Trip to Kotel, Migdal David/David's Citadel

The other morning, when Rafi got up, I asked him what he wanted to do that day.

 "I want to go on a trip to the Kotel" he tells me.

To be honest, I wasn't in the mood to go to the kotel at first. But then I thought about it- why not? It would  be good to get out, have some fresh air, etc... And since Chanuka was coming, and on Chanuka we're celebrating the rededication of the Bais Hamikdash, I figured why not take a trip.

But only if the kids were willing to make it into a learning experience. I told the kids about the notes that people write and stick in the walls of the Kotel with their bakashos to Hashem. I asked Rafi what he wanted to ask Hashem for. He told me Moshiach, money, and to be healthy and strong, and peace.
I wrote out his requests on a piece of paper in Hebrew for him to copy onto another note. He wanted to know why specifically in Hebrew, so I told him about how Hebrew is Hashem's special language, that's the language we daven in, and that's the language that the Torah is in. I used this opportunity to practice some of the Hebrew words he knew, as well as teaching him more.
Midway through he decided he'd rather write in English (he's not used to writing much in Hebrew, and was upset that his letters weren't coming out perfectly), so I then wrote the rest of the note in English for him to copy.
He then signed it with his name.

Once the preparations were made, we went to wait for the bus.

Learning How to Read!

Rafi has known his ABC's since before he was 2 years old. I even have a video that I recorded him, showing his proficiency at letter recognition at that very young age.
My mom keeps on asking me why now, at age 5, Rafi isn't reading. Shouldn't he be reading by now, especially if he's known his letters for a while already? Maybe our schooling needs to be more structured for us to have definite progress academically. She's not so thrilled with the idea of unschooling, to be honest...
I'll elaborate more on the difference between unschooling and regular homeschooling in another post, but a big aspect of unschooling is child led learning, learning at the pace that a child wants to learn, and not pushing him to learn something he is uninterested in.
Which is why we haven't really pushed the reading issue at all.
But when kids are ready for something, they pick it up in a snap. (Barring learning disabilities.)

Rafi has known the various sounds the letters make for a while already, but hasn't really been able to put them together to make words.
So I put it aside, and didn't push it. We did use letters, but in other aspects, not sounding out words. (A future post on that, as soon as I get a video uploaded...)
And if my mom and other people think he isn't progressing fast enough, that's fine with me.
My goal isn't to have a kid who learns things faster than everyone else. My goal is to have a kid who loves learning and loves life and loves Hashem.

But I knew that eventually, Rafi would want to learn how to read, and when he would want to, he'd be motivated on his own, and therefore pick it up much quicker.

That motivation happened now.

Rafi learned that his good friend, Avi, 9 months older than he, can now read everything, full books even.
And Rafi got jealous. Jealous that Avi could read but he couldn't. He asked me why Avi was able to but he wasn't able to.
"Avi practices reading" was my answer.
And Rafi decided he'd practice until he got it down.
Kinas sofrim, kind of. I'm totally cool with this type of jealousy, because its a constructive envy, nor a destructive jealousy.

I have this phonics book that I picked up from an American friend who was moving away.
It's terrific.
Perfect for the level Rafi is at.
And the best thing about it- both Rafi and Moishy (3) can work with me at the same time with it. So I just grab the opportunity when Chayaleh (1) is asleep to sit down with the boys.

The book has lick on stickers, which you're supposed to place in their corresponding places. I gave Moishy the job of sticking on the stickers, matching up the pictures and the directions, while I practiced reading with Rafi.

The book breaks down reading into various sounds. First it focuses on the "at" sound, providing lots of three letter words ending with the letter "at", and pictures, which might cause some "cheating" at first...

But then they have words that aren't as obvious from the picture what they are. And then words without a picture at all. And then a whole story written with the words that had been practiced.

In the past, I'd tried doing similar with him, having him sound out letters, but instead of actually sounding out, he'd just guess and play games, so I decided not to push the issue. When he was ready, we'd return to the topic. Only when he's motivated.

And now that he is, he's really putting his effort into learning how to read, even reading from the phonics book at 10 pm...

I made him this picture, with these words, and he was able to read it to his brother.

It was such a pleasure to see that he finally figured out the concept of sounding out words- he's so excited and pleased with himself.

Because once he was interested, it came in a snap.

And that's why I didn't push reading. I saw no need to try to get him to learn to read, against his will, so it would be a struggle and neither of us would be enjoying ourselves.
Instead, we took a long break, and when we finally came back to it, he's getting such pleasure from his accomplishments, to say nothing of my nachas. Forcing a kid to learn something when he's not ready for it or interested in it takes all the enjoyment out of learning, I think.

5 years, 3 months, and 2 days old. Reading. Awesome.
See Mommy- you didn't have to be worried! Even if I don't push learning doesn't mean he won't be learning. And he may even end up learning at a faster pace than he would have if I pushed.

