a few simple things

I have not written about actual learning, so here are a few simple things that we are doing:

Read aloud. About a year ago, the boys politely but firmly declined my offers to keep on reading to them good night stories. 7 yo said that he can read well enough on his own. I fretted about it for a bit, discussed it with other homeschoolers, but decided not to push the issue. We still got tons of library books, and the boys read all the time. 4 yo (as of this week!) looks at tons of books, too, and she has her favorites. She is more than eager to get HER good night story, and has been bringing two or three books at a time. About a month ago, out of the blue, the boys asked me to read to them a story while they were lying in bed. I thought that we need a chapter book and grabbed "Pollyanna" which I was pretty sure nobody read yet. I got it from some library sale. We have been reading a chapter a night. 9 yo very early on said that she has the concept of hakarat hatov (recognizing the good). I have never read it before, so it is fun to follow the story with the boys and to be on the same page.

Label everything. For years, I was thinking about labeling objects around the house in Hebrew, so that we could learn all the new words painlessly. Somehow, I was not getting around to it. Since 7 yo got diagnosed and I was searching for all possible approaches to deal with his writing and spelling difficulties, a teacher friend recommended doing a word wall, so that the words and their spelling was constantly before him. I combined the two ideas and started labeling everything around the house. I do five words per night. It tends to skew towards objects, and I try to pick the words where English spelling is not obvious. Some nights it's fun, other nights I am having hard time coming up with what to label. 

Base ten blocks. For 4 yo, it's perfect material for building a succah. 7 yo uses it for regrouping in adding and subtracting large numbers. 9 yo used it today to model division with remainders. I got a relatively cheap plastic set, and if you are considering getting one good math manipulative, I recommend getting this.

Daily vocabulary calendar. I picked it up in Costco sometime in the fall. We keep it at the breakfast table. The boys like reading the word and especially its etymology on the back. Yesterday 9 yo said: "Today will be bad. The word of the day is berate." Somehow, we managed. I can envision writing sentences, using words in conversation, challenging everyone to come up with a sentence which uses the most new words. Instead, it is unobtrusively sitting there at breakfast, waiting to be looked at.

http://www.amazon.com/Words---Year-2014-Page-A-Day-Calendar/dp/0761172963/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1389843553&sr=8-4&keywords=daily+vocabulary+calendar

good day

How do I know that we're having a good day? When we come to the end of it, and all is well.

Yesterday we opened up Handwriting Without Tears. I ordered script for 9 yo ( he had hard time with capitals), print practice for 7 yo and preschool book for 3 yo ( so that she does not feel left out. 7 yo eagerly stated on his. He did three pages yesterday and three pages today, and this was his choice. I thought about doing just one and stopping, but he kept on going. 9 yo did his script yesterday, but did not touch it today. Moreover, after his handwriting, 7 yo sat on the floor and wrote "are" to show 3 yo. He was not sure how to spell it and he was not sure how to write "r", but he still wrote it. Little accomplishment like this feels big.

Then he did chumash. He did another pasuk, reviewed yesterday's pasuk and listened to baal koreh. He is basically memorizing it, and I see him moving his lips along with baal koreh. He said he likes trop, so I am thinking of teaching it to him.

9 yo did his math first, then his chumash with some prodding. When we got to atsei gopher, he made a joke about it being made out of gophers. I showed him Rashi: kach sh'mo ( so it is called) and he could not stop talking about gopher trees. I asked him to bring graph paper and we were writing down info on how to build an ark. After I wrote down the dimensions, I asked him to draw a scale model. Next thing I knew, he was making one! He added a little cabin on top, and I showed him where in Rashi there is a support for his idea. he was disturbed that the ark did not have a sharp protrusion in the front like a boat ( he used the technical word for it which I am not familiar with) and that there were no oars or rudder. I never thought about those things. It must have been very depressing for Noach to know that he has no control over where his vessel will take him.

When we were reviewing yesterday's pesukim, he asked about "all flesh" being corrupted. I pointed out Rashi which says that animals mated outside their species. he said, like mule and I remembered seeing a recent post about a zonkey ( a zebra/donkey hybrid). When we googled it, we found out that there is one on a nature reserve about an hour away from us. These guys are rare, so I sense a trip coming up!

7 yo did his math without any issues today, it was on ordinal numbers which he knew, and he did not mind writing as much.

