Khan Academy – Jewish and Homeschooling in an Amazing World

It’s Here Already?!?!?!

Wow, is it really that time of year again? Wait, isn’t summer still here? I’m not ready. Usually I have a schedule ready 2-3 weeks before we start our learning again. Well, let me rephrase that for we are always learning; before we officially start our new school year. I tried to sit down and work on our schedule multiple times this past month, but something always took me away, including somehow being tagged as the parent who drove boys and friends to a nice creek that had a nice waterfall on an 80+ degree day last week. (Note to self: When you want to spend only an hour at the water in nice weather, don’t let boys go into water. Somehow they just won’t want to leave, and unless you actually go into the water to have them look at you, you can bet on them all of a sudden having selective hearing issues.) I finally wrote down what they are going to do, but it was not until last Thursday/Friday that I finally got to sit down and come up with a schedule. I don’t feel ready to start.

One thing I did keep in mind this year is that even though I love all of Ambleside Online’s schedule, we just will not go through all of the books. For example, there are always 3 bibliographies or similar kind of books a year, however, we usually only get through one. That was a hard thing to admit for it is hard to decide which books to leave out, they are all good sounding and I really would like to do them all. But, after doing this for 4 years now, I realize that we were not necessarily meant to complete ALL the books on the list, but it is a list of great stuff to choose from. My oldest was able to get through almost all the readings but some of the other boys are slower readers or the narrations just take a long time so it takes longer to do so the readings are split up sometimes into multiple weeks. (Yes, I know some people will split up each reading into multiple days, but we just don’t seem to have enough time to do that.)

This past week was busy. Other than finally finding time to make a schedule, Mr. Big has officially started school as a college student. (Yikes!) Last Monday was his first day. Right now, all his classes have to be online for even though he might be mentally ready for the material (he did have to take a placement test to get in,) I am not letting him go to a physical class. He is still a child (at 13!) and is not ready for the college environment (at least that is what I say and I’m sticking to it.) It is a new experience for all of us. Us seasoned university graduates are trying to guide him in what he needs to be doing, and even though I did take an online course several years ago, it does seem to be very different than what us old folks experienced, though with being old comes wisdom and that makes up for all of it. 🙂 So his AO classes are limited and made up for with all the work he will be doing in his two classes.

For the other boys, we are almost set with our books. I would just like to get a different version of the King Arthur that they will be doing this year for I would like to get the version that has Librivox recordings to listen to. Librivox is a site that had free public domain audio books that are read by volunteers. Since many of the books used by AO are now out of copyright and in the public domain, there are many of the books we can listen to instead of having them read it or having me read to them. Last year we chose to listen to Robinson Crusoe. The reader was pretty good and the boys liked it. They followed along in their book and got to listen to someone other than their mother. It also gave me a break from having to read it for them (it is a very wordy book, something they are not quite used too yet and therefore harder for them to read on their own,) and I got to work with other brothers during that time.

Oh, I can’t forget the Big Mr. 5 Year Old. I have his schedule as well. He would not let me forget to make him one! Hebrew, phonics (Hooked on Phonics), math (Khan Academy, yes, they now have beginning math,) and one reading book a day of science, language arts or a free book of his choosing. When asked what phonics was, I told him it was learning to read. Oh my goodness, he was jumping out of the seat we were sharing with excitement! Before he would go to bed tonight I had to teach him to read. He wanted to read. I told him it was too much and he would not learn it in one day, but I did teach him a little of what we are going to learn tomorrow – A, “a”, apple. 😀

So, are we actually going to start our new school year tomorrow? I’m not mentally prepared to start school, and I don’t think the 2 middle ones are either, especially since one boy ended up today with 6 staples on his head from an accident, and the other came to me as he was headed to bed and asked if we were starting school tomorrow for he just didn’t know. We spent the entire weekend painting the house and not thinking about much else. So, other than helping one boy with his online Spanish and the math and biology we are doing, and teaching the ABC’s to another, I think we will start the learning with play-dough. Someone posted a great site that teaches about the chemistry of how play-dough works. There are a few chemistry words with definitions and good graphics to go along with it all. We can end the lesson with testing out how starch reacts to the different temperature of waters. I think they will all like it. I also saw a great site that goes into the science of chocolate chip cookies. I really want to do that one as well, though I think I will save it for something fun to do over Chol HaMoed Sukkos…I won’t feel too bad about having the hard part of testing out all the variations then!

