrew.) I spent several hours on Monday trying to clean out a small book case that we had, figuring it had 3 shelves and each set would fit on 2. I would just need to get one more book case. I was almost correct. Yes, each set fits on 2 shelves, however, the bottom shelf is too short to put any books on. Never fear, I have ideas! In the meantime, the living room is a mess. Boys have taken all the books out of the boxes and have been labeling all of their 93 books. Wow. I did not realize how many books we really were getting until just now. I was just of thinking it as 31*3 and those in themselves are not that big, but to do the actual math problem, wow, multiplication is powerful! We were good and even started our learning today! One video from Rabbi Gordon from Chabad.org was listened too.

I cannot forget that we finally brought the organ inside! It was not as hard as I thought it would be. We used our Radio wagon, put some plywood on top, and used two 2×4’s and slid them under the organ with the other end of the boards on the wagon to make a ramp. We then pushed the organ up the ramp. We all held on while one boy very, VERY carefully and slowly pulled the wagon all away around from the garage to the front door. The tricky part came when we had to transfer the organ from the wagon up the 2 steps into the house. With some creative thinking and cooperation, we got it into the house. Since it is mine, only I was allowed to clean it all up. Boys wanted to help but I refused. I told them to vacuum the carpet. 😉 Everyone anxiously awaited the moment when they could touch and then play the new instrument. I have not played the organ in almost 17 years – it is amazing how even though I play the piano a little here and there, my organ playing is terrible! It was hard reading all those staves again! I had to go way, way back to the really early days and the very easy music to get back in the swing of reading everything again. “Mommy, how can your feet play all the right notes and you are not even looking?” I smiled and proudly told my son, “I started on the organ!” That was one thing I was pleasantly surprised about; my feet still knew where to go after all these years. They were even more surprised to find out that their Dad used to play the organ as well.

I have also spent the last two days finding the books I need for my oldest. With Ambleside Online, almost everything is non-consumable, so since I have books from my oldest, the younger children have their books as well. Finally, I put all the books in the Amazon shopping card, as well as two printer inks, and pressed the order button. Among the books ordered were organ books (it is not easy to find beginning organ books now!). All four boys are so excited and want me to give them organ lessons. I told them I do not have time to teach them both the piano AND the organ. 4 for the organ it is. Though they are not happy that I am not teaching them yet. I appeased them when they saw I was ordering music books first. Unfortunately, unlike the electronic piano that I have, you cannot put headphones into the organ! At least there is the volume control, it helps. A little. 😉

Anyways, I am saying sweet dreams to everyone and I am off to bed to dream about the fact that I am now officially also an organ teacher. 🙂

My Vacation

I have been so excited for this week to come! It is one week in the entire year that I have for me; the older boys are off at camp and I get this week to myself! And then on Shabbos it hit me. My almost 4 year old will be home with just me. Me and no brothers to keep him busy. Just me. He has been so looking forward to Mommy time. Don’t get me wrong, that is a very nice thing except that I realized that Mommy time is going to take up his entire waking hours. You see, with 3 older brothers who are home all day, who needs to learn to play by himself? Ok, so I do not have much of just me time and I can’t go out for a walk or a bike ride by myself for no one is there to look after a 3 year old and I can’t go out to the store to get the things we need when we are out when he is sleeping, but yeah, there are still lots of wonderful things about having just the one boy around.

The older boys left yesterday morning to go to scout camp. Daddy took them. I was supposed to go along except a little 3 year old was sick and throwing up. This put a crink into the day if only because of one thing – my boys do not get sick! Baruch Hashem, and let it stay that way. A loving Daddy bought some ginger ale before leaving for with our only vehicle gone and with a sick boy, it does not make for a day to be able to even walk to the neighborhood 7-11 to get some. We made it. After a nice needed nap he was allowed to do what sick boys get to do to keep them occupied so they can rest in bed and not be as antsy – nice educational videos. Baruch Hashem he feels good as new today. He is even learning to sleep in a big room all by himself.

