Arbor day

9 yo plants a tree

Today we went to a local college to participate in Arbor day. The kids watched swans, geese and ducks, planted some trees, climbed a magnolia, met other homeschoolers. 9 yo sidled to a professor of botany and spoke to her class. We walked around a lake. I kept wishing that the college I went to had such a pretty campus. 

We listened to Shabbos zemirot on the way there and back.

magnolia climbing

When we got home, after lunch, it was math time. Since 7yo know it was the only "schoolwork", he did not object. He even made some comments about how easy it was. 

Them everyone showered. The drum lesson was interesting: 7 yo did well, and got his next assignment, 9 yo got frustrated and the teacher cut his lesson short. We have a whole month till the next lesson, and I will watch his practice.

I think having one assignment is where we have no frustration, and the rest of our day should be occupied with life and field trips. I am much happier this way, too.

iris

update on Nach Yomi

For those who followed, you might remember that I took up to read a perek of Nach every day, to see what is commitment like and to serve as an example to 8 yo in his drum practice. Here is the original post. This is an update on how it's been going.

Till mid-October, I have been faithfully reading a perek a day. I got into a routine with it, at least reading the p'shat in English, sometimes reading the commentaries, too, sometimes just skimming on those pesukim where I had questions. Then my sister got married, and we trekked to New York and spent a good week traveling. At that point, even though I brought Navi with me, I fell off. There was too much going on, there was no routine, and there was no emotional energy flowing towards it. After berating myself a few nights for not getting it done, I decided to let go till I get back home. Then it took a good week to fall back into any sort of normalcy, and Navi has not been on the radar. I finally got back into it, but it has not been in the same groove that I had before the wedding. I have been starting on it too late in the night, and falling asleep while reading. When I fell asleep in the middle of Ammon and Tamar's story, I knew that the material had nothing to do with it; my choice of time and level of exhaustion were to blame.

So I have not been as consistent about it since October. I did finish Shmuel Beit two nights ago. I have been surprised at the end of it; I took Shmuel Beit in highschool, but I guess I do not remember that we did not finish the sefer. The wars of David, the census, the enigmatic threshing floor for sale to stop the plague; none of these stories rang the bell. I am also slowly crawling my way through "Lies My Teacher Told Me", and the central point of that book is that history is written by the winners. Even 8 yo noticed that. He wondered why we do not have more history from the rest of the world, why is everything taking place first in the Mesopotamia, then in the Mediterranean and then in Europe. Perfect case for why history survey courses are called Western Civilization.

Shmuel Beit is written by Davidic dynasty to establish it. Even though David had all these wonderful qualities quoted by Chazal ( conquering his yetzer hara, humility, zealotry for Hashem, desire to build the Beit Hamikdash), he does not come off as quite a popular king. It takes seven years for people to even recognize his anointment, and then he has three major rebellions during his lifetime. Oh, and his general is a serial killer, yet David's hands are metaphorically tied. I wish I had a chavrusa to work through particularly enigmatic and disturbing parts of the book.

I will continue to Melachim. That is the last volume that we have in Artscrol Rubin edition. At the rate I am going, I do not know how long that will take me. Maybe they will publish the next volume by the time I finish.

As for the drumming: 8 yo seems to pass into the area where practice is fun. He is practicing on his own, and we trade the minutes he practices for Pokemon movie time. His teacher says that his drumming has improved. He can show it off now, even though it still does not sound perfect. His commitment seems to be more solid than mine.

Nach Yomi

There is a concept of Daf Yomi: you learn a page of gemara a day, every day, through every tractate and area. People all over the world learn the same page on the same day. Like this, one finishes the entire gemara over the course of 7 and a half years. The benefit: one is familiar with the entire gemara, not just "popular" or easy areas.

But there is another benefit/drawback: in order for this to work, one needs to commit a certain amount of time every day to learning. No holidays, no sick days, no celebrations, day in and day out, one has to find time to set aside to learn. From what I heard, catching up is hard, if not virtually impossible. This requires a huge commitment and a huge amount of discipline.

I was at an impasse with 8 yo about drums. He likes drumming. He picked up a few rhythms, made up his own, likes banging around, likes combining sounds. He hates practice. He hates sitting the right way, holding the drumsticks the right way, playing the same rhythm twenty times, counting out loud. He wants to get it, and get it fast. He gets frustrated. We spoke about it, we made plans, promises, trades. I wavered: maybe he is not ready, but maybe he is ready and he just needs to put in some effort and then he will come to enjoy all of it.

Then I thought about it: he does not see people work hard at something. He does not see grown-ups taking on commitments, failing, trying again, getting frustrated. I thought about what would be a grown-up equivalent of practice which would pay off, but would require a commitment.

