{"id":821,"date":"2012-10-23T23:05:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T03:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yoshee08.com\/blog\/?p=821"},"modified":"2012-10-23T23:05:28","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T03:05:28","slug":"a-full-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/ambleside-onlinecharlotte-mason\/a-full-week\/","title":{"rendered":"A Full Week!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Wow, the middle of October and hard to believe that we only just finished a full week of school!\u00a0 It’s been a tough week for boys for as soon as school work was finished, off to selling popcorn.\u00a0 Baruch Hashem most of the time we were inside, though Baruch Hashem it has been wonderful out here!\u00a0 I did have the next two days scheduled inside the JCC, but I think we have exhausted the crowd there and I will give some boys a happy break from selling popcorn so they can work on their Foliage Raking elective.\u00a0 It has been hard to get outside when it is light when we come home at sunset time.\u00a0 Our yard is wonderfully colored right now, but if we wait much longer I am afraid it will not and instead it will be dull and gloomy looking.<\/p>\n

Even with the extra-curricular activity of socialization with selling popcorn, I have been able to spend some time outside getting my exercise with bike rides.\u00a0 Daddy was even home one day to go out with me, which was an extra bonus. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I am not really looking forward to the diminishing light, however, on the flip side, the children have been going to sleep a little easier since they do not have the light shining in!\u00a0 Baruch Hashem I moved south after getting married so the sun sets before 11pm in the summer…….<\/p>\n

Over the last 4 months or so I have been going to a friend’s house to learn with a few other friends.\u00a0 We are reading “Garden of Emuna (faith\/belief)” by Rabbi Shalom Arush.\u00a0 We read a few pages each week and talk about it, taking turns discussing and asking questions.\u00a0 It is a nice heimishe group.\u00a0 Over the last few weeks, I have noticed a change.\u00a0 I do feel a closer connection to our Creator, and I find I am looking at things with a slightly new twist.\u00a0 I enjoy the weekly getaway, and I feel better about myself and life in general.\u00a0 I was wondering how I could instill the new feeling of emuna into my boys while they are young instead of waiting for them to get older to read such a book.\u00a0 It is hard for children to really feel and learn some spiritual concepts while young, but it is so very important.<\/p>\n

(Note: This book is not recommended for girls who are in school\/seminary until after they have been married for a while – they need to be out in the real world a bit.\u00a0 I would assume it would be similar for boys, though it is harder for me to tell for I was never a boy!)<\/p>\n

To create emuna, one needs to have a connection to Hashem. Someone in our group told a nice parable.\u00a0 A father had two daughters.\u00a0 The first daughter was given a credit card and was told she could purchase anything she wanted.\u00a0 The only condition was that she call before buying anything, but she was welcome to purchase anything.\u00a0 The second daughter was given a credit card and told she could purchase anything.<\/p>\n

The first daughter would find something and call, “Hi Dad, I found this nice skirt, and the price is right.”\u00a0 “Sure, enjoy!”\u00a0 The father always agreed to whatever she purchased.\u00a0 The second daughter would find something and buy it.\u00a0 No call.\u00a0 She was not told to call.\u00a0 At the end of the year, the first daughter had a much closer relationship with her father for she called all the time to touch base and the second daughter never called.<\/p>\n

I want our boys to have a similar connection to their Father in Heaven as the first daughter.\u00a0 Yes, I try to show by example, but I do not show everything I feel.\u00a0 I do not verbalize all the times I thank Hashem for the little things, and they are not there when I cry out to Hashem to help me with rough days.\u00a0 So, we have begun a new thing.\u00a0 At least once a day, at various times in the day, I will sit down with all of them and ask each one of them to tell us for what they are thankful to Hashem for today.\u00a0 At first it was hard for some of them, and yes, they would sometimes repeat what a brother before him had said, but they are slowly getting the idea.\u00a0 It does not matter to me what they are thankful for and it does not matter how small the item is.\u00a0 Actually, sometimes I think it is great that they come up with such tiny things to be thankful for because then they understand that everything is from Hashem, not just the big stuff, and will have a better understanding that Hashem is with them everywhere and at all times.<\/p>\n

Today I asked for two things from each boy.\u00a0 We were eating supper at the time.\u00a0 I had made a double batch of split pea soup in the crock pot today and each boy, for one of his two things, said they were thankful for the pea soup that they were eating – and they each had a huge smile on their face!\u00a0 *love*\u00a0 I am doing somethings right! (And yes, each of the 4 boys had a second helping!)<\/p>\n

The boys do like their Rebbe, and the Rabbi does offer a nice range of classes, but I only have one boy in a class at a time usually.\u00a0 So, that means that not all the boys get all the classes.\u00a0 It is not all that bad, for some of the classes I make up by teaching myself, and others I plan on having the younger ones take in future years when I age the older one out.\u00a0 I do this for various reasons, mainly because I need to have time to teach all the boys, and if they are all taking most of the classes, then I would not have time to teach them all everything for they are all on different levels and time is a slight factor!<\/p>\n

I feel it is best to teach the boys a couple more combined classes, similar to how we do parsha.\u00a0 The thing is, I want something that is interesting that could be taught in small doses.\u00a0 It keeps their interest better so that way they will hopefully remember more.\u00a0 Davening is always something that is hard to do unless you know what you are saying.\u00a0 I did find a nice tefillah curriculum that had 24 short lessons on chinuch.org.\u00a0<\/a>The lessons are to be done one a week. Something simple, but yet helps all the boys learn just a bit at a time, a nice small bite sized amount.\u00a0 I like small amounts spread over a long period of time.\u00a0 That is how we do our secular studies.\u00a0 The idea is that time gives the person time to think about what was learned and gives the subconscious time to mull things over and to solidify the thoughts and ideas.\u00a0 I have seen how this works well in many cases.\u00a0 Last year I had a son discuss a reading with me and while he was talking to me he told me, “they did not say in this book, but in the other book we read they also mentioned xxx.”\u00a0 It was so nice to hear him take things from various sources and put them together to create a whole picture and he was so excited to be able to do that for me and without me even prompting!<\/p>\n

I’m signing off here to do some exercising before bed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, the middle of October and hard to believe that we only just finished a full week of school!\u00a0 It’s been a tough week for boys for as soon as school work was finished, off to selling popcorn.\u00a0 Baruch Hashem most of the time we were inside, though Baruch Hashem it has been wonderful out … Continue reading “A Full Week!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,6,10],"tags":[56,61,82,156,172,183,201,230,315,395,497],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/full_week_logo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9ErqW-df","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorahlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}