Last week we went to Madatech, a science center in Haifa.  It’s the kind of place I like to take the kids but like most of the museums, zoos, etc here, it’s pricey – entrance fees are 70 shekels ($20) for a child, 90 shekels ($25) for an adult – and when you add that to the bus fares to get here, we’re looking at almost $200 for a visit to a science center just for five kids!  So when I learned that there would be free admission to science museums across the country in honor of annual Science Night, we took the opportunity!  We spent about 140 shekels ($40) on transportation getting to Haifa, so it was a relatively frugal evening of fun.

This was our first trip since the older kids aren’t living at home full-time and we felt like a very small family with just six kids.  Different but nice.

They have a great outdoor area in which scientific principles are demonstrated in a hands-on way.  Below is the pulley area – ds7 is pulling on a boat with a single pulley, next to it is a boat with a double pulley- they then determine which is easier to pull.

Here is a fun structure showing the power of a lever.  A globe with people sitting inside is pulled at two different points by the lever.  Our family in the globe:

Pulling the lever from different places:

We waited on line for forty minutes for this but thought it would be worth the experience for the kids.  This is a pedal controlled helicopter, almost like a ride at an amusement park but more labor intensive – how fast you go depends on how much you can pedal.

Ds7 went first.

Then ds4.

Then ds6.

As we were getting ready to exit the outdoor area, we bumped into a homeschooling family we know.  They have a daughter the same age as dd12; the two of them met for the first time for about three minutes on our trip to Kfar Kedem, a week later they came to the homeschooling park meet that I arranged in Karmiel, then they saw each other at the NBN picnic last month and here they got to spend more time together.  There aren’t many homeschooling families with girls her age and each time they meet has given them a chance to get to know each other a bit more.  By now they seem quite friendly and comfortable with each other!

There were crowds in just about every room, but when we got inside we found a quiet room with displays of birds and animals.

And then another quiet spot in the lego room.  After a short time, ds4 and ds7 opted to go with dd12 and ds11 to different parts of the museum, but ds6 was content to spent a long, long time building here.  The volunteer in the room watched him building carefully for a long time and finally came over and told me, “You have a future engineer there.”  I smiled and said, “Maybe.”  (The idea has already occurred to me.)  She said she expected me to say he would be a rabbi.  I told her that there’s no reason he can’t be both.

Ds7 and ds4, watching a toy advance along a wire near the ceiling.

Push the button and see how the inside of a car looks when the motor starts running.

Dd and ds11 had a fantastic time exploring the museum together.  They told me they wished they had an entire day to spend there. They sped through the exhibits so they could see as much as possible and would have loved more time to understand each one.  We met them again at the end – below they are in a car on a slanted track, where they are suddenly plunged down and stopped abruptly.  Here they are just after strapping in.

There was a room dedicated to the inventions of Leonarda da Vinci. We didn’t spend much time on it then because there was so much to see and do, but now we’ve used the trip as a springboard for learning about da Vinci and his inventions.  Very fascinating stuff.

It was a long, long day. We left Karmiel at about 3:30, got to the museum at 5 pm and stayed until they closed at 10 pm.  From there we had a local bus back to the central bus station, then a bus to Karmiel.

On Haifa bus to central bus station:

Our trip got longer when the bus to Karmiel broke down on the highway.  Ds11 and dd12 thought this was fun since they got off the bus and got to walk around outside at midnight along the side of the highway.  Memories.  🙂  I stayed in the bus with the younger four sleeping boys and we woke them up to transfer them when the new bus finally arrived over 30 minutes later.  We got home at 12:30 am and were greeted by ds14, who had come home for his school vacation while we were gone.

My husband doesn’t usually get to go with us on outings like this and it was really nice that this time he was able to get off work early to go with us.  It was such a wonderful trip!

Avivah

Eventually I’m going to finish writing my post on my thoughts on teaching kids Hebrew if you’re a native English speaker homeschooling in Israel. Eventually.  That seems like everything in my life lately….I get to things but it’s all taking longer than I would like.  Especially when I keep having more and more things to say about that topic!