Someone told me to take this time and do something for myself, so I heeded that advice. I started cleaning the house. It is amazing how much I can get done when I am doing all the work – and how clean things actually get! Living room and library were both cleaned to my satisfaction, swept and mopped, except for 1 pile of papers in each room. Not bad. Today was the garage and the cleaning of the kitchen cabinet doors. Oh, and I stumbled upon an amazing thing today – when the boys are not home it is great to clean for I can actually not only leave the room for a moment and expect it to stay the way I left it, I can even go to sleep for several hours and it will still stay the same! It feels pretty good to be able to have a few moments when the house will stay the way I want it.

Today we cleaned the garage in anticipation of our new instrument! I finally got an organ! Bonus – it was free and so was the transportation to my garage where it is now being stored until the bigger boys come home to help me move it into the house. My husband is so excited about it, almost as much as I am. He says I need to find a place for it. I tell him, it will fit in the house and that I have ideas. I have a few weeks until I need to have the answer.

This last week or so my husband and I have been trying to figure out what we should do next year for Judaics. We have spent the last 4 years with Room613.net and it has worked out really well. However, we decided our oldest, who is going to be bar mitzvah in a few short months (how did that happen?) was ready to move on. My husband and I are ones who do not mind thinking outside the box. Hey, the fact that we have been homeschooling for 8 years now proves it! What started out as an exercise in trying to figure out Judaics for one boy, ended up with something for all boys – that’s one bonus in having children close in age. (The other is being able to send them all to the same camp at the same time!) We have spent the last week mulling it over in our minds, bouncing it off the minds of different individuals to get thoughts and reactions and have finally decided we are going to do it. The boys are going to do Rambam’s Mishneh Torah next year. We chose that for it encompasses all aspects of our lives. We do not necessarily follow all that the Rambam says, but he does cover everything from each of the 613 mitzvos to davening, shmita year, maaser and other topics that do not necessarily apply to us today, but we should know about them.

Now, this seems fine until I mention that we are not going to do the 3 year cycle where you do one chapter a day for 3 years before completing – there are 31 sefarim in the set. No, we are doing the 1 year cycle – doing 3 chapters a day and finishing it off in about a year. Yes, I know exactly what that entails and what we are getting ourselves into. Each chapter is going to take, on average, 35-45 minutes to do. And yes, everyone that we have mentioned it to has looked at us as if we were crazy. However, since that is basically all they are going to do for Judaics, it should be more than reasonable. Children in schools spend the entire morning on Judaics, and so are we. Of course the boys are also going to do parsha/Yomim Tovim as well as continue on with their mishnayos. We are not expecting them to learn it inside and out, that will only happen by going through things multiple times. My goal is to get them to go through it. They will pick up according to each of their abilities, which is amazingly more than most of us would imagine. People learn through time. Our minds will take something we have learned or something we are thinking about and put it in the subconscious. The subconscious thinks about it and over time we get new ideas and thoughts about it. Then we can go back and learn more on the topic.

I found these wonderful videos on Chabad.org by Rabbi Gordon. He has a wonderful video for each and every chapter of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. He reads and translates as well as explains very nicely what is going on. My idea is to listen to 2 of his videos a day with the other chapter being read and then translated by boys. This is to help boys with their personal reading. Two birds with one stone. We would obviously take breaks in between each video and not do it all at once. And, I might even stagger the times throughout the day so that one little then-to-be 4 year old is not left hanging by himself for hours on end and being bored. And yes, this is a very rigorous feat we are going to do. We were told something on Shabbos – if you start this goal, do not quit, do not alter it, do not make the goal easier. Even if you get behind 1 day, 2 days, 3 days or more. Each day is a new day. Start fresh and continue on. The only thing that should change, if needed, is the end date. I liked this.

