Priorities

There is this harmful and damaging myth that one (especially a woman) can do it all and do it all with a smile. This myth leaves so many of us crying out in frustration because we are trying to do the best that we can, with the resources that we have, yet somehow we are constantly bombarded with the messages that we are not enough. We are not doing enough, not caring enough, not volunteering enough, not healthy enough, not happy enough... Notice that I am avoiding such things like being thin enough, put together enough, or rich enough. I sort of hope that we have stopped comparing ourselves with others or realized that it is a pointless task. But what about all these other areas, that are immaterial and seem so important?

It is a matter of priorities and those priorities are constantly shifting. I will throw out there some choices that I made today, possibly not "correctly enough", but I hope that my disclosure will make all realize that you do you, and don't worry about others doing it bigger and better.

I was jetlagged, so I am relying on challah from my freezer plus assorted pitas and bagels for shabbos. I am not making challah from scratch.

I wanted to take the homeschool kids out today, so I had to cook the bulk of shabbos last night. No aroma of homemade prep in my house this Friday.

I wanted to go walking, collect beautiful fall leaves and maybe do that leaf watercolor activity, but the kids' eyes lit when I mentioned Gem and Mineral Show. I wanted them to attend a workshop on gem identification, but they were more interested in wandering between the vendors, looking at the stones and fossils, and conversing about them. I prioritized a pleasant time at the show over the educational component. Also, since I took the kids today, I will not be taking the younger kids to the same show on Sunday. On the plus side, for once I did not have to worry about losing kids in the crowds, or constantly reminding not to touch and look with your eyes, not your hands.

I wanted to get a chunk of homeschool work done in the morning before the show, but the basement was in a hair-raising state, so I asked them to clean it up as a birthday present for me over buying me yet another set of earrings or a necklace from the show. I also saw that I have their cooperation in cleaning because they did not seem overwhelmed by the mess.

I wanted 12 yo to do laining, but math ended up taking more time, partly because I saw that one of the concepts needed additional practice and he admitted to not understanding how to work it out. I wanted to show him a complete solution, but he wanted to take over and do his mental math as soon as he understood what needed to be done.

I wanted to have a homemade lunch, but we left late for the show, hung out there longer than I thought it would take, and so I ended up grabbing random food before driving more carpool. No, I did not pack lunch or snacks. I did not even grab my water bottle.

I wanted to do my nails before shabbos, but I chose to be blogging.

Shabbat shalom!

(Am I freaking out about academics and skills? A bit, yes, but I think learning how to do things pleasantly, and how to prioritize is also important. I need to give the kids time and space to try those things out, in a safe environment when the stakes are not too high.)

working on not yelling

After facing the reality of how devastating yelling is to some of my kids, I have consciously cut down on yelling. (I have written about yelling before, but then I slipped, things got crazy again. I am human and imperfect and that was the emotional release shortcut.) It has been very very hard to control myself even when anger seemed justified, even when punishment seemed warranted, even when yelling was a primal scream of despair. One of the consequences of not losing it and not yelling has been how that child has reduced his tone of voice. Because the overall volume has been much lower, he modulated his voice to speak more quietly. His overall tone is so quiet that I often have a hard time hearing what he's saying, so I end up raising my voice to ask him again to speak up...

It seems that I have been the primary source of noise with my children because now I experience other people's elevation of tone or yelling as a physical slap. Probably didn't help that I was belted as a kid, so the body remembers drawing into a panic state because that kind of escalation by another adult would be followed with hitting. Oh no, no childhood abuse, just "I was spanked as a child and I have turned out alright, respectful and all." But now that the gut reaction of recoiling and protecting myself is activated, I am experiencing precisely what my children must have been experiencing all the years and times that I have raised my voice at them in frustration and anger.

And it hurts.

Because I spend so much of my day and emotional energy on controlling myself, I am drained by the evening time, when the rest of the children get concentrated mommy while trying to kick, back, let go, get comfortable and wind down. I have so little emotional reserve left that I end up losing it, either externally or internally. Sometime between 4 and 9 pm, despair sets in, the sort of despair that one experiences while pacing with a baby who just would not sleep. I am drowning while trying to rescue others.

Interlinear seforim

Chanukah is almost here and that means both Artscroll and Feldheim are having Chanukah sales. I have asked 11 yo to browse their websites, perhaps some books will catch his eye. I am hoping for more Jewish learning.

"Mommy, why isn't there interlinear Mishna Succah?" he asks, intently focused on the screen.

How do I explain, dear child, that by the time most people (children?) learn mishna, they do not need interlinear translation? How do I delicately put it that interlinear books are meant for those who do not yet have a grasp of Hebrew vocabulary or fluency, and who will probably never read Mishna Succah in Hebrew?

I feebly suggest that we have interlinear Pirkei Avot. He searches for other mishnayot, but none of them are interlinear. I see a worry form on his face. He has been meeting with a rabbi, studying Mishna Succah. I have an all Hebrew edition that I got for 13 yo when he was learning mishna. I have an old-style Hebrew-English mishna, but that one is hard to follow. I see that he is seeking an easy way to see an immediate translation of the words. The words still do not yield their meaning. The words are hard to read, do not connect into a coherent whole. Where I see mysteries, challenges, wisdom ready to be plumbed, he sees insurmountable obstacles.

I do not know why Hebrew is so hard for him. I do not know why he still cannot read it smoothly. I do not know why he does not see shorashim or remember the meaning of simple words that he encountered numerous times. I also feel so alone in trying to crack this puzzle. I want to help him, but give him enough room for growth and challenge. I want him to experience the sweet taste of achievement.

I have prayed this morning. I do not ask for the removal of obstacles, "why me?" or "why him?" I am not praying for miracles. My new insight is to pray for the right people to turn to. May Hashem keep on sending them onto my path.