Or, I can just take them all back to the creek with the waterfalls. 😀 I’m so glad we can homeschool!

Our Long Weekend and Scroll Tutor Review

Another busy week has past and another busy week has started. The boys went on a scout campout Sunday and Monday, and since DH was their scoutmaster as well, it was just me and the little one at home for some nice quiet time. Motzei Shabbos I sat down with him and had him tell me what he wanted to eat the next day. We settled on some pasta for lunch (which he made for me) and pizza for supper. I was able to convince him that jellybeans would best be had for a snack opposed to a full meal. 😉 We had a nice lazy morning with some beautiful weather, picked up a tefillin bag for my oldest who starts to put on tefillin this week (!!!) and even got to surprise Daddy and brothers by coming by the campsite for supper (we pushed pizza till the next day and had delicious fire cooked hot dogs and hamburgers instead, complete with roasted marshmallows.) I think the car is finally cleaned out, with all the camping gear still in the living room, however, all boys had showers and all clothes are in the hamper (I think…) I have decided that all clothes are going in the laundry at the same time – This time I will not discriminate between lights, darks, heavy, thin, etc. I believe in all clothes getting the same opportunity to being washed and dried. 😉 (Just do not tell the boys that, for then they will want to do it all the time!)

This morning is the first morning that my oldest put on his new tefillin! As I woke up early and saw father and son leave the room, I made sure to remind my husband, for the third time, to remember to take at least one picture for me. No, I am not excited in the least. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now between trying to figure out what to do with the scout popcorn this week as well as work on details for the Big Day next month. But, have no fear, the nice thing is that even if I don’t do anything, time still goes on! Ha! And yes, that does comfort me as I try to juggle everything for Time comes and Time goes, and Life really does go on and I won’t get stuck in a rut. C’est la vie!

There is a new website that has just launched call Scroll Tutor. They have 10 minute videos on Chumash and they are starting off with Parshas Shemos. Right now, there is a new video once a week and they are sending out a weekly email with the next video link. I received the link to the 3^rd video this weekend
and finally got around to pulling up a video to watch. I figured that I could afford to spare 10 minutes to check it out especially with everyone out of the house.

The videos are definitely geared a little more towards children, though, as an adult, I did enjoy watching it as well. (They do advertise it is for both children and adults.) The videos are very similar the kind of videos done on Khan Academy. The speaker has the Hebrew text on the screen, goes through it and translates it, talks briefly about it and then pulls up Rashi to answer some questions. He puts in some clip art in as well to help the viewer better visualize what is being talked about and to help keep the interest of the viewer. He underlines the words as he goes, which I thought was great for there was regular motion to redirect delicious minds to keep focused on the task at hand. 10 minutes. Nice, short and sweet. Very easy to fit into busy schedules as well. There really is no excuse not to fit in 10 minutes into the day. Right now there is one chapter sent out every week, with about 6 six videos per chapter. After all, 10 minutes a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks, that is 520 hours or 21.7 days more of Torah learning a year! And hey, if even one of my children learn 21.7 extra days of Torah learning a year, that is 21.7 extra days of credit that I get on my account, and I have 4 boys, so that is 86.7 days and if I sit down to learn with them, well, it is starting to look mighty good. I know, I’m just thinking of myself. 😉

I thought of my one little boy that I am the one struggling to understand better, who really is taller than me, and thought he would really benefit from videos like these. So, as I prodded one little boy a few times (this one really is shorter than me still,) to keep awake while finishing up the Rambams they were doing and then sent 3 off to bed, I kept the one boy behind to show him the video. Even though he was tired from the campout, he was really good at focusing and listening.

I asked him what he thought about it and then what he liked and what he didn’t like. His answers, in order, are 1) he liked the pictures and 2) he liked how it was taught. (The teaching style.) I asked if he liked how it was underlined and if it helped keep his focus and he said yes. He did not have anything he did not like. He also told me “too bad he does not do videos for trop,” my guess he is thinking about HIS bar mitzvah that is coming up in the not so distant future. As he walked sleepily off to bed, he asked me if he could watch more tomorrow. They are planning on having a subscription for the videos, but right now you can sign up for a free trial.