Today I ordered 3 sets of Mishneh Torah. One for each boy. They will be theirs to keep when they move out. The only condition is that we get to use them when we want/need to, even when they move out. Where we are going to put them, I do not know. As any homeschooling family knows, bookshelves are sacred – second only to the Torah and sefarim which are held on them. I have ideas. I have time before they come in. 😉

In the meantime, I miss my boys, even with the cleaner house.

It’s Erev Shabbos Again!

Wow, time flies. The first week of summer…. well…. I guess it was reasonably good. I have not actually made an official schedule, and we started our days pretty late most days, even though I was up to get DH out to work at our usual time. I tried thinking that it is now summer and so I would enjoy the mornings while the boys slept, just taking it easy only to find out that if we start halfway through the morning, we don’t get things done as early as I would like.

So yes, we still do some schooling during the summer, it keeps them busy a bit, and I feel like I have accomplished something during the day. Davening, making Camp Harper shirts, parsha, math, laining practicing, boy led gym and our new class – Ivrit along with afternoon Tea time and Khan Academy chemistry videos were all a rage this week. Oh, and don’t forget the beginnings of green foliage removal from the garden bed! No, the week was not really how I envisioned it, I envisioned more green foliage removal as well as more learning such as dik duk. Next week? Probably not, the boys are going to camp and it is going to a busy week getting all items needed for three boys! One good thing – all three boys are going together to the same camp! Yeah! I like when those things happen like that, all boys doing the same thing at the same time at the same place. Just makes for an easier life for Mommy.

When I think about the week, three highlights come to mind. The first one is our afternoon tea time. The boys had fun watching videos on the history and proper etiquette on how to have tea time. It was nice to have a little break, have some veggies and a few mezonos along with our lemon tea. It really helped tie everyone over until supper and gave us the flexibility to have a little later supper if we wanted.

My almost 4 year old is just so excited. Just a few few short days left until his birthday – his hebrew one anyways. This morning he woke up saying it was his birthday. Why? Because it is Mommy’s birthday and I will be banned from the kitchen in a couple of hours for 4 beautiful boys to create their masterpiece. I think I’ll remember NOT to sweep and mop until afterwards. 😉 4 is going to be such an exciting age!

“No, you can’t have that paper.”
Sad face.
“I am writing down what you are doing for school next year!”
One boy who jumps up and down with a yelp and gives me the biggest hug and says, “Thank you Mommy!” – Priceless. As I continued to write things down, I kept getting nudged – “Is that my school? What is my school work?” I think I have my work cut out for me this coming year!

Last night the Harper boys finished Mesechta Bava Basra and since watermelon is just not enough for a siyum, so I’m told, brownies were also made.

I’m being kicked out of the kitchen now so that the bakers can do their stuff! Wishing everyone a wonderful Shabbos!

And….. We’re Done!

We are finally done! Yeah! We are done for I said we are done. I figured that when I spent the last day cleaning (happily) instead of working on schoolwork, we were done. It’s not that we are not going to work anymore until the fall, it is that I am so ready (and so are the boys) to finish up and start something new. The boys knew yesterday was going to be the last day, but it was not until the following conversation that it became reality:

Me to a boy : “Do you have any books we did not finish?”Boy: “No.”
Me: “No?”
Boy: “No. When am I finished school?”
Me: “Now.”

So one boy was finished and that forced a brother to finish his one last reading before his schooling was finished. The third boy, well, he finished his reading and by default he is finished as well. He still has a few more readings in a couple of books, but I just might tell him to go and read them some time. It is time to finish. Sometimes it is not that the material was completely, 100% finished, sometimes it is when even the teacher has spent all her energy on the year and would rather wash toilets than teach one more day; it is when every last drop of energy is used up and there is nothing left to give that school is finished.