Daily schoolwork for 11 yo

I have one child at home and this is what we aim to do every day:

• Chumash. His bar mitzvah Torah reading is the first day of Pesach, last bit of Parshat Bo. We have started Shemot from the beginning. We have agreed to do four pesukim per day. The latest round of child's input landed us at him reading one day and me reading the next, with him translating to the best of his ability and me supplying the words he does not know or remember. We are using a Chumash with Rashi menukad, and I aim to do one Rashi per day. Sometimes it works, sometimes it backfires. He continues to have reading difficulties, so my goal is to build his confidence in being able to read Chumash and Rashi.
• Yahadus. We are using Yahadus textbooks, reading a chapter a day. I do all the English reading, while he reads the name of each mitzvah in Hebrew and the pasuk that the mitzvah is derived from. Then we pull out Stone Chumash and he highlights the relevant part of each pasuk. 11 yo also made a "Mitzvah Man": on graph paper he made a large rectangle that contains 600 squares (geometry snuck in there) and added extra 13 as hands and feet. For every mitzvah deoraita, he highlights a square. I also use The Taryag Mitzvot Manual tables as a review and reinforcement. Since 11 yo is a kinesthetic learner, I photocopied the relevant pages onto cardstock, cut out each mitzvah and separated its Hebrew name from Hebrew description from English summary. As we learn more mitzvot, 11 yo's goal was to line them up in order and match up all three parts. This was not trivial when we got to Avodah Zara. My secret goal is for him to know all 613 by heart following the order for Mishne Torah. I got these ideas from the One Minute Masmid by Jonathan Rietti. I am proud to say that we finished the first textbook this week and he was able to organize all 86 mitzvot with their explanations and translations correctly.
• Chayienu. He does one page of Chayeinu workbook Daled. I know that he's technically in 6th grade, but Vav proved to be too hard and he started to give up, so we backed up a bit. It's Yediyot Klaliot, and there is plenty of new to him material in there. Currently we are working on knowing the seder of Parshyot in order. ( I know there are young kids who know this, but I also know plenty of adults who learned the song as kids and totally forgot it).
• Lashon Hatorah. Honestly, I could not remember where we were a year ago before he attended day school, so I did what I do best: went online and ordered a new workbook for middle and upper school students. It is faster paced than other books. So far, it is review material, and he is going at a good solid pace. I skip along pages that are repetitive.
• Math. He asked me more than once NOT to continue with Math Mammoth. Since last year he did some 6th grade math, he placed himself into 7th grade Khan Academy math. There are holes in his knowledge, so I have to often sit next to him when he hits unfamiliar areas. He gets to pace himself, so he sees his progress through badges and percent of material covered and decides how much time he wants to devote to math on any given day.
• Grammar. He also does that at Khan Academy. From what I see, good solid progress. 
• Coding. Khan Academy and Scratch from homeschool coop.

These are the skeletal basics. This is what he has as a daily plan. He can get it all done by 10 am, but it does not always happen.

Now, what this does not reflect is the insane amount of helpful housework 11 yo does. He sets the table without being asked, unloads the dishwasher, cooks for himself and others, plays with younger siblings, changes diapers, washes 4 yo, brings in groceries, cleans up, babysits. As far as being a mentsch, this child shines.

second day of (home)school

11 yo davened at home. I had to drop off 2 yo and get an oil change. We agreed that he will complete a certain amount of school work on his own and he was all done by the time I came back. He did three pages of Chayeinu workbook and read over the next mitzvah in Yahadus. Meanwhile, I'm slowly plowing through Rabbi Rietti's One Minute Masmid. I am very inspired since for the first time in a long time, I feel that there is an approach that I can use both in my own learning and in helping 11yo. The basic is that you start with Tanach, then Taryag, then Mishna, then Gemara, cover a lot of ground to build up the breadth and to feel progress and review like crazy. Since we are doing Yahadus at 11 yo's request, it leads naturally both to looking mitzvot up in Chmuash, reviewing Taryag and learning halachot. Today, when I got home, I asked him to find a high lighter and go back into Chmuash to highlight parts of the pesukim where the mitzvot are found. They are quoted right in Yahadus, so it was a beatiful exercise to see where Rambam pulled each mitzvah from. I also got a review in and even some Hebrew reading. 11 yo asked me whether Daddy will approve of his marking up Chmuash. I said that it is for purpose of learning, so it is OK.

I had grand plans for doing one more mitzvah, reading one perek of Navi a day with him, reading one Aliyah of Parsha, but for now, I will have to sit tight and see how all this goes. I told 11 yo to take a piece of graph paper and mark up a shape encompassing 613 squares. That sent us on a half an hour hunt for the ruler. We never fully unpacked homeschooling supplies since our move. I was also thinking how disorganized space reflects disorganized mind... but I have totally given up on that. I just don't go into the basement, don't deal with those boxed up hopes and dreams. I also cannot keep up.

So once the ruler was located, drawing this shape proved to be an estimating challenge with a small dose of math. 11 yo wanted to use extra 13 squares to make a person shape. I just watched. I can be very patient with one kid. Then, when he got the shape to his satisfaction. I told him to color in the squares equal to a number of mitzvot we high lighted. I want to give him a visual of our progress, in hopes to both address his anxiety about learning Judaics and to encourage him with tangible progress.

As an aside, he looked up the very last word in the Torah, noticed how some pesukim already contain more than one mitzvah and noticed how Rambam used the pasuk about not testing G-d to mean not to test Navi too much.

I went over his Chayeinu pages. I located abandoned Lashon HaTorah.

We had lunch. We tried going biking, but the bike rental rack would not allow me to get into the system today. 11 yo tried out dirt bike trails. We saw deer. He got exhausted after less than an hour. He also remarked how the day is going well. I asked him how he knows and he said, I'm not throwing fits.

When we got home, I did Hebrew Duolingo. I tested out of a whole bunch of levels, so now I am swimming in a sea of new words that I supposedly know. He watched me. I would like him to try his hand at it, but not now, when he feels confident or curious enough.

He did Khan academy math. I don't know what he knows, so it is nice that they are catching the holes and giving him a chance to practice both lower and higher level skills. He placed himself in 7th grade even though technically he's in sixth. He did grammar and some coding too. I caught him pausing the explanatory coding video and taking notes because he knew from previous experiences that they will expect him to use those commands.

taking notes on coding

Finally, he had his first tennis lesson at the JCC around the corner. 13 yo and 7 yo also started on swim lessons yesterday. I dropped them off and ran into the issue that the coach would not let my oldest walk back on his own. I had to drive back to pick them up all the while thinking how we complain about spoiled rotten millenials. 13 yo is allowed to use the pool on his own according to JCC rules. Why is he not allowed to walk back home? The coach said that he just needed to hear my agreement before letting them walk. So today with tennis, I found 11 yo's coach and clearly told him that I am allowing my son to walk over and back on his own. Coach's first words: "Does he know the way?" We live around the corner, literally. The child is 11. What is this world coming to? Who is not allowing for independence and responsibility?

Today was overall a good homeschooling day, even though all the crazy from the rest of the kids ended up being concentrated into a few evening hours.

P.S. I have so many photos of just kids' backs. It just hit me today that all those photos mean that I do not stop my kids in their tracks with my presence, but I get to see the path that they are on.