One of the more relaxing things I’ve been recently spending time learning about lately is early literacy and how that intersects when there are two languages you want to teach your child.  I just found this website and though I’ve only looked at it briefly so far, it seems to have a lot of interesting information that I’m sure will be helpful to those of you who want to raise bilingual children.

On this site, they list the ten mistakes parents make when raising bilingual children (in this context when they say ‘raising’ they mean the aspect of teaching your child a language):

“- Don’t teach — make it fun and natural.
– Don’t make a big deal of the languages — but do explain the usage.
– Don’t correct — just repeat the words correctly.
– Don’t ask your child to “show off,” — but praise him if he volunteers.
– Don’t mix languages yourself — a consistent language system provides structure, predictability, and security. This in turn promotes learning.
– Don’t rely on recordings — speak or sing to your baby directly and intently.
– Don’t be shy — use your language in public even if you sometimes feel embarrassed.
– Don’t make abrupt changes to your child’s language environment — go slow and explain what’s happening.
– Don’t wait to expose your child to a second or third language — the earlier your child starts, the easier it will be for everyone.
– Don’t wait! We really mean it! If not now, probably never.

But Do: praise, encourage, and have fun! “

This fits in nicely with my views on education, in that I strongly feel that education of whatever topic matter should be interesting and relevant to the child, low pressure, the approach used should be as integrated and natural as possible and above all, keep it enjoyable!

Avivah

>>Could you please give me your take on this? Our son is barely reading in Hebrew, after a long journey. He is 8 years old. I see lots of audio books available in English but not in Hebrew. I am trying to teach him to read Hebrew first, as we live here (Avivah- in Israel). But I feel like he is not getting enough reading for the other reasons we have our children read. I mean, the skill of reading is one thing, but the mind opening, exploration and thinking challenges that one encounters in a good book are not there. I feel he’s missing out. So, I am perplexed- to jump a border and give him audio books in English, before or without teaching him to read English? I am not on a proficient level to read him the Hebrew books his siblings were reading at his age and I do not know where I would find the time for it anyway. As of now, when we learn in the mornings most of the texts are in Hebrew and we get through it, but after his siblings school hours when I read to them it’s in English. Do you see this gap I am concerned about?<<

This question makes me think how easy it is even as homeschoolers to get trapped in a linear way of thinking regarding learning that is typical in schools but not reflective of natural learning at all!

Listening to audio books isn’t about reading skills but about listening skills, expanding vocabulary, exploring new ideas and concepts, developing concentration abilities…and about having fun while doing all of that! Listening to books being read aloud isn’t going to detract from anything else and will only enhance his learning and enjoyment of a language. This is even more important when a child is struggling with reading – imagine if anything fun we wanted to do was linked to us performing in our weakest area up to someone else’s predetermined standard. For example, what if your husband said to you, “We won’t take a walk together until you’ve planned all the meals for the rest of the month.” What’s the connection?! It certainly wouldn’t be motivating and your relationship would be limited because of these criteria!

We speak to babies even though they don’t know how to read, right? It’s the same thing with older kids! There are communication and relationship benefits for the mother and child when reading together, or for a child to independently listen to recorded books. These are so important that I would cut out the time spent on technical studies in the morning to create time to read together if there’s no other time in the day.

For the record, I don’t consider eight especially late to be reading. I think if we changed our expectations for when kids needed to learn to read and gave them some more time to develop readiness, taking into account different learning styles and other factors, we’d see the rate of supposed learning disabilities drop dramatically. My dd17 is an auditory learner who didn’t teach herself to read until eight. (Long term blog readers know that I don’t teach reading but wait for readiness and help the kids with sounds when they ask; my first seven kids have learned to read English on their own in this way and our next auditory learner was also on the late side.) When she was in prekindergarten her teacher was already telling me she wasn’t picking up the letters fast enough and that I needed to do homework every night so she wouldn’t be behind when she got to kindergarten. That was before we began homeschooling but I rolled my eyes at that even then. I’ve often thought how critical homeschooling was since as a late reader in school she would have gotten the message early on that she wasn’t so bright or even had learning disabilities.