Don’t get me wrong, we have TONS of learning that we have planned to do this summer, more than usual. It is all the stuff that we have not been able to put into the school year but want or need to do. And it is everything from continuing math everyday to dik duk, to piano lessons and practicing, to laining and watching those chemistry videos on Khan Academy that one boy is just so excited about watching (even though I have no clue if he is even up to that level yet, but I will not say no!) We also have some field trips I would like to do as well as the weekly/daily elective of green foliage picking outside (a.k.a. weeding!) Ah, don’t forget the long awaited sleep away scout camp for a week and the week long family outing with Grandpa afterwards.

We did have an exciting week at “camp.” The boys had a 3-day online camp all about castles and catapults. They had lots of fun and learned a lot, not only about castles and catapults, but about daily lives of peasants and nobles, knights and, of course, weapons! It was a very interactive class purchased from Currclick. Two boys created a castle for their camp project while another boy put together a Power Point presentation on coat of arms. Bonus? It was only $15 for all three boys, how could I say no?

One thing that I have taken from the conference was the idea that everything has its time. It is very easy to go around the house and say, “Oh, this needs to get done, and that needs to get done but I can’t do it all!” One of the speakers was talking about how she does all her laundry on a certain day. If it is not that day, then she does not do it. The same goes for other things that need to get done. Now, I can’t do my laundry all in one day, and I do need to wash and dry a load every morning as I go and iron a shirt for DH. However, I decided for last week and this week that I was not going to fold and put away the laundry until Friday. Friday we have time. It was amazing how liberated I felt all week, knowing that I did not have to worry about when I was going to do it! It is the same for my suppers – I take a few minutes every Sunday, before I go shop, and I have a list of each item I need for the week. I do not have to worry about what is for supper while I make lunch, and I do not have to worry about not having ingredients. I am feeling a bit more free! So, no, the guest bed downstairs is rarely empty, but I worry less about the clothes.

I am very excited to start our summer routine, and I don’t mind the teaching, I just need to teach new things. I am also excited about the next school year. Two boys already have all their materials from their oldest brother, so that just leaves books for Boy #1 and not to forget our newly almost-4 year old who is

“officially” a Pre-schooler! My, where has the time flown? Baruch Hashem we have reached this point for the last two months have been hard on the both of us for he has so wanted to start school and I was being stubborn and not wanting to START a boy (who I was not prepared to start) when all his brothers were FINISHING for the year. I could not muster up any energy to even think about what would be good for him.

“Mommy, what was I before I was a pre-schooler?””What do you mean?”
“What grade was I in before?”
How to tell such a little boy that he was not in any grade before? He could not fathom him NOT in a grade, and I could not think of a “grade” when put on the spot, for after all, his brothers were all in grades, so of course was he.

As the sun is shining outside and the day is hot, and our over baked challahs, chicken soup, cookies, zucchini bread and cinnamon buns are done, welcome to summer! Now is the time to think about how to revamp our school corner while noticing how neat it actually looks today (!!!), finish the little bit of cooking that is left, fold laundry and straighten the house, and of course, enjoy some of the re-jew-venating sunshine and heat so that we are relaxed and ready to enjoy this week’s Shabbos.

Until next time, have a most wonderful and relaxing Shabbos!

The No-Drive Week

Well, it was not really a very productive week at all. I am not going to say it was not productive, for we did get some stuff done, but not as productive as I thought it should be. Not sure if it was the weather (we have had a lot of rain lately,) or the fact that beautiful boy #3 is spending the week with Grandpa and his cousin, or a mixture of both, or something else. Whatever the case is, it started at the beginning of the week and kept spilling out to the rest of the week. Shabbos is coming and I am so looking forward to it! Shabbos always seems to put a fresh start on things.