I decided to do Nach Yomi. Previously, I read Yehoshua and Shoftim(Judges), studied Shmuel I and II and a bit of Melachim I, but the rest is quite murky. Oh, sure, I come to shul and hear haftorah (the readings from the Prophets and Writings, corresponding to the weekly portion) and all the megilot, but what about the rest? What about the context? What about the rest of Iyov, not just that he lost everything, spoke to some friends, and then gained everything back?

In one of the recent articles, a point was made that if all the copies of the book of Havakuk would disappear from all the yeshivot, nobody would notice. My husband countered that Havakuk is read as a haftorah somewhere... not sure if it's true, but the point still stands: how well do I know the rest of the Nach to know what am I missing?

So I decided to embark on a personal Nach Yomi. The rules are simple: one perek (chapter) of Nach per day, starting with Yehoshua. I am reading it in English, Artscroll edition, with translated commentaries. It takes me anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. The only rule is that I have to do it EVERY DAY. And this part is the hardest, there are so many more other things to do. It is Friday night and I spent the whole day cooking and teaching parsha to kids. It is a weeknight, my husband is on call, the kids are finally in bed and I much rather read some light magazine.

But I decided to commit to this. I know that I will benefit in much larger way that I can even imagine now. I know that my kids are asking when will I finish Yehoshua and what will I do for a siyum (completion party). I know that as we are reading about Moshe commanding Yehoshua how to conquer the land, I get to explore how it actually took place.

Most importantly, I am getting to experience a bit of the same frustration that my son is dealing with. Most importantly, I get to show him how hard work pays off.

something to look forward to

Very exciting:

• Frum homeschooling conference is in Baltimore this Sunday. I can't wait to meet others in the same boat and see how they swim. I am looking forward to getting some tips and ideas. I am also looking forward to the drive and (hopefully) to the arrival of a car fridge to make that drive more pleasant. Oh, and to a couple hours to kill in Washington on Friday. Which Smithsonian institution should we visit? 
• We are organizing sun room as official homeschooling space. I made a shelf for the boys with all their books and notebooks. Each boy gets a half. Next step: a cubby-like area for pencils, glue, erasers and for ongoing projects. Finally, I will be moving in all art supplies in hope of corralling them into one area instead of three.
• We are getting a drum set for 8 yo. He had very good practice today and has been consistently practicing, so time has come for a junior drum set.
• 6 yo locked me and all three kids in the utility room this morning. At least my husband was around to hear our banging and to let us out. I am pretty sure the kid did it just to see what would happen if all of us are locked in that room. This takes me back to the time my 8 yo was 1 and locked a pregnant me in the basement. He was so little that he could not open the lock, so I was on one side of the door and he was on another. Luckily, I picked the lock with a screwdriver.

drumming

We had Purim carnival today. My husband was around, so that went smoothly. The kids got to eat ice pops in freezing weather while watching a bearded lady offer kisses for money. We went last year, too. A couple days ago, 7 yo asked me why are there police at the parade. I answered that they are there to direct traffic, so people can walk safely in the street. He goes, I thought they were there to prevent bad guys from hurting people in the parade. My bad.

This afternoon was 7 yo's first drumming lesson. He has been asking since the summer to take up drumming, but I could not imagine squeezing that into the schedule together with school and homework. I wanted to see some real interest and persistence. I also explained that learning an instrument will require practice. He agreed to it all. So I finally went ahead and found him a teacher. I also mercifully was able to leave the other two kids home, so it was just me, watching. He was very into it, all excited. He followed the rhythm, wanted to know the names of all drums/cymbals and what each pedal does and how does it all work. The teacher, a young guy in business school, was cool letting him experiment a bit and then teaching a bit. My son is a leftie, so learning how to start off with right hand does not come naturally to him. So there is a lot to work on here. Now I need to get him drum sticks for practice. His teacher said that he can practice drumming on the comforter or pillows (thank G-d, I am not ready to invest in a drum set yet or to put up with din). On the way back, he kept telling me how much fun it was and how excited he is about it. Now, he is not the one naturally overflowing with gratitude, but, when conditions are right, it happens.

I am grateful that I can give him this opportunity. I will need to work hard not to project my unfortunate encounter with piano practice onto his joy. I did not choose piano, we had one growing up and you could not waste a perfectly good piano without somebody practicing on it. The only problem was, I did not hear any mistakes that I made, so practice quickly deteriorated into torture. So I am cautions about musical instrument playing.

We are also on the second perek of megillah. He realized how long it is, and wanted to figure out how to cut perek short and still get a siyum. We read five pesukim, and then he stopped. I said that we could read some in the morning and some at night. He seemed to like that. I have to see whether the desire to finish the perek outweighs the resistance to reading.