In fact, she had nothing of the sort and just needed a little more time. She’s the same daughter who just got the highest score on her aptitude testing for a mathematical field of all the girls testing at that seminary, and as a new immigrant here less than two years had scores on her Israeli high school matriculation exams to rival the top students in her class, while simultaneously studying for the tests of the grade she was in and the grade she skipped. (Her high school doesn’t have experience with new immigrants and these scores were in spite of the fact she didn’t get the leniencies in testing that she was entitled to.) The girls in her class couldn’t understand how she could do so well and a couple told her she was ‘lucky she was so smart’. More like, she was lucky not to spend her formative school years feeling dumb. I highly doubt she would be the student she is now if her identity early on had been of an academically slow learner.

Back to the question. No, I don’t see any gap or reason for concern. Any kind of books that your child hears read aloud, either in English or Hebrew, will benefit him regardless of what language he reads or how well he reads it. If your child does have a learning disability, I think it’s really important that you find ways for learning to be fun. Limit the frontal learning as much as possible and look for different ways to help him develop thinking skills, gather information, etc. Reading is an important part of learning but by no means the only way. Your son is blessed that he has a mother who cares so much about helping him overcome his weaknesses and at the same time, has the flexibility and desire to find ways for him to be successful outside of mainstream definitions of educational success.

If any of my readers are aware of audiobooks or stories in Hebrew, phone lines with recorded stories, etc, please share those here! This is particularly helpful for English speakers in Israel who want their children to enhance their language comprehension, along with those who are studying Hebrew outside of Israel. Thanks!

Avivah

When  I lived in the States, I took my kids on a lot of trips.  A lot.  Nature centers, zoos, aquariums, dance performances, plays, historical reenactments, library programs – there were so many outings over the years.  That’s because I enjoy taking my kids to places that I think they’ll enjoy, and since usually there’s generally learning value in just about anything, it fit into my educational philosophy regarding integrating life and learning and fun.

That’s something that has changed since we moved here.  We get out quite a bit within Karmiel, going to local parks together regularly.  But when it came to leaving Karmiel for a family trip, it didn’t happen – until today.

Today we attended an NBN event held at Kfar Kedem, a place in which activities are all done as they were in ancient times.  This is just the kind of place that I love to take take the kids to, and thanks to NBN, there was no entrance fee (it’s usually on the pricey side).

We started off with donkey riding.  This was much more labor intensive for me than I anticipated, since the rules are that you can have only one rider on a donkey at a time, and each donkey has to be led by someone who is at least a teenager. I had thirteen children there with me (I took five of my friend’s children along), and of those only my oldest three were allowed to lead a donkey.  So we had thirteen people wanting to ride a donkey, and four of us able to lead.  It’s good I brought the wrap, so I could hold Yirmiyahu in it while leading a donkey and holding the hand of one of my younger boys simultaneously!  Everyone got a turn or two, it just took some time and patience on the parts of everyone waiting.

Then we went to a demonstration about goat milking and cheese making.  Each child had a chance to milk the goat for one squeeze.

To make the cheese, the goat milk was mixed with a few drops of the whitish sap squeezed from freshly picked figs, then stirred with the peeled twig of a fig tree.  After a half hour this cheese was available for tasting; the kids who got some said it was tasty.

The next activity was learning about the planting/harvesting process for wheat.  We were shown a plow, yoke and a thresher, as the person leading the activity explained each of the stages involved in harvesting wheat.  One thing that was really nice about the demonstrations was something that made me very aware that we were in Israel – all of the history quoted was biblical, the figures discussed were biblical figures and when talking about different aspects of making bread or planting or whatever else, God’s role in all of this was talked about matter of factly.

The kids were then given balls of dough and patted out their own flatbread, which was then put on a rounded piece of metal over a fire and baked very rapidly. After it was finished they had the option of topping it with zaatar sauce.

Our kids then discovered the olive press; this is a seasonal activity which isn’t running now, but ds7 in particular still had fun here.