We did get somewhere this week in our efforts to finish up the remaining schoolwork. We have used Khan Academy for math this year, and instead of using it like one would use a normal textbook or school work, where you learn a topic, do a certain amount of questions and then move on to the next, I decided to use a different approach this year. The way Khan Academy is set up is that one can learn a topic through the videos and then do sets of exercises pertaining to what was learned. Obviously, there are many ways to use the system, but if one wanted to use it for a curriculum then they would watch the videos and do the related exercises. The exercises come in sets of 8. There is the option of looking at hints for the particular problem in question (which is nice!) if needed. If a correct answer is gotten on the first try, 3 leaves are given. Fewer leaves are awarded if the correct answer was entered in on a second (or third, or fourth) try and/or if hints were used. At the end of the set, the program looks at the speed at which the answers were entered and how many correct on the first try and gives you a green progress bar. When the computer has determined that you are proficient in the particular topic, it gives you a blue bar across the page and lets you know you are ready to move on.

Two of the boys have, for the most part, learned their multiplication facts. I would make them go over the questions without letting them look at a table. Sometimes it would take several weeks before they would be proficient, but eventually they would get their blue bars and move on. One of the older boys does not know his multiplication table very well. He has been stuck on multiplication for several months. He would get questions right, but because of his speed, he would have to do it over again, and again, and again. He was getting frustrated about having to do the same thing for so long – and when he would get the questions right the first time! Finally, he mastered the multiplication, and went on to division.

At the beginning of the week, he went and got a copy of the multiplication table and started to crank out the correct answers quite quickly. Unlike his brothers, he actually understood how to do long division so much faster than his brothers. I decided to let him be. I could work on his math facts in the summer. In the meantime, he was a little happier to sit down and do his work, not to mention that one time when I looked at his work, I was able to point out an error just by doing the entire question in my head, ie. without writing anything down. I then suggested a game – I would do the entire question in my head (ie. mental math), and he would work out the problem on paper. We would then compare answers – if the answers were right, he would enter the answer on the computer. Let’s just say that we both had fun with math! By the next day, I had forgotten the fun that we had, but luckily the boy didn’t. “Mom, let’s do that game again!” is what he said to me when I sat him down. It took me a minute to remember what he was talking about, but let’s just say that he did enough rounds to earn his blue bar (which finished math class for the day!)

A few things I learned – I have to be more creative and really think about the purposes of different learning (ie perhaps looking at the multiplication table is fine for division…..) and I learned how to overcome MY fear of mental math! Yes, me, the one who enjoys math is the same one who freezes up when someone asks me to do mental math. I feel very confident on forgoing my stage fright when doing long division in my head now when asked. I too can still learn! 🙂

We did take advantage of the dry, sunny weather earlier this week and had a nice picnic supper at the park next door. All boys earned awards at the cub scout awards night – even my boy scout! (He finally received his religious award that he earned while a cub scout! 🙂 ) The two cub scouts in the family earned their Arrow of Light as well as their religious award. One cub ready to become a boy scout in 1 week. My, oh my, they are getting big.

The missing boy has been missed by everyone, but the plane just took off from his connecting flight – Sorry Sis, thanks for being around just in case the flight did not take off, but you won’t get to see your nephew this Shabbos! Two more hours and our home will feel complete again. 😀

Wishing you all a wonderful Shabbos!

It’s Not Summer Yet

Well, I made it to Monday! I actually did enjoy myself camping despite the fact that my arms and legs look and feel like I have the chickenpox. It was as if those mosquitoes were starved and no one had come to visit them in days (or hours)! Even though it was hot and mosquito free in the sun and cool and mosquito infested in the forest and we were lucky to be included in a storm on Saturday evening that went through the night, I had a good time. It is always nice to be away in nature and to be able to enjoy and appreciate Hashem’s creations. No phones, no internet, very few cars. The only noises were the various birds that sang some gorgeous music starting at 4:30 in the morning. Our boys enjoyed it as well. They even got up at 4:30 in the morning on Shabbos morning to play frizbee in the field (we constructed an eruv as well.) Showers were had by all when we got back on Sunday to clean up and remove any lingering insects that thought our home would be better than their home. And yes, I was told of some of interesting places where those lingering bugs were found, I just won’t mention them here!