Indian consulate and Shemitta

We were passing an Indian consulate this afternoon when 12 yo asked me what is a consulate. I explained that it is an official representation of a country on another country's soil and the consul is the person who can conduct his country's business. I also mentioned my favorite fact (learned from my father) that a consulate is like a small piece of India right here and the laws of United States do not apply inside it. 12 yo wondered why there is a consulate here, why not just in DC, and how many more Indian consulates are there in the US. I told him he can look it up later. I also said that we live in a big enough city that this is probably a regional consulate. I mentioned that there is probably an Israeli consulate here too, or maybe in Miami. (I am not sure). Then he asked me whether the land of the Israeli consulate is the same as the land of Eretz Yisrael. I asked whether he meant halachically and he said, yes. I laughed, come on, it's a legal technicality, it would not affect halacha. He launched into what if Israeli consulate were to grow produce on its roof, would it be subject to the laws of shemitta? I retorted, of course not! He set up a precedent: the land conquered outside the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael still has to observe shemittah as long as the land within Eretz Yisrael is within Jewish possession. By this point, I realized that he might have a case, so I suggested he ask a knowledgeable rabbi.

This is unschooling in action. This interaction happened because we were both in the car, in good mood, he was next to me, he was looking around instead of being lost in an electronic device or a book, and he had prior knowledge to apply to a little tidbit that I supplied. Sometimes I feel like we get so little "work" done. Then I need to be reminded that my most important goal is to produce thinking human beings, who can converse and be open to learning. For that to happen I need these small casual spontaneous interactions.

Gemara for 12 yo

After a lot of hand-wringing, phone calls, e-mails and just things falling all over the place. I signed up 12 yo for online school for Judaics. He is in 7th grade, where he is supposed to be age-wise. He specifically asked for learning with other kids as opposed to one-on-one, but he did not want to go to school. The program is four days a week for two hours each day, and it is fully interactive: he gets to see the teacher and other students, learn bechavruta, ask and answer questions in real time, get assignments and chat with others. The catch is that it is from 11 to 1, smack dab in the middle of the day.

Here is the funny part: the administration originally did not want him in this class because he had no formal gemara learning. First I agreed with them, then we realized that the other level is too low for him, so I insisted that he attend this class with his peers. In the back of my mind was an ongoing buzz of what am I going to do with a child who will be handicapped by a lack of gemara skills? Will this approach of not pushing and introducing gemara haunt us? Now in his class, during the second week I got an email from the teacher that he is planning on having my son and his chavruta do a separate assignment since his gemara skills are on a higher level than the rest of the class. I giggled: how can a child who spent maybe six hours formally studying gemara have more advanced skills than the boys who have been studying it for the past two years? Perhaps all the hours he spent poring over Koren Bavli in shul paid off. Perhaps he is naturally brilliant. Perhaps he can pull a fast one on the teacher.

Perhaps our laid-back approach (not quite unschooling) is not so full of glaring educational holes.

Just what he needed

Do you know who's thriving at home so far? My three-year-old. He potty trained and having a potty available to use as necessary is what did it. He naps as he needs, just goes and tucks himself in and then comes out when he's awake and ready to come out. He spent close to an hour every day painting with watercolor. I just need to get him water and close the door to the sunroom. He has been painting sheet after sheet, mixing colors, using different brushes, making up stories about his creations. Then he cuts them up, tapes them, modifies them further.

He has been playing with Cliks: building swords and guns of all kinds, imagining things, creating whole worlds. He is all about weapons and shooting and fighting, yet he's extremely mellow to his younger sister. This is a healthy release of aggression.

He made a cockroach

He has been playing with his older sister non-stop. I often end up breaking up their play to get her to do her schoolwork. He sidles up with his Costco book, and he does his "math"; he just circles what he likes on every page. He recognizes a few letters. Last year in Montessori he supposedly knew him all. Now I can see that not everything has stuck, but it's ok, because he is only three and I want him to think that what he's doing right now, all this painting and building, is what's important.

We've been to the zoo and aquarium and he loves the ocean pop-up book. He keeps asking to go back. He wants to go to the park or hike trails. He often tramps around outside our large yard, digging in the dirt, finding bugs and other treasures. He rides his trike down the path full speed.

At the zoo

Childhood is short. Childhood can also be easy and not require much. I forgot how much I love this stage, when they are old enough to talk and say the darnest things (Mommy, can I help you make coffee cause I Love you). They are still little, but they can already do things for themselves. They do not have an attitude yet, but the personality is there. I am pleased to have this child back at home with me.

A day trip to Chattanooga aquarium

I had all the kids home with me last week. We were talking about different things to do and Chattanooga Aquarium came up. We have been there once, almost four years ago, and I have much fonder memories of it than of our local overpriced and super-commercialized aquarium.

So this morning I woke up (after the baby has been sleeping through the night for the past week) and when one of the boys asked whether we can drive to Chattanooga today, I said: "Why not?" And just like that, we had breakfast, packed up lunch and a diaper bag, and set out. By "we" I mean myself and five kids. My husband had to work. I joked with him how I really need to go to farmer's market and Costco this week, but I much rather drive to an aquarium two hours away that go through the store with my crew.

On the way there, we finished listening to "The Dragon Rider" by Cornelia Funke. We started on the way to and from the homeschool conference, but since we have to intersperse music for the younger kids, books on CDs take a while. 3 yo's new favorite CD is Frog Trouble by Sandra Boynton, another library find. At least Sandra Boynton CDs are not annoying when played frequently, something that I can't say about Raffi or Wiggles.

I brought an umbrella stroller for the baby, a backpack cooler with lunch for 12 yo to carry, and a diaper bag. When we got to Chattanooga, we had lunch first and then entered the first building of the aquarium. I kept on thinking about the gorilla incident and the angry chorus how animals should not be displayed. And then I saw how much my younger kids, 6 yo and 3 yo, who have not been to the zoo in the past year, or any other place with animal exposure, picked up from seeing live birds, fish, and mammals. How can one teach a 3 yo to be brave enough to plunge his hand into cold water and pet a stingray? How can I give my daughter the experience of discovery that stingray feels like jello and she can reach in and touch it? How can they learn what a butterfly walking across one's face feels like? How else my 3 yo will discover excitedly that penguins "fly" underwater? That he can use two fingers to feel the scales of a cornsnake?

We had a great time. Nobody ran off, nobody got lost, nobody cried. 3 yo even didn't have any accidents, and the baby stayed awake and relatively happy the whole time. And I kept thinking: this is what a good homeschooling day feels like. This is what I love doing with my wild and crazy bunch: drive them to a cool place, get all excited about it, see them get all excited, and watch as they ask each other about what they liked the most. 