I was pleasantly surprised to find five other homeschooling families there!  Someone I met almost two years ago at my first NBN picnic introduced me to someone else and mentioned that someone else (who I’ve known online for about six or seven years) was there.  I found my online friend in my last half hour there but we didn’t have more than a couple of minutes to talk. And then right as I was gathering everyone to go to the bus – an announcement had just made that our bus was leaving in five minutes – I met another homeschooling mom who said she had heard I was there and was looking for me the entire time!  (We met briefly three years ago when she came to the second Torah Home Education conference in Baltimore.)  She wanted our twelve year old daughters to meet, which they did – for about one minute.  She’s a lovely girl and hopefully they’ll have a chance to get together in the near future.

It was such a nice day – all of the kids enjoyed themselves and so did I.  I miss having outings like this with everyone, and was especially appreciative that everything feel into place in order for this to happen.

Avivah

The summer is already upon us, and it’s the perfect time to get together with your fellow homeschoolers in northern Israel! (Not yet homeschooling? Not homeschooling any more? That’s fine, we’d still love to have you!)

Get out your calendars and schedule in a relaxing summer park date!

Join us in Karmiel on July 24 from 10 am – 1 pm at the Rabin Park (on the corner of the Nesiei Yisrael and Derech Hashalom streets- you can get directions from googlemaps). This lovely park has swings for toddlers as well as older kids, a playground for littles, a playground for older kids, exercise equipment – all within easy eyesight of one another to make it easy to keep track of kids of different ages!  There’s also a skateboarding/biking/rollerblading section of the park (further down so not in easy sight of everything else, but still close).

There are plenty of grassy areas and trees for shade even during the heat of the day, and there’s a wonderful breeze to keep us all cool in spite of the July heat! Bring jump ropes, balls, bikes, scooters or whatever else your children enjoy; also plenty of water (if there’s a fountain there I didn’t see it) and snacks to keep your kids happy. I’ll be there with our youngest six children (ages 12, 11, 7, 5, 4 and infant), possibly a couple older kids as well.  Let’s start off near the playground for older kids, which is between the swings and the little playground.

Questions? Feel free to ask me and hopefully I’ll have an answer!

Looking forward to seeing you then!

Avivah

Yesterday afternoon, I attended ds5’s siddur party.  A few days before that, I attended dd16’s high school event that is in lieu of a graduation ceremony. This coming week there will be a performance of some sort for dd12.  As the school year winds down, there’s a lot going on!

In the past two school years, I’ve attended a number of events – a sixth grade bas mitzva performance, my first grader’s chumash party and before that his siddur party, school birthday parties for the kids in kindergarten and other miscellaneous events.  There have been quite a few.  This has been particularly interesting for me as a long-time homeschooler, since people so often talk about how hard it must be for homeschooled kids to miss out on all of these special occasions.

It’s been very nice to attend all of these along with the other mothers and feel part of things.  This feeling was particularly strong in the first few months I was here, as I pictured how left out I’d be if the kids weren’t in school.  But as time has gone on, experience has shown how fleeting and insignificant this sense of belonging is.  I get a lot more connection and bonding by chatting with moms in the park or store.

With few exceptions, the events have been very nicely done, with a lot of time and effort invested by the teachers/administration to make each one special.  I’m grateful that my kids were able to have these experiences and particularly glad that this year there was a siddur party in kindergarten (in the past it’s always been first grade).  After ds7’s siddur party earlier this year (which was particularly special), ds5 kept asking if he would also have a siddur party next year when he was in first grade and now he’s had it so it won’t be a perceived lack when he’s homeschooled next year.  (This party was the most meaningful of them all, since ds6 had the lead role in his class with two solos and a duet.  This degree of personal opportunity is unusual but he has a small class and he had the willingness and confidence for these roles, and we all enjoyed seeing him shine – I wanted to post a video of one of his solos but the blog interface wouldn’t allow me to upload the file type used -sorry!)

As lovely as all of these have been, I must say that attending them gives me increased confidence that kids who don’t go to school (and their parents!) aren’t missing out on much.  I have absolutely no feeling of regret or wistfulness that the younger kids won’t have these opportunities, only positive anticipation about the experiences they will have as an integral part of homeschooling that dwarf  all of these.

Avivah