Monday was a day where I got little done, on purpose. The boys emptied most of the car, the tents and sleeping bags were opened up in the backyard and aired out and dried the day before, and eventually they all got rolled up again Monday. We davened, did parsha and math. I just would not do much more other than laundry and some basic cleaning up of the kitchen. we listened to Mishnayos in the evening and then the big surprise came when I realized the boys were in bed ON TIME; and not the “new usual” since Daddy’s accident, it was the real bedtime! If nothing else, that did put a nice smile on my face since I was annoyed that it took almost 4 hours to pack up all the tents in the backyard and there were only 5 of them.

Today went much better. We got off to a late start but managed to pack in outside davening, not just one but two sessions of math, piano practicing, merit badge completion including the required counselor signature, dropping off camp forms to be filled out by the boys’ doctor, mishnayos and even some cleaning by boys on their own! It started off by one beautiful boy waking up and being dressed before the parents got out of bed, him helping make his father’s lunch, doing his breakfast job before I could even finish eating, davening with his father, and not to mention coming over, on his own accord, to massage my shoulders. I was not sure what he wanted from me, but with nicely massaged shoulders I was most likely going to say yes to whatever it was. To thank him to the punch, I handed him a new treat I bought that was supposed to have been for fast helpers in rolling up the tents but never happened for the fast helpers were replaced with snails. A little brother wanted an extra special treat as well, however, I blurted out that extra special treats go to boys to do extra, extra special chores all on their own. Smile. So, while davening, the already davened boy cleaned up the front yard, including picking up lots of trash, did lots of work in my kitchen by being proactive and putting away the remaining bags of groceries from the previous day and meriting himself a second extra special treat. The youngest also wanted to help and so he kept asking me for chores and so that is how I got my kitchen and dining room swept AND mopped as only a 3 year old can do and earned himself an extra, extra special treat as well. 🙂 Unfortunately none of the others took the bait. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to take what I can get!

As I started to feel good about myself with regards to how nice the day went I remembered something: It was not summer time yet and we still have school work to finish. Minor details. 😐 So, tomorrow morning is going to start by figuring out what each boy has left to do and making a short schedule on how to finish it. Technically we have 1.5 weeks of school before the end of the year, and I think we can get it all in except math. Thank goodness for summer!

In some of my down time, which I actually had today, I was excited about the summer. I thought of all sorts of stuff for the boys to do that we just do not get to do during the year because of time; more math, typing practice (we started last summer), dik duk, Hebrew, more piano practice and lessons, chemistry from Khan Academy by request from boy #3, and the list went on. Hmm. Perhaps I need to rethink our summer? I *had* been thinking about just a couple of classes a day for the summer, but there is just so much I want to do! Perhaps Camp Harper is going to be more than just playing like planned. I am wondering if I can make a Camp Harper that is more of an educational camp that lasts through lunch. Can I make it fun as well? There is going to be one week of Scout camp for three boys – overnight sleeping in tents through rain and shine which overlaps a bit with a visit from Grandpa, but can I really pull off putting in a lot of good learning in the summer AND keeping it fun? I will have to mull that over in my mind. It will, most likely, have to include a field trip of some sort somewhere most weeks to help liven it up; picnics to various places near us, one or two trips to the zoo, maybe even a walk down the Erie Canal to visit some neat shops that are down the path. What ever the case is, I think I will have much better luck if we start off the summer by making camp shirts. The boys always liked doing that in the past when we did do it.

I still have a few weeks to think about the summer, and not to mention look for next year’s books that I need to order so I can read them (hopefully) before school starts, and don’t forget to figure out what school work to do with a newly 4 year old; though he has taken to Readingeggs.com for beginning ABC’s and especially their new math program. I’m about ready to find La La Land now, there is a lot to do tomorrow morning and just the fact that when I’m there I don’t itch is a good reason to go! Oh, and yes, the boys got into bed within a few minutes of the real bedtime again tonight. We might be on a roll. 🙂