Before we headed back, the kids asked about Ben and Jerry's corner store right next to the parking garage. I said that I will take a look at their prices. When you have five kids, getting everyone a scoop gets expensive very quickly, not to mention that we already spent money on gas and parking and admission (technically membership since I am planning to get there again). When I ducked into the store ( more accurately, as we spilled into the store) and I saw their prices, I felt ready to leave. Enter 12 yo, the rationalist: "If I split a cup with my brother, and sister splits a cup with 3 yo and you get a small cup for yourself, it is much cheaper than getting everyone a scoop". "Yes, we all all ready to share". Ok then, The older boys ordered their cup, but 3 yo, spoiled by getting his own (free) baby cone at local Bruster's was not inclined to share. So he dropped on the floor, kicking and screaming that he wants his own. The beauty of having so many kids is that it is no longer mortifying. I knew that either he will stop yelling soon and chooses to share, or he will continue yelling and I will take him outside the store without ice cream. Knowing this child, I was betting on the first. Sorry, patrons, but I had to pay for our treat. By the time I paid, he calmed down and chose to sit next to his sister.

We finished our scoops, got in the car, and drove back home.

May I be known as a mom with a messy house and without groceries, but the one who took her kids places that generated happiness.

It's all in your head

We went shoe shopping in Walmart yesterday. We really needed to go to Costco to buy shmura matzah, but Costco was closed, so we ended up in Walmart. 11 yo needed shabbos shoes, 9 yo needed sandals, 6 yo needed shabbos shoes and sandals, and 3 yo needed sandals, too. While there I decided to stop by the food aisles and stock up on  Pesach ingredients, such as salt, sugar and baking soda. We passed the coffee and tea aisle and I grabbed instant coffee and a box of Bigelow tea. There I saw a box of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea with chamomile. Since 9 yo likes tea (more the process of making tea and adding sugar and vanilla to it), I asked him whether he would like me to get for him some of this tea. I personally hate chamomile, so this is not something that I would be drinking. He said, yes, he would like it. We checked out.


This morning, while everyone was rushing and getting breakfast and getting underfoot, 9 yo took a long time to emerge from the bedroom. He resents Mondays like grownups do; and I am tired of being cheery about it. Once he got his breakfast, he asked about making his tea. I distractedly said yes. He said, as he was brewing it, that he might need another cup later on to calm down again. I was too busy trying to feed the baby, wipe snot off allergy-suffering 3 yo, and get some food into my system to pay much attention to what he was doing.

After breakfast, he davened and calmly prepares his chumash, same chumash that he threw a major fit over on Friday. He wrote down the words, politely asked me to help him with shorashim and asked to indicate which parts of speech he should be looking up. He did his chumash very smoothly and pleasantly. At the end he remarked how the tea is working and making him calm, almost sleepy.

I bit my tongue.

In the movie "Dumbo" the baby elephant cannot believe that he can fly unless he is holding onto a lucky feather. The feather is just a prop, but Dumbo does not believe in himself without an external crutch. Today, the tea was the crutch. The magical effect wore off right before lunch, when the violin lesson was cancelled and I asked boys to do some schoolwork on their own while I took a phone call. He had to do some math which required application of division. He knew how to do it, but he decided that they are asking him to do something else, something that he does not know how to do. Luckily, 11 yo stepped in and helped him, step-by-step. 9 yo rewarded his brother with a second cup of Sleepytime tea.


I don't want to knock the calming effects of chamomile, but I doubt that they are that pronounced. I also don't know how long the magic will keep on working. Please G-d, let it last at least the whole week.

Do we need testing in Judaics?

This week I came across the article regarding lack of standards and testing in Judaic learning. I read it with interest and then shuddered: the testing battle has come to the Jewish education and the educators are believing that more rigorous testing and standards will produce better prepared learners.

There are a few fallacies about learning that the article assumes.

Fallacy #1. Learning is linear.
This works very well for schools that have to keep track of a large number of students. Set up a curriculum, stick with it, slowly, yet steadily progress to more and more difficult material, and the knowledge and skills will follow. However, most students can attest to either being bored out of their minds when they already grasped necessary skill, yet the teacher is still spending time on it, or being lost when the material is not understood and the teacher does not spend enough time reinforcing. Most educators know that occasional detours are necessary to help those who are left behind, and enrichment material is needed for those who have mastered the skills.
Outside of the classroom, students tend to learn those areas that interest them. If an area will require a certain set of skills, as long as the fire and motivation is there, those skills can be acquired in an astonishingly short period of time. If this were not true, baalei teshuva would never be able to catch up in reading Hebrew, mastering Rashi, gemara learning. Moreover, many yeshivas and seminaries find that motivated students can master in a year what their peers spend six years learning in day schools.

Fallacy #2. Lack of skills at a college entry level is a reflection of insufficient day school education.
When I was entering Stern College for women from a small brand-new high school, I was assessed as to the level of my Judaic knowledge. Being a conscientious student, I tried my utmost to show the best that I could accomplish so that I would be placed in the higher level, more intellectually-stimulating classes. I overhead another woman, also coming from a small high school, planning on hiding her knowledge of Hebrew, so that she would get placed into lower, easier classes. Perhaps that is not the case for all students, but if one sees no value in furthering one's knowledge, and no use in their skills, then Judaic education has failed to impart a more important message than technical mastery.

Fallacy #3. Judaic studies can be compared to secular studies.
Math is the easiest subject to test objectively, so all the assessment and testing arguments tend to center on math analogy. There are clear advantages to being math-literate, and it is easy enough to test one's knowledge. However, to compare Torah learning to math does the former great disservice. More than one passionate educator has told me how Torah is our heritage; it is given to all Jews, and everyone has to strive to carve out a portion in it. Some will master Biblical Hebrew and learn it in depth with the commentaries. Some will have to read Chumash with translation. Some will find that Jewish history or philosophy is their passion, Some will love the intellectual rigor and back-and-forth of Gemara. Some will be taken with the poetry of HaRav Kook, or the logic of Rambam. To say that one is not meeting benchmarks in Torah learning is to cut one off from his heritage, from his portion of G-d's wisdom. There are many interpretations of Torah, cannot we allow one to tap into communing with the Divine on a track beyond Gemara? I have been told stories of students who failed davening because their lips were not moving fast enough. I have heard of students who are great at memorizing the material, spitting it back on the test, and then not being able to recall or apply any of their knowledge. By placing Judaics in the same category as secular studies, one lowers it to a subject to be conquered and put behind.

Fallacy #4. All day schools will benefit from the same benchmarks.
Where I live, there are three day schools: one is yeshivish, one is Modern Orthodox, and one is Chabad. Each one of them bills itself as a community school, so they are not rigid in their definitions. However, a yeshivish school would probably be interested in assessing Aramaic vocabulary and Gemara skills, a MO school would focus on mastery of modern Hebrew and Israel's history, and a Chabad school would lean towards knowledge of Chassidut. What will happen to the students when one system of assesment will be applied to all? Will they all bristle at the centralized planning instead of imparting their unique flavor to Judaism?

