unschooling aleph beis writing

Elazar (age 6) came over to me with a blank piece of paper and a pen and said he wanted to write.  He asked for aleph beis, not the alphabet.  He said he didn't want "lowercase" (that's what he calls script).  I said in Hebrew we only write script, we don't write print in Hebrew.  So he agreed.

What was new about this activity is that I didn't write a whole row of "follow the dotted line."  Up until now, I gave him dotted lines for every letter.  This time, I just wrote the first letter dotted.  He chose to copy the rest freehand.  He didn't have that capacity the last time he sat down to write.

He did really nicely except he got a little confused in the middle of the gimels.  (And as he was writing them incorrectly, he was saying, "I'm sooooo good at these gimels!"  But alas).  I told him it's a line and a C, and he did the next one correctly.

He was tickled that a Vav is just a straight line.

singing vs not singing tefila

Chana reminisced yesterday about how when she was younger, she was so excited to graduate to each new paragraph of bentching.  "Remember when we used to go to pizza every Thursday and I was so excited at each new paragraph of bentching?  Like when I finished nodeh?  And then I got to start the next one?"  I didn't remember, but I was happy that she had such fond memories of us singing each part together until she learned it.

Then she tilted her head to the side and said, "I don't actually know any of it by heart."

She's very meticulous about saying bracha achrona and always uses a bentcher.  I didn't learn al hamichya by heart until high school, when I decided to actually be careful about saying it and realized it was inconvenient to not know it by heart.  But I always knew bentching by heart.  And I always felt that singing was a painless way to help the child memorize it.

I spent hours singing davening with Sarah for years and years, and it didn't help her remember tefila.  And Chana doesn't remember bentching either.  And yet I only know what I know by heart from davening and bentching from singing.  Am I doing it wrong?  I don't think so.  With Sarah, whom I wasn't unschooling, I definitely put in the same amount of time as yeshiva dayschools do.  With Chana, the year before her bat mitzva, we made sure she could fluently read everything she would be chayav to say when she became bat mitzva.

It is odd that neither of them learned tefila and bentching by heart.  On the up side, I see that both of them are medakdek about their chiyuvim.  And it doesn't seem to affect their sincerity or their actions.

not quite there yet

I had some hopes of Chana finishing Shmos by the end of October.  We did finish Ki Sisa (ack, my Israeli-teacher upbringing wants to call that "Ki Tisa"), but it's taking a week for chazara.

Chana asked, "What happens if I don't finish Shmos by the end of October?"

Answer: "Then there's November."

She liked that.

I would like to finish chamisha chumshei Torah before she goes to High School.  And yes, it is looking like matriculation for high school is in the cards ("What about socialization?").  Ideally, before she goes into the specialization in high school Chumash, she would have a general idea of all of pshat.  But I did that with Sarah, and I don't think it made much of a difference.  Or perhaps it did.  And Chana does review more than Sarah did.  But who knows.  I do know that I don't feel as concerned about it as I used to, although I still think it is preferable.

Chana assures me that once she finishes sheni, the rest of the parsha goes quickly.  She figures 3 days for the rest of chazara.  So we are on schedule to start Vayakhel next week.  I am very curious to see how much Chana will remember from Teruma-Tetzave, since there should be a lot of the same vocabulary.  It will be MY fourth run with this vocab, too, since I did it twice with Sarah (Teruma Tetzave, and Vayakhel Pekudei) and once with Chana (Teruma Tetzave).  Do I know the vocab yet?

(On a side note, on Tisha B'Av eve I've been going through Megilas Eicha for about 10 years, mostly in English.  This was the first year that I read it mostly in Hebrew and just spot checked for English words.  Maybe in another five years I'll understand most of the Hebrew without any English.  Learning is a lifelong process.)

one of those days i'm extra glad i homeschool

It's 3:15pm.  Elazar made a pinata today and he is whacking the bejeebers out of it.  Whack, whack, whack.

When he's tired, he loses the ability to control his impulses.  I think of it like the metaphor of a ball being held under water.  If you let go of the ball, it pops up to the surface.  Elazar's impulses are like that.  All day long, he holds the ball under water and controls his impulses.  When he is tired (which happens almost daily within 5 minutes after his bedtime), he often loses that ability and the metaphorical ball bounces up.  He starts destroying things.

