Home School, Hebrew Class & More

Today’s homeschooling went rather well I think. Early in the morning my thirteen-year-old and I worked on his Hebrew and Aleph-Bet studies and made good progress. First of all, I prepared breakfast for the both of us. Everyone else was still sleeping with the exception of one of his brothers (my early bird). This was a good thing, since he had all my attention and no distractions. He was actually reading and understanding the story Yesh Lanu Llama a Hebrew story book we bought for my older kids some years ago. About a week ago, He took a day to learn all the letters of the Aleph-Bet. Today, we worked on combining the sounds and actually reading a few short paragraphs. We were both so happy to see what a little effort in study can accomplish. For anyone wishing or better yet, planning to study conversational Hebrew; I highly recommend using the lesson books Hebrew & Heritage Modern Language 1-4 published by Behrman House. I used them with my older children and found them to be an excellent course for the subject. 

later in the day, after my kids had finished with their regular schooling, I worked with my other son on a project he'd been anxiously waiting to work on. Except for loosening a few screws, I mostly watched as my son took apart an old computer monitor. You see, I love books. So, one day when I stopped by a store on my way home, we found a really neat book. 

We had a few old computers that we needed to get rid off, so, voila! Here's how it all went.

   

       And lastly, the final product is seen here.

A Bit of Schooling Here and There

As I had mentioned before, we are trying to get back to doing homeschooling more regularly after the birth of my baby girl. While some days are pretty good and we get the work done, others are rather slow and we hardly accomplish what I'd like. In such cases, I like to get a little creative and spontaneous about choosing what to study, things not necessarily found within our basic curriculum at the time. Our basic curriculum consists of workbooks purchased from Christian Light. They are very practical and require very little lesson prep time in my opinion. The kids seem to do well working independently and can do the work, for the most part, without my help. I do however, enjoy sitting with them and going over different topics and subjects. I like to see them learning new things and taking interest in them. Last week, we brought out the old microscope and had a blast using it. The idea was to get them to learn how to use it while learning to identify its parts easily. To make things easier I used a small chalk board in which I drew and labeled a drawing of a microscope and then hung it near our kitchen table. Having it in the kitchen gave me the opportunity to work on preparing lunch as they worked on their schooling at the table. On other occasions our study/library works out better. Within a short time of having drawn the microscope, they had successfully memorized the parts, and were intrigued by the subject of exploration. I was lucky to find and buy a copy of the Scriptures, written in microscopic size, at our local market. I bought a couple for only a dime a piece, which was a deal hard to resist. The kids were amazed to see how such a small copy of the Scriptures could be printed. It was intriguing to all. This was one good day in our home school; and one they're likely to remember well.