In addition to all this schoolwork, we also went to Costco ( I found myself without shredded cheese and this is a crisis!) The kids were very helpful, getting items into the cart and unloading at the checkout. The boys ran asked about pneumatic tube system next to the cash registers. I explained it as well as I could.
through the store together and worked as a team to shove a large box of diapers under the cart. At the end, I treated everyone to frozen yogurt. While we were eating it, 7 yo

We also went to taekwondo. There 7 to collided with another kid before they even got started, got a bruise above his eye, and sat out during the class. He was disappointed not to start his training as a green belt.

Today did not feel so unschool-y, but it did not feel like school day either. 9 yo got a ton of time to read, go on Google maps and draw, 7 yo and 3 yo played most of the time. They converted Costco boxes into boats and had a picnic with stuffed animals in their room. Maybe this is a good balance of school-y and child-directed activities that everyone can feel good about.

Money management

Today was another day when I scheduled too much.

After we davened, I asked 7 yo whether we should start with chumash. He said, yes. I wrote a bunch of mi amar el mi, he answered them quickly. Two were wrong. When I asked him to look them up, he just tried guessing. I asked him to open the chumash and look inside. He started moping and claiming that he did not want to do chumash. I said that we'll review and then do two pesukim and they are short. After more hesitation, he found them. Then I asked to review pesukim from yesterday. More resistance. I sort of brought up the "vayomer" issue. He said that it is probably just one mal'ach talking. I said that it could be someone in charge of overturning the plain. His eyes lit up. Then we did new pesukim. I explained Tzoar according to Rashi. He drew a map illustrating where Lot was going.

Then we went to Costco. The boys brought their allowance. Inside the store I insisted that boys walk together. I have a juicy story of 5 yo running away and hiding behind canoes and me having to alert workers to find him. ( FYI, Costco, does not do a floor page for anything, so try not to lose your kids there). They did stay together. They could not find toy section, the gift-giving season being over. I got my items and the boys showed up with: kite for 5 yo and sand play kit for 7 yo.

My policy on allowance is that I give it to you weekly, you give tzedakah and the rest is for you to do as you wish. I do not buy them toys. I do not buy them soda. I do not remind them to bring their allowance, but I do not manage how they spend it. I think it is better to learn money management this way than wait till you are older and the mistakes that you make are much larger. I went away for high school and was faced with the problem of managing very limited money without being able to work. Growing up, whenever I was gifted any money, it went to my parents. Needless to say, there was a sharp learning curve and I am naturally tight-fisted. It takes a lot for me not say anything when I see kids choosing to spend their money recklessly, but I am hoping that some recklessness now will help bigger lessons to sink in in the long run.

So they got their toys. They also got chips and cookies from the vending machine ( their money). On the way over and back, we listened to Purim music. I explained mishenichnas Adar, marbim besimcha. Then there was layehudim haita ora. I asked boys to guess when we say this. They seemed confused. I said that daddy says this every week. 5 yo guessed havdalah. Then he asked whether driving up to NY is going north. I confirmed. Then we discussed how NY is really to the north-east, while Toronto, where we went last summer, is truly north. 7 yo piped in that Lake Ontario is in the way of going straight north. Then he went on about which lake borders which state. This kid enjoys poring over maps, tracing rivers, studying borders, the sort of creative activities that I would like him to do, only he comes up with them on his own. The results stick better, too.

When we got home, they helped me unload the car. I got a large platter of macaroons for Pesach, but 2 yo picked it up awkwardly and half of them became squirrel food.

Then I was rushing through formal schoolwork, hoping to get to Adar project. It did not go so well. At some point, 7 yo did finish planned activities. Then he suggested using rice in his sand kit. I hesitantly agreed. He happily played with it. Creative thinking, out-of-the-box thinking, we got that. But that creativity produced quite a mess.

By clean-up time, it did not look so good. He felt that other kids made more mess. He did not do a good job sweeping spilled rice and then sulked. He talked about losing his temper. At some point, I lost mine and sent him to his room. After some minutes passed, he asked for a dictionary. I told he can get it, unsure what was his plan. A few minutes later, he told me that he looked up "temper" and now he's sorry, because he did not realize how bad it was what he was saying. I like to see internal guilt, instead of external pressure to improve behavior.

Looking forward to Rosh Chodesh pizza dinner.