I think campouts are a great thing, and think they should have more of them for within minutes, the room with 4 boys was silent. They all fell fast asleep.

The No-Drive Week

Well, it was not really a very productive week at all. I am not going to say it was not productive, for we did get some stuff done, but not as productive as I thought it should be. Not sure if it was the weather (we have had a lot of rain lately,) or the fact that beautiful boy #3 is spending the week with Grandpa and his cousin, or a mixture of both, or something else. Whatever the case is, it started at the beginning of the week and kept spilling out to the rest of the week. Shabbos is coming and I am so looking forward to it! Shabbos always seems to put a fresh start on things.

We did get somewhere this week in our efforts to finish up the remaining schoolwork. We have used Khan Academy for math this year, and instead of using it like one would use a normal textbook or school work, where you learn a topic, do a certain amount of questions and then move on to the next, I decided to use a different approach this year. The way Khan Academy is set up is that one can learn a topic through the videos and then do sets of exercises pertaining to what was learned. Obviously, there are many ways to use the system, but if one wanted to use it for a curriculum then they would watch the videos and do the related exercises. The exercises come in sets of 8. There is the option of looking at hints for the particular problem in question (which is nice!) if needed. If a correct answer is gotten on the first try, 3 leaves are given. Fewer leaves are awarded if the correct answer was entered in on a second (or third, or fourth) try and/or if hints were used. At the end of the set, the program looks at the speed at which the answers were entered and how many correct on the first try and gives you a green progress bar. When the computer has determined that you are proficient in the particular topic, it gives you a blue bar across the page and lets you know you are ready to move on.

Two of the boys have, for the most part, learned their multiplication facts. I would make them go over the questions without letting them look at a table. Sometimes it would take several weeks before they would be proficient, but eventually they would get their blue bars and move on. One of the older boys does not know his multiplication table very well. He has been stuck on multiplication for several months. He would get questions right, but because of his speed, he would have to do it over again, and again, and again. He was getting frustrated about having to do the same thing for so long – and when he would get the questions right the first time! Finally, he mastered the multiplication, and went on to division.

At the beginning of the week, he went and got a copy of the multiplication table and started to crank out the correct answers quite quickly. Unlike his brothers, he actually understood how to do long division so much faster than his brothers. I decided to let him be. I could work on his math facts in the summer. In the meantime, he was a little happier to sit down and do his work, not to mention that one time when I looked at his work, I was able to point out an error just by doing the entire question in my head, ie. without writing anything down. I then suggested a game – I would do the entire question in my head (ie. mental math), and he would work out the problem on paper. We would then compare answers – if the answers were right, he would enter the answer on the computer. Let’s just say that we both had fun with math! By the next day, I had forgotten the fun that we had, but luckily the boy didn’t. “Mom, let’s do that game again!” is what he said to me when I sat him down. It took me a minute to remember what he was talking about, but let’s just say that he did enough rounds to earn his blue bar (which finished math class for the day!)

A few things I learned – I have to be more creative and really think about the purposes of different learning (ie perhaps looking at the multiplication table is fine for division…..) and I learned how to overcome MY fear of mental math! Yes, me, the one who enjoys math is the same one who freezes up when someone asks me to do mental math. I feel very confident on forgoing my stage fright when doing long division in my head now when asked. I too can still learn! 🙂

We did take advantage of the dry, sunny weather earlier this week and had a nice picnic supper at the park next door. All boys earned awards at the cub scout awards night – even my boy scout! (He finally received his religious award that he earned while a cub scout! 🙂 ) The two cub scouts in the family earned their Arrow of Light as well as their religious award. One cub ready to become a boy scout in 1 week. My, oh my, they are getting big.

The missing boy has been missed by everyone, but the plane just took off from his connecting flight – Sorry Sis, thanks for being around just in case the flight did not take off, but you won’t get to see your nephew this Shabbos! Two more hours and our home will feel complete again. 😀

Wishing you all a wonderful Shabbos!