Fallacy #5. By high school graduation, the students must possess all the skills and the knowledge that they will need for the rest of their lives.
In America, we are obsessed with graduation. We make a big party, followed by infamous note burning of all the burdensome knowledge. Not only we graduate from high school, but we also graduate from middle school and even kindergarten. We love to celebrate the end. The Judaisms' view is the direct opposite. The Hebrew word לחנך means to educate. However, the same word also means to inaugurate. An inauguration is a process through which an object is designated for a specific use from this point on. An inauguration has a beginning, but no end. When we are truly educating students in Judaics, the message is that one can always grow in Torah learning, even if he does not have a specific set of skills yet. A high school student, while appearing very mature and set, is still quite early on in his quest of knowledge. The attitude towards learning that one carries out of his Jewish day school education is more important than the skills. If one believes that there is a whole wide world of learning waiting for him, one will not let a lack of skills in an area get in the way. However, if one is constantly assessed and held to the external standards, one might easily fall into the trap believing that once those standards are reached, there is no need to further learning.

Instead of promoting external standards, I humbly suggest pursuing initiatives which allow each student to explore material at his own pace. We need a Khan academy for Judaism. We need to support initiatives like  the Mercava and Sefaria. We need to invest in better apps and better infrastructure. We need to focus on building relationships between educators and students as a bedrock of מסורה transmission. But more than that, we need to teach all the parents and all the teachers that each student is unique and different and needs to be taught according to his needs.

Trends in Jewish Education

This past week, I attended a lecture on Trends in Jewish Education, specifically targeting day school age population. I brought both boys with me (they probably wanted pizza that came with the shiur...) The takeaway was that the future of Jewish education looks more like homeschool than traditional school. There is need to differentiate, less frontal instruction, recognition of multiple intelligences and various learning styles, addressing special needs population. There is need to teach students how to learn, and how to spark in them desire to learn. There is need to build close relationships with teachers and rebbeim. There is recognition for tremendous potential of online learning, and awareness that the world in which current kindergarteners will graduate will look very differently from the world they started in.

But there is also the economic side and that is unwieldy. The speaker kept saying how the tuition is already high, and, with implementation of all these new ideas and individualization, there is no economy of scale, so the cost keeps on spiraling up.

Moreover, he quoted the principals who consider a student a success as long as they still engage with Judaism and Jewish identity in some way, be it through Zionism, advocacy, social causes, textual basis, or religious observance. Additionally, studies have shown that a 6 to 12 months stint in Israel (not a gap year which has turned into "fifth year of high school", but a self-selected program like discontinued Masa) have the same impact on the rate of intermarriage as eight years of day school.

Coming out from the lecture, 11 yo thanked me for homeschooling him, that's how bleak everything looked on the other side. However, no need to attend a lecture for that. It seems that every week now I hear of another family seeking out alternatives to day school/yeshiva. Parents are desperate: the children are not thriving, the children are not learning, the children are not accommodated, and the messages of day school are not sticking. Unlike the free public school, all of this comes with a hefty, back-breaking price tag. The parents are sincerely wondering whether all the sacrifices that the families are making to give their kids a Jewish education end up producing Jewishly-educated kids.

I kept thinking about the famous pasuk from Mishlei, the battle-cry of Jewish educators everywhere: חֲנֹךְ לַנַּעַר, עַל-פִּי דַרְכּוֹ--    גַּם כִּי-יַזְקִין, לֹא-יָסוּר מִמֶּנָּה
Train a child according to his way: so when he grows old, he will not turn away from it. It seems that the day school world is waking up to the first part of the pasuk, but they are not doing a good job transmitting values, so the second part does not work. The secret is that the pasuk was not aimed at an institution, it was meant for a parent.

I sincerely feel bad for the educators who are trying to scale up the dynamic that is meant to take place at home and apply it to a classroom of diverse human beings.

Another painful point that was brought up had to do with socialization. Aptly, the speaker did not praise highly the socialization that takes place in the classroom, but he noted that there is a lot of ostracism for those who deviate from the communally-accepted modality of education. Many homeschoolers experience it on their own skin, as do those who do leave yeshivish or chassidish environments. It seems that day school does a fine job teaching whom to affiliate with, and whom to stay far away from. The speaker noted that this behavior is modeled by the parents and rabbeim.

What trends do you see in Jewish education?

growth and teshuva (repentance)

It is a good thing that my husband is my memory keeper. I was exasperated, complaining how 9 yo will never get fluency in reading Hebrew, and he reminded me how I worried and complained about him not knowing any English letters back when he was 5. "He will never read," I said. Then one day it clicked, and now he's a proficient reader.

That got me thinking. We know that he has anxiety. There might be a writing disorder. There might be dyslexia, or some sort of other learning difficulty. There are quantifiable and visible issues. The medication, both traditional and alternative, has cropped up. We have tried therapy, and we have talked about looking into more therapy. When you are a desperate parent, it is so easy to start grasping at any story of a child with a similar difficulty following XYZ plan and getting results. We want results now. We want change now. Moreover, we want a very certain prescription for change, something that we can follow and elicit change.

But that is not how things work.

9 yo still has hard time writing, but he is capable of doing it. 9 yo still has hard time reading Hebrew, but he has slowly built up stamina to try and read accurately. He can read many פסוקים in a sitting now, and he can translate and pick out שרשים. Also, he is at the point where he has interest in board games, competitive games. The same child who would not even try a game before for the fear of losing is now happily engrossed in Sorry, Monopoly and Parcheesi, all well-known for the competitive edge. He loses graciously, even despite his older brother egging him on.

His tantrums, while still occurring over seemingly trivial things, are much smaller. In fact, he came to the realization that he should work on not throwing fits. One of his self-discovered cures is playing the violin. Violin is not easy to play, and he is a beginner, which means, putting it mildly, he is not very good at it yet. Playing the violin and not getting the right sounds is very frustrating to him. I was anticipating this frustration, and got the rental insured, just in case here will be some throwing. Yet, 9 yo discovered that it is a calming activity.

I wish that I could point to a magic pill, and tell everyone else what the secret to these changes is, but, I'm afraid, it is just giving it time. With this extra time comes extra maturity and introspection. All of this makes me wonder whether in our desire to change our difficult children we jump the gun, counsel, treat and medicate instead of just waiting things out. Maybe what ends up working in the end is not the latest cure, but the simple gift of time.

The time between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur is known as עשרת ימי תשובה, ten days of repentance. Reading over Rambam's description of תשובה גמורה (complete repentance), one is struck with the complete transformation of a person, up to the point that one is called by a different name, because it is not the same person who did those sins. Yet, any aspect of תשובה that I have worked on was incremental. Change is slow, change takes time, change takes slip-ups and sliding back. Change appears instantaneous to the outside observer, yet, in the thick of it, change is often barely perceptible. Change is often a different thought pattern, Change is biting your tongue instead of saying something. Change is measured in these small steps, and often, one is not certain whether these steps are in the right direction.