How old were your kids when they learned how to read? Did you push them to learn, or did you teach them how to read when they showed an interest?

Some Math Videos

Rafi and Moishy love watching these youtube math videos, and even sing these songs when they're not watching them.
Shows how music makes knowledge really seep into the brain.

I often hear little Moishy (3) saying in a squeaky voice "One pwus one is free... No no no, one pwus one is one... no no no, you're both wrong, one plus one is two!"
It taught them so well that my 3 year old Moishy can tell you what 1+1 is, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, and 5+5. Amazing, no?

These are another two videos they like, about counting to a hundred.

This one is more of a song, with a nice tune.

This next one is a bit more of a rap.

Parshas Noach- Biology, Hilchos Kashrus, Writing, Drawing, Arithmetic, Geometry, Earth Science- All in One

For parshas Noach, I asked Rafi (5) and Moishy (3) if they wanted to hear and act out a parsha story. They were very eager to do so.
First, we sorted through the toys and took out all the blocks and animals and brought them to the table.

So I started telling them the story about Noach and the Teiva, and told them they were going to both be Noach. I told them about the state of the world during Noach's time, and that the world was so bad that Hashem wanted to destroy the world and start again.

I told them that as Noach, they should build a boat that is a big rectangle, out of the blocks, because Hashem was going to destroy the world besides for what was on the boat. Through trial and error, they figured out how to use the various shaped blocks to build a wall a few blocks high.

Then they filled it with the animals- two of the not kosher and 7 of the kosher animals. I explained to them what makes an animal kosher- chewing their cud and having split hooves, and explained a little about the anatomy of ruminants. We went through the animals and found which ones had split hooves and chewed their cud, and then tried to find 7 of those to put in the teiva.
Well, we don't have 7 of any toy animals, so we did a little subtraction- subtracting however many animals we had from 7, to see how many more we needed. We used paper to draw rough pictures of the different animals to complete how many animals were needed, labeled them so we'd know which was which, cut it out, and put it into the teiva. For the animals that weren't kosher, we put in only 2, and the rest of the animals of that type, we put "in the garbage" (a toy one), because those animals wouldn't survive the flood.

I told them about what the flood was like, but to give them a better idea of what I meant by a flood, I showed them a youtube video of a river overflowing and flooding a parking lot, washing away a whole bunch of cars, and the kids were awestruck.
I told them that that flood was nothing big. I showed them, then, a few videos of the tsunamis in Japan and South Asia, and they were amazed at the sheer magnitude of the thing.

We then learned about how tsunamis started via earthquakes, learned about earthquakes being started by plates of the Earth's crust shifting and banging into each other, which then transitioned into learning about volcanos, etc...

I put on two songs about Noach- a different version of this same song (can't find it now)-
The Lord Said to Noah There's Gonna Be a Floody Floody- be careful when looking for versions of this song- its a Christian song, and some of the versions are about "Y-w-h" told Noah, and yea... not kosher for frum Jews.
I also liked and played this song from 613 Torah Avenue on Parshas Noach.
http://www.chabad.org/kids/article_cdo/aid/519239/jewish/Noach.htm

Unschooling- Osmosis and Kashrus Halacha

Yesterday's homeschooling kashrus halacha (Jewish law) lesson and science lesson, combined in one, in unschooling fashion; in my opinion, how all learning should be done. The world and learning shouldn't be compartmentalized into different subjects, especially not between "secular/science" and Torah, because "science" helps our understanding of halacha.
So, what exactly was the lesson and how did it come about?
Rafi (5) asked me why the chicken skins (crackings/gribines) left from making my shmaltz (rendered chicken fat) were so salty.
To answer him, we did an experiment.
Took a DRY bowl, and ensured there was no water in it. Took a cucumber, dried it off, then sliced it up. Put it in the bowl, ensuring there was no water. Sprinkled salt liberally onto it. Set it aside for a little bit.
After half an hour, we saw how much water was in the bowl that wasn't there beforehand. Rafi wanted to know how the water got there, and where the salt went, and if the salt melted. I corrected him, and taught him about osmosis and why the water came out of the cucumbers. (At a level that he could understand at his age.)
I then said that blood isn't kosher, and asked Rafi what he thought would happen if you put salt on a chicken, and he said "the blood would come out to be with the salt". I said he was right, and said that that's why you put salt on it, so the blood would come out and the animal would be kosher. So he said "but some times there is blood in the chicken when you cook it", so I explained to him the different types of blood in regards to kosher laws, how dam hanefesh, the blood that comes out when you shecht (slaughter) the animal is 100% forbidden, and then blood that is left- dam ha'eivarim- is divided into two categories- you salt it, and the blood that comes out (dam hanifrash) is not kosher, and the blood that is left inside after salting it is kosher.

Lesson to be continued- what happens when you put sugar on cucumbers? Flour? Sesame seeds? And other osmosis related lessons. If he wants to learn that.