I love teaching parsha at this time of year - the makkos, yetzias Mitzrayim, the whole Pesach story.  It is SO child friendly.  You want to be able to engage the child and keep his/her attention and this is a great subject for that purpose.   Fast moving, lots of action to keep them interested, and a tremendous spiritual connection with our forefathers.  My children - especially the ones who have a shorter attention span - tend to only focus on one subject within the parsha (particularly during the construction of the Mishkan, but I am working on that).  ZZZZZZZ  But here I have the chance to get everyone on the same page (literally) and am able to teach the entire parsha.   Parshas Beshalach, when Paroah is finally shown to be weaker and powerless than the "Jewish" G-d, is not only inspiring to us old people :) but also imbues our children with a sense of power and, very importantly, a sense of communal unity.  Yes, I know that will be shattered in the upcoming parshiyos, but for right now, we're all just trying to get out of our shared misery.  My children enjoy when they are able to connect the dots and bring something that we do, that we celebrate (Pesach) into what they are learning.  I'll try to write more later, but there is a diaper somewhere that requires immediate remediation.

Introduction

By way of introduction, hi!  How are you?  I wanted to start this blog as a means to open a positive and productive conversation about homeschooling, the rigors and joys, the worries and excitement.  Please join me as we travel our individual paths on the long, but enjoyable, road of homeschooling.

I guess to describe my homeschooling style is difficult.  I am not an unschooler, however, neither am I a traditional homeschooler.  I believe in an organic process, whereby the child(ren) learn/s through a combination of teaching/book-learning and experiential learning.   Traditional school forces excessive information upon the students with the hopes that some portion thereof will "stick".   Do we really need to torture numbers in a convoluted fashion in order to arrive at a hypothetical solution?  Do children really need to memorize historical facts and dates when they are too young to understand the true import of what they are remembering?  Do they really need to write an essay in 45 minutes with passable grammar and spelling or a fifteen page research report on some arcane or picayune subject?  And all of this with deadlines, time schedules equal to a working adults, loss of sleep, stress, and social pressure?  Is this considered good training for adulthood or just educational babysitting?  Yes, it is important to be capable of expressing oneself in writing in a clear and understandable fashion, which cannot be undervalued, particularly today when so many people are incapable of writing a grammatically sound, correctly spelled, well formed sentence in script, no less.  These are not lost arts, they are a question of perspective.  What is more important to you as a teacher?  Should your students be capable of getting passing grades on the newest

When it comes to limudei kodesh - somewhat significantly differing from secular subjects - learning itself can be nothing other than organic.  You have to follow a certain road (alef-beis, reading, translating, learning) to be able to teach judaic subjects.  Without consistently building foundation upon foundation, nobody can have an ability to learn chumash or gemara - or even read hebrew.  I think the intimacy of the subject matter to our personal lives is what makes it actually so easy to teach - despite one's fears of not doing proper justice to such weighty topics and concepts.  Regardless of whether one has been raised from birth as following the mitzvos or if one has come to this place later in their lives, there is no reason to be overwhelmed.  You are teaching some of the most important people in your life, who look up to you unconditionally (whether teen-aged or not), and mimic consciously or unconsciously almost all of your daily actions.   Therefore, you should conduct a thorough and honest self-evaluation.  Can you, at minimum, read hebrew?  Can you translate basic words and concepts into understandable English?  When you open a chumash to a place that you are familiar with, can you teach it so that others will comprehend the section at the end of your lesson?   Worrying about the future, i.e. high school level learning for girls or gemara for boys, is not necessary right now.  You may be far more learned by then, or you may be in a different location or situation by then, or something may have changed by that point.  I understand the need to feel prepared; however, can we truly know where we will be even a year hence?