Torah Tuesdays: Parshat Balak and Role Play

Balak was the first Parasha I blogged about a year ago. To see the crafts we created to go along with the Balaam and donkey story click here. 

Super quick parasha synopsis:

 Balak, the king of Moab, asks the prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel.  On the way, Balaam's donkey refuses to go forward because it sees the angel that G-d sends to block their way. Balaam hits the donkey. When Balaam tries to curse the Jewish people, blessings come out instead. 

We skipped the more risque topics that came up in the second part of the parasha. 

 For a great insight into the first portion of the parasha, please read this wonderful piece put out by the Sephardic Institute: http://judaicseminar.org/bible/balaq1.pdf

Topics to discuss: 

1. "In the path a man wishes to go, in that path will he be led (b. Mak. 10b)".  Balaam wanted a certain response from Hashem when asking to go with Balak's messengers and kept asking until he got the answer he wanted to hear. How often do our kids do that to us and we do that ourselves?

2. Discuss the fact that the donkey got the message that Hashem's angel was trying to send and Balaam didn't. Why couldn't he see the message as clearly as the donkey, what was clouding his vision?

3. Discuss the blessings given over by Balaam.

We use role playing ALOT when teaching parasha topics. We repeat the scenes several times throughout the week to reinforce the sequence of events and discuss the characters. Here is a short audio clip of how some of the role playing went today:

Excuse some of the freedoms we took with the text. For example to help my 2 year old feel included she was the rooster who woke up Balaam after he slept for the night and received his prophesy from Hashem. This is most definitely not in the Torah.

Math Monday: Mazin' Math

Photo source

Mazes and puzzles are wonderful for teaching kids critical thinking, problem solving, strategy development, etc. All critical skills needed for success in math.

With my four year old, we have been playing with a ton of print out mazes. To decrease paper waste and increase re-usability  I slide the sheets into page protectors and she uses markers to solve her puzzles. Wipe off and re-use.  I love that I can see her brain in action as she goes down one path only to find a dead end and steer back and try another path. Awesome lesson in resilience and trial and error. A quick google search will come up with tons of free mazes.
Here is a pretty comprehensive list of online mazes and puzzles for kids: http://puzzles.about.com/od/familyfun/qt/KidsMath.htm


A game we love is Rush Hour Jr. "After setting up their game board according to pictures on various challenge cards, players steer their ice cream truck through a jumble of blocking cars, trucks and buses". Highly recommend this game-it's leveled, it's cars, it's travel sized, it's perfection.

Remember these little teasers from old school Sesame Street: 

                

We have been playing with the concept of " what doesn't belong"  with my two year old. It's another great way to work on critical thinking in addition to categorizing,  describing,  and divergent thinking. We keep it simple with obvious differences, but as she gets used to the concept, we can up the complexity so that there may be many different correct answers.  Like in the video above, the boot is an obvious choice, but you can also say the sneaker since it's the only one with laces.


I'd love to hear from others about brain teasers and other math puzzles their kids enjoy!

Sunday Science: Glow in the Dark Potions and Goop

Credit for this activity goes to Growing a Jeweled Rose:

A black light might just be the best $16 I ever spent. We got ours from here.

We started off by making some glow in the dark water (must have UV light to get the glow going). 

Super simple: 

1. Take a sharp knife and start sawing at a highlighter

2. the casing will easily break open 

3. take out the highlighter ink and soak it in up to 6 cups of water

4. Done 

We started off with a glow in the dark volcano:

 Baking soda in cup and pour vinegar + glow water mixture over it

 Then we made some flubber using our glow water as well:

 

Here is the recipe we used for flubber:

Borax 1 tsp

Water 1 cup 

Glow water 1/2 cup

Elmers glue 1/2 cup (4 oz container)

1. Add 1 teaspoon of borax to 1 cup of warm water 

2. Add 1/2 cup of glue (4 oz container) to a 1 cup measuring cup and rinse glue container with warm water to remove all of the glue. The total amount of liquid water and glue should total 