Aharon's First Torah

A couple of days ago, Aharon told me he doesn't like it when I speak in Hebrew. 

"Well," I said, "I speak in Hebrew so that when you want to read the Torah, you'll understand it.  Because the Torah is in Hebrew."

And he said, "But I can't read the Torah."

"Actually, I think you can," I said.  He hasn't been practicing his Hebrew reading very much (except once a week at Avos U'Banim), but like unschoolers usually do, he had practiced every day while he was interested in mastering it, then hit a level of proficiency and stopped working on it.  Last time I saw him read, I felt he was pretty fluent.  I had been thinking I should offer to work on davening with him, but as always, I vacillate between wondering if I should try to work with them and figuring it will be way more efficient and quick if they do it when they are motivated.

Aharon and Elazar began talking about how they actually knew a fair amount of what the words meant in the Hebrew reader.

[When I started unschooling, I had a fear that one day my kids would grow up, realize they have massive gaps in their education, and blame me for not forcing them to learn it.  But I then realized that a lot of unschooling is cheerfully talking about how when they want it and are interested in it, they'll learn it.  So they don't learn Torah inside right now, but when it comes up, we talk about how when they are interested and want to, they'll learn it.  It turns out that unschoolers happily and cheerfully learn new things and master new skills as they become relevant or interesting.]

Tonight, Aharon was wandering around, and I said, "Hey, want to try to read the Torah?"

He said okay.  I asked him which part of Torah is his favorite.  He said the part where Hashem turned the water into blood. 

No problem.  I pulled out Shmos and opened up the pasuk.  Aharon read המים and I repeated it after him and he said, "the water!"  Then he read אשר and didn't know what it was.  I said "that" and he said "אשר קדשנו במצותיו" and I said Yup. Then he read ביאור and I told him that was the Hebrew word for the Nile River.  Then he was getting antsy and I told him just one more word.  And I pointed to the last word in the pasuk and he read לדם.  And I repeated it and he didn't know.  And I said just "dam" and he said, "Blood!"  And he grinned.

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An example of how halacha comes up naturally: Aharon wanted to eat his pizza bagel and I told him to make a bracha but he was waiting for the bagel to call off a bit.  Then he came over to me a minute later with a tiny bit of the cheese from the top and asked me if this was the same bracha as the bagel.  I said no, that's shehakol, and he should make that bracha and then a bracha on the bagel later when it cools down.