Yesterday, Jack, who was fortunate to receive his very own Lashon HaTorah workbook (much to Aharon (age 3)'s annoyance, he had to make do with some other workbook that was not the same as his brothers'), dragged it over to me and did about 5 pages in it. No, he can't read. Yes, he knows his aleph beis (most of it). He did the matching and remembered a lot from each previous page. It seemed to me his guesses were more accurate than just random guessing. After doing more pages than Elazar 2 days ago (and even dragging the book up to his father when I begged him to please ask Daddy to do it with him and doing an additional 2 pages), he brought it to me again yesterday. He wanted me to read the Hebrew, then he translated it, then he wanted me to read the English until he found the match. Then we got to a page with writing, and I showed him how to copy the words. And he got through a page of writing. He asked me to draw dots for some of the letters.
He has beautiful handwriting. And he can sit. He's not adhd. I was thinking about it this morning and I realized he's "ben chamesh l'mikra." It's time for his chinuch to start.
Last week he was just a four year old and could putter around. I knew he was learning and thinking and acquiring knowledge. But it struck me yesterday that this child would probably be pretty happy if I sat with him for an hour a day and taught him things.
Then I start feeling anxious that I can barely do the things I already do without throwing this into the mix (I've been thinking about a post about that). Then I told myself that I'm unschooling him, so calm down. Then I told myself to keep an eye for his learning opportunities, since he's demonstrating readiness. Then I wondered if maybe unschooling is not best for him. Then I told myself the sun didn't even rise yet so maybe just take a deep breath and sit with this.
I'm surprised every single time when children make that transition from preschool into elementary school. I turn around and they want to read and write and go to classes and learn things.
Since Elazar's ability to sit is about two or three year's behind (though his intellect and abstract capacity are grade level) I think I got extra thrown off by Jack's rare ability to sit for hours. I thought it would be a few more years but it's time now.
Time for what? Not for doing anything especially. Time for me to shift my mindset into "elementary school" for Jack.
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I was just as thrown off by my daughter's ability to sit and listen and draw and copy which did not exist in Natanel, Today I was thrown off by Mihael's ability to sit quietly in my lap during boys' hour-long taekwondo class. He could not do it in the evening, but he had no trouble doing it during the day.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether when you think "an hour of work" with Jack, you are picturing an hour of work with your older kids, and that does not go smoothly. Maybe an hour with Jack will be delightful, and he will just want occasional direction, Isn't that one of the principles of unschooling, following each child's inclination instead of putting our preconceived notions into how it will be? Maybe he will spend a month doing schoolwork for an hour each day, and then naturally lose interest for a while, digesting what he had learned ( and you will have that breather).