Part of my תשובה is to be more patient with my kids, to give them the gift of time, and to allow them to change, mature and learn slowly.

First few weeks

5 yo and 2 yo have been going to their school. 5 yo loves it. She is happy to go and happy to come home. She talks about her projects, about reading, about making chains for skip-counting. She sings songs about Rosh HaShana. She talks about the new friends that she made. Overall, she is a happy child, having the time of her life.

I keep thinking  how school is meant for girls, rewarding and encouraging their behavior patterns of socialization, listening, and group activities.

2 yo is having harder time adjusting to having his nap time messed up. He is excited to go, but he is a mess in the afternoon when I pick him up. I get lots of pictures from the school and he is happy in them, participating in activities, sitting down, paying attention, crafting. Yet I do feel quite a few pangs of regret about sending out a child so young.

The boys are continuing with taekwondo three mornings a week. On Wednesday mornings we participate in the coop classes. Both boys are taking engineering and Minecraft History of Weapons. Unfortunately, these activities eat quite a bit of morning time. By 2 pm I have to leave to pick up the younger ones, so there is a lot of pressure to finish schoolwork before I go
. The baby is hanging out with us. Due to all the shuttling back and forth, she does not end up napping in her crib in the mornings. She is not a good sleeper and she is not easy to put down.

We are all adjusting.

I have finally finished reviewing בשלח with 11 yo. We have started on יתרו and, for once, he is excited to get to the "juicy stuff". I am trying to get out of the way and not kill his enthusiasm with too many Rashis. We have also been going over ספר יונה. So far we covered two פרקים. Please G-d that this year we actually get to finish it. Additionally, we have been slowly making our way through הלכות תשובה. I thought I have learned them all at some point or other, but, as I am reading them over, I am stunned by how much I do not remember. A while ago someone posted Beta Midrash app. I downloaded it and that is the text that we are using. It is nice, since there is an option to have Hebrew and English side-by-side, or just one of the languages. I can also make the font larger, Finally, all the citations are linked to the text. Moreover, 11 yo seems to enjoy the technological aspect of learning, As for me, this is quite a serious preparation. I am shaken by how much I am doing wrong, and 11 yo is getting the message, too. Sometimes I wonder whether this is too much, too soon, Yet I know that we will stop by יום כיפור, somewhere in the third פרק. This year, it is more of a taste than an in-depth study.

For math I checked out Khan Academy, but I was too nervous so I got Math Mammoth. 11 yo finished his first unit which was mostly review. Next unit has to do with equations, and I will need to sit with him, to make sure that he is not lost. So I let him loose on Khan Academy, hoping that he will either get ahead, or will get to review more of the material that he is not solid in.

We are continuing with Rosetta Stone, and I am hoping to read more of the picture Hebrew books with him.

With 9 yo, it has been touch and go. I dropped חומש for now and we are doing a lot of pages from the reading primer. I am hoping to build up his fluency and accuracy. There is still a slight possibility of dyslexia hanging over. It will not be picked up easily, as he reads fluently in English, but in Hebrew we've got problems. 9 yo is still better at reading Rashi script that regular Hebrew and I wonder whether I taught him and pushed him to read too soon.

We have been reading יונה from Artscroll children's edition. There is a lot of explanation and midrash in there, but it gives him welcome breaks between each פסוק. I have not been asking him to translate, just to focus on reading Hebrew text with corresponding English.

For math, 9 yo is going over Math Mammoth. He seemed fine with it until his brother started doing Khan Academy; now he wants to do that instead. He got to play around with it a while back, but he did not want to explore areas which were unfamiliar or difficult.

For science I am planning on using a standard 4th grade textbook with our usual mix of eclectic learning thrown in. We hanged a hummingbird feeder right outside the kitchen window and the kids have been watching the tiny visitors. There were many questions ( most from 5 yo), so i asked 9 yo to make a poster about hummingbirds by doing some research online. He threw a fit: "I am not good at science and you know it!" I understood that he simply did not know where to start. I asked him to bring me 5 index cards and told him that each card will be for a question. He sulked. I asked him whether there was something about hummingbirds that he wanted to know. He said, no. I gave him a few examples and wrote them down, leaving the last index card for him question. He finally admitted that he wanted to know how fast the hummingbird's heart beats. Then he went to Google the info, A minute later he excitedly came back, spewing numbers. Apparently, it beats anywhere between 60 and 1260 beats per minute. We have hummingbirds that live here year-round, but other species spend the winter in our state. Hummingbird eggs are the size of black-eyed peas. Many hummingbirds return to the same feeder year after year, so we have to keep ours up. The baby hummingbirds come potty-trained: they "do their business" over the side of the nest. Parents feed their babies a mixture of nectar and fruit flies, so it is a good thing that we resurrected the compost pile ( to which 9 yo dutifully takes out compost every day). Finally, hummingbirds are pushed out of the nest as soon as they are able to fly. This fact made 9 yo sad. He actually came back to me in the morning and told me again how sad he is for baby hummingbirds. I asked him, why he thinks parents do that. He said, so that they can grow up and be independent and live their own life. Somehow, this thought cheered him up.

So are we, as parents, pushing our kids out of the nest so that they can get a chance to live a life and to fly.

kids in the kitchen

apples in honey

I got ambitious tonight ( the younger two were asleep) and started on sunken apple tart from Kosher by Design. No sooner had I sauteed apples in honey and inhaled their heavenly aroma, and the baby woke up. 11 yo picked her up while 9 yo walked into the kitchen, wondering whether he can help.

dry ingredients

I asked the boys whether they want to take over. And take over they did. They made the rest of the tart, while I sat on the couch and nursed. They hunted down the lemon zester, measured and mixed. I was not consulted, but, by now, we have baked enough that they knew their way around the kitchen.

wet ingredients

Of course, there is a risk that something was not done right, and the tart will not come out. However, as I sat nursing, I truly relaxed. I have no ego in this, just pride that my kids can help and can tackle even a pretty elaborate recipe.

a bit of sampling

and a bit of goofing off

cinnamon sugar topping

end of summer

Summer is drawing to a close. I filed Declaration of Intent to Homeschool for the boys. I also shopped for school supplies for 5 yo and 2 yo. I looked into Khan Academy for math and got Math Mammoth, just in case. It sounds like we are rolling into school year, yet, in a way, we were "doing school" all along. We have kept up Chumash study. 11 yo just finished שירת הים in בשלח. We skipped many Rashis and he complained plenty about the poetic language, even though he knew the words from davening. 9 yo is in the middle of תולדות. Both boys continued with taekwondo and just received a black stripe on their belts, putting just one more level between them and that coveted black belt. 9 yo begged and begged me to start violin. After ignoring his requests and wishing they would go away (and trying to sway him towards a less challenging instrument), I found a teacher for him. He has been very conscientious about it, treating the instrument gingerly and practicing. Of course, it has barely been a month, so I'm still taking "wait and see" approach, but this is definitely an unschooling step of following the child's interest.