This morning, we were woken up very early by giggling.  Lots and lots of giggling.  Elazar and Jack were up playing.  They laughed and played.  I found Chutes and Ladders out afterwards.  It was lovely.

The day devolved, though.  Jack had numerous tantrums.  Fortunately, hand in hand parenting has equipped me to deal with that.  Then Elazar had 2 or 3 fairly intense episodes where he was frustrated and began screaming.  Usually he can tolerate a pretty strong degree of frustration, and he usually doesn't get upset because he keeps figuring out a way to accomplish what he wants to achieve.  But today he kept detonating.  It was fine, I disciplined, listened, negotiated, etc.  In the course of things, he did throw some chairs and other objects.

I'm not sure what time a first grader in yeshiva gets home these days, including bus.  3?  4?  Would he be able to navigate the bus ride in such an inflammatory mood?  Would he be able to sit in class?  How would the poor teacher cope with him?  How would he feel?

Some people maintain that it is important for a 6-year-old child's development to be able to hold himself together in class.  Me, I'm just glad I'm homeschooling him.

the up side and the down side

The good thing about homeschooling is you can be weary at 9pm and decide, "Ah, forget about decimals, I'm too tired."  The down side is if 10 years go by and your child doesn't know decimals, it's your fault.

project elazar ran out of steam in the middle of

He was trying to make a menorah.  He very much wanted one that would work.  I thought about telling him that a flammable menorah was not a great idea.  I provided duct tape because it is stronger than regular tape.  I held it when he needed my help cutting.  I tried to unfold numerous pieces (duct tape sticks to itself ridiculously well, which I guess makes it so great for a 6yo to make building projects with).  I'm not sure why he got stuck at this phase of the project, what he envisioned that didn't come to fruition.  He got it to stand up, which impressed me.  I think it's possible he wanted to put another menorah on top of it, which was a flat platform of wood with nuts.  So he learned some physics.

question and answer from a unschool perspective

This question was asked:

I also would like to know whether Elazar is still interested in chumash.
I find that so many times my kids pick something up, do it in an intense way for a day ( or a week) and then it falls off the radar. Then I look up, and nobody is doing what they seemed so interested and ready to do.

I answered it from a homeschooler perspective and now I'd like to discuss it as an unschooler.

First of all, yes, Elazar is still interested in Chumash.  That is perhaps one of the things that has been driving me to unschool limudei kodesh.  When I teach it, I find that although my kids do it, they aren't as interested in it, and often lament that they don't like it.  (Maybe I'm not teaching it optimally.  On the other hand, maybe there is a certain amount of "you just have to drill to get skills.")

How much Chumash is Elazar actually doing, though, is more the question, I think.  Does he do it regularly.  Is he making progress.

I've been thinking a lot about this question.  And I realized that, fundamentally, an unschooler has no educational agenda for the child.

This means that when Elazar asks me to do Chumash, I do it with him.  I do what he wants to learn for how long he wants to learn and I teach him how he wants to learn it, if it's different than how I was planning to do it.  I have no particular interest in a first grader mastering Chumash or knowing how to read or translate.  He is free to pursue what interests his mind, with the general understanding being that in life, when he encounters skills or facts that he would like to have but doesn't yet, he will roll up his sleeves and dig in.   Just like he has been doing his whole life.

In the general environment of the home, there is reading and translating and learning Torah.  We also have interesting discussions and try to ignite a general desire for Torah knowledge.   But (at this time) I have no agenda for him learning to read the Chumash.  If he does or does not, it is the same to me.  Doing it in first grade or in 6th grade makes no difference.  (If he approaches his bar mitzva and has no desire to read or daven or understand the Torah, I will probably freak out and question everything reevaluate.)

Practically, Elazar opens the Chumash every few days.  He likes me to sing him the trope.  Sometimes he tries to read some words or decode rashi.  He originally had hoped that he would memorize each pasuk with trope, but when that didn't stick in his head as easily as the first pasuk, he was a little discouraged.  He wants to learn new pesukim, but he can't remember the previous pesukim.  Things aren't going as easily as he had imagined, and without the inducement of success, it's not as exciting.  Odds are, if he tries it again in 4th grade, it will go much more fluidly.  He's a little first grader with big dreams.  Let him keep dreaming.  Some of those dreams will work out.  And he's still excited about Chumash.