At the zoo. They made sketchbooks and sketched some animals

5 yo, not to be outdone, wrote a note to her new aunt (who is a music teacher) to teach her how to play the piano. I'm not holding my breath on that either, but so far, she has been practicing.

Joint reading of Harry Potter

In the afternoons, the boys have been advancing through new levels of computer games. I have almost an allergic reaction to the amount of time they spend in front of the screen, but I don't have much to offer instead. Usually we are stuck indoors because one of the babies is napping, or is cranky or I have to get that dinner going or I am nursing. So let them enjoy computer time, let them figure out how to take turns and meet their own electronic needs. That will come to a close in another week, and we are all aware of it.

Nothing inspires creativity like a box of brand-new pencils.
While 11 yo and 5 yo are drawing,
9 yo is organizing them by color families.

We also made some changes in our house. They boys agreed to move their sleeping quarters downstairs, into the basement, so I can place 2 yo with 5 yo and give the other bedroom to the baby. The baby is a terrible sleeper, which causes me to be extra tired and grouchy. Then, after we put all the effort in getting her to sleep, we tiptoe into the bedroom and wake her up by rummaging for clothes, etc.

I wish to have more of a house to place all these kids, and less of a house to clean and maintain. I know that down the road, three bedrooms are plenty for our five kids, but right now, a kingdom for a spare bedroom, or even a nook where this baby can get some sleep.

patience

Today is Mother's Day.

Today my husband is on two calls: one during the day and another overnight.

No, we did not celebrate with breakfast in bed. Yes, he got the baby changed and dressed so I could finish my breakfast at the kitchen table.

No, I did not get a bouquet of flowers. Yes, I got a bunch of weeds hand-picked by my daughter.

No, I did not get picture-perfect brunch. Yes, I got cupcakes made from scratch by 9 yo. I also complained on Friday how I'm falling on my face and chocolate would be a nice pick-me-up. My hubby pulled out a box of Godiva truffles. He anticipated what I would have liked, but he decided not to wait till Sunday to hand them over.

On Shabbos, he was also on call, and there was no childcare in our shul. My husband took three older kids to shul with him. 2 yo was in pieces about being left behind. I kept telling him how we will go to shul later, once the baby wakes up. We walked, while I pushed the stroller with the carseat. 2 yo stopped to examine every rock, every flower, every leaf, every bird. The walk that normally takes twenty minutes took us an hour. I was starting to get impatient, but I bit my tongue. This is his exploration opportunity. How often do we take walks at the pace of a 2 year old? How often do we literally smell every single rose bush? How often do we pause to acknowledge the ants? I was patient with him, especially since he walked and did not complain that his stroller is occupied by the baby.

(I was not so patient once we rounded the corner to the shul only to be greeted by my exiting family. We missed everything, and now we had to turn around and head back home. I left 2 yo in care of my husband and rushed back, trying to get home before the baby would wake up).

I was patient today when 9 yo was searching for an activity to do with me, special for Mother's day. He wanted to do a hike; just the two of us. I demurred, since I'm tied to the baby and my husband can be called up anytime. He settled on cupcake making. I sighed internally: I know how these baking things go; they are all nice and dandy until there is a spill and then the baby wakes up, and you are either rushing, or putting everything on hold. But I decided to be calm and patient about it. 9 yo really did everything himself (with some assistance from his sister). He got out the ingredients and the mixer, halved the recipe, measured and mixed. He ran out of patience when it was time to fill up small muffin cups. I was rewarded with cupcakes.

What motherhood taught me is patience. The baby will fall asleep eventually, the children will sleep through the night eventually, they will walk and talk eventually, they will say "please" and "thank you" eventually, and they will learn to read and write eventually. It just takes time. I used to worry and freak out a whole lot more about a whole lot of things. Having all these tiny human beings around allowed me to focus on what is important.

To all moms out there, no matter how young or how old: I wish you the gift of patience.

striking gold

We finished Sefer Breshit with 10 yo. 8 yo finished another perek with my husband.

But this is not what my kids are excited about at the moment. When the schoolwork part of the day was finished, when I'm done yelling at 10 yo for misplacing his spelling words (again), when 8 yo has completed his totally unfair math where "they keep tricking me by asking for area and I am much better at finding perimeter", the kids decided to go outside. It is cold here, not as cold as in the northeast, but the temperature is just above freezing. I was trying to get 1 yo to take his nap, and to finish Shabbos cooking, so I strongly encouraged this outing. I was not sure how long they will last outside, so I suggested gloves. They wanted to go digging. I decided that they will find out for themselves what digging in frozen ground feels like.

We had a tree cut down recently, with a large stump remaining. My husband made a bonfire on top of it this past Sunday, and the kids fed it, and toasted marshmallows. But the stump is still there, and there are old grass clippings and wood shavings all around it. They went digging between the roots, two boys with shovels and one girl, watching and helping. Suddenly, they dash into the house, excited: "We think we found gold!" A large crumbly rock is thrust into my face, with pale yellow veins running through it.

Not from our yard
http://www.zmescience.com/science/geology/theory-earthquake-gold-18032013/

Clap, if you believe in gold mine right in my front yard.

I have learned to stay positive, or non-committal in such situations. They washed the rock off, examined it, and then went Googling to find out how to tell whether they struck gold. I came in the middle of them watching a video telling how to identify gold in quartzite. The rock in the video looked eerily like the rock they found.

Now they want a magnifying glass, to examine those grains and veins closely.

I bet they will not remember much of what we did this morning. I bet they will not remember which exact problems they solved to get area, or which sentence they used for "especially". I bet they will remember the time they struck gold in the front yard.

This is what gives me strength to continue homeschooling. As much as I would like to have a certain balance of academics and tangible achievements, knowing that they have freedom to explore, be passionate, conduct their own research, and draw their own conclusions is more important than my objectives.

ice cream making, or aspirations

We finished our dinner. 10 yo: "Mom, can I have ice cream for dessert?"

I don't want him eating my husband's Haagen Dazs, so I say that he can have something else. He is not satisfied: "How do you make ice cream anyway?"

"You use heavy cream and you freeze it. You might  want to look it up."

He runs to the computer and starts Googling. I'm envisioning a trip to the grocery store, to buy heavy cream which I clearly do not have in the house. He finds a recipe for ice cream using ziploc bags and milk. It is chocolate-flavored and we have all the ingredients on hand. First he is writing out the ingredients, then he is cutting and pasting into Word, trying to fit the recipe on one page.

Gathering the ingredients.

He got the bags, and the ingredients. 5 yo and 1 yo are on hand, helping and curious. I happened to have rock salt that I got expressly for the purpose of making ice cream with the kids years ago, but, somehow, never got around to it. He mixed the food ingredients, got a hand from 1 yo in scooping the ice, added rock salt, wrapped the whole contraption in a towel, and started tossing.

Little brother lends a hand

They are fighting over who gets to shake the bags.

After requisite 8 minutes, it was clear that the ice cream still did not freeze. I was suspicious of the fat content of milk (we used 2 %), but I suggested more time tossing it around. I also found an old coffee can, so we transferred the inner ziploc into it, packed it with ice and rock salt, and the kids rolled it back and forth on a towel. 1 yo tried getting in on the action. They had a grand old time!

Rolling the can back and forth

After all this vigorous mixing, it finally felt frozen, but gloppy, more like frozen yogurt. 10 yo pulled out the bowls for everyone, even though it was supposed to make only one serving, and topped it off with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. They sat there, in blissful satisfaction. He remarked how good homemade ice cream tasted.

Doling out the goodies.

I thought how allowing kids to make ice cream from scratch on a night when my husband was on call and nowhere to be seen was either an act of the best mommy ever, or of a total loony.

Yum!

_____________________________
When I was growing up, my mother had two cookbooks. One of them was imposing The Book of Healthy and Tasty Food. Being a bit like my oldest, only lacking Internet, I read it. I was inspired. The recipe that stood out for me was sea turtle soup. It started like this: cut the head and the flippers off the turtle, rinse the carcass...

The truth was, the turtle was never available in the grocery store. It was not available in my parents' lifetime, either. It was not the sort of recipe that you actually made, it was the recipe to aspire to, one day. Maybe my mother could kid herself in her childhood: in ten years we will live during communism, and then turtle will be available, and I will be able to choose whether to make turtle soup or not. I was harboring no such illusions. In fact, the recipes mentioned cream. I do not recall once eating it. There was ice cream, from a cart outside, with my mother determining whether it was safe to eat or not (she worked as a supervisor for food control, so eating out of the house was a taboo, or a very risky proposition at best). I did not aspire to cream, but I read, in that same book, that a polite meal included a nicely set table, with napkins.

I was probably about ten when I approached my mother with the same proposition. I knew better than to ask her to use our china (for guests only), but we had paper napkins, and I wanted to use them, probably as a substitute for turtle soup and cream. I was met with a lot of reluctance. As I recall, we did use them, but they were just laid out and then collected at the end of the meal, to be used at some other occasion. There was also probably a verbal message of wastefulness which went along, but my dreams of culinary freedom were not to be.

Most likely I am making up for my childhood desires by indulging my kids in their cooking escapades. I want them to be more active in the kitchen, I want them to be adventurous, to make delicious things, to dream of making delicious things. I often stop them, too: I am too tired, I want food to be done with in the most efficient way possible, I don't have a high tolerance for mess, I worry about them messing up the recipe and wasting food. Yet we live in a total abundance. We can afford to waste whatever goes into any particular recipe (maybe not a turtle soup, but turtles are not kosher anyway, so we are safe). And that look of satisfaction, that freedom to eat what you desire, and the ability to make what you want: isn't it worth it?

unstructured learning

We went to a homeschool day at the local nature center. 10 yo did not want to go, had to be practically convinced and dragged over there. The formal programs there leave much to be desired. They are run by a former public school teacher with years and years of experience. All that I see are crowd control techniques: rotate through stations, listen to instructions, do not interrupt.

So why do we keep going back?

8 yo decided to participate in indoor scavenger hunt, looking for images of ten song birds. He had to find them and write them down on a clipboard, then to turn the list in. He worked with a friend, looking and searching, persisting at a task for close to an hour. He also wrote them all down. Was that cheating? Collaboration? Was this writing practice? Sticking to a task? Not giving up in the face of difficulties?

5 yo made a new friend, whom she played with and followed around.

10 yo traded in his fossilized fish bone.

1 yo spent a lot of time looking at a mole snake, watching it slither. Then, just as he was losing interest, one of the employees came with a spray bottle. She opened the exhibit, pulled out the case, lifted the lid, and misted the habitat. I told 1 yo that the snake was getting a shower. He sat in my lap, fascinated. Then she offered to take it out, as long as he wouldn't touch it. He really got a close look at that snake! I asked about the heavy rocks on the lid, and was told that these snakes are very strong and can lift up the lid of the enclosure and escape. We got this close and personal look, totally unplanned.

One thing that I learned from the past three years of homeschooling is that a lot of learning happens in unstructured, "unproductive" moments. Homeschooling is not about advancing through grades, or filling out worksheets, or passing tests. Learning is not quantifiable, but it happens when there is an opportunity for it to happen. If one passively sits and waits for someone to tell them what to learn and what to know, they are guaranteed to fail. They will not remember anything beyond the point of required recall. The point of learning is to "own it", have a stake in it, be interested for its own sake.

Which brings me to my "next year" dilemma. Now I am leaning to sending out the two youngest kids: 5 yo and 1 yo. 5 yo wants to go to school, "to see what it's like", and 1 yo manages to disrupt and destroy faster than I can blink. I know that many homeschool families choose to send kids to preschool until kindergarten age, precisely to be able to focus on the older kids. I also know that 5 yo would be ridiculously easy to homeschool. Today we davened together, and then we did the first lesson from "Derech Bina". I was planning on focusing exclusively on reading, not being sure how much writing she can do (the primer is meant for Hebrew school kids who are in 2nd grade). This girl insisted on doing the writing page, too. And she managed just fine, with some direction. Then, in the afternoon, we doled out allowance. We start at 5, a quarter for each year of age, so she gets a dollar and a quarter. Then we give tzedakah, which is ten percent, so that's 12 cents in her case. I point out the coins for her, let her figure out their value, show her how to make change from the quarter that she gets into dimes and pennies so she can give tzedakah. Then she counts up her dollar bills and we use a hundreds chart to calculate cents. "Can this be my math?" Of course, dear, this is your math, only it is meaningful and useful math. 1 yo gets a penny to put into tzedakah box.

I look at her day, so full, and then I wonder what is the school going to give her that she is not already getting at home. She might end up with a morah who is calmer than a sleep-deprived mommy, yelling at her older brothers. She will get to do more projects, more worksheets. She might get exposed to ways of counting and reading that I am not familiar with. But is all this academic material worth more than having freedom to play for hours, to choose what to learn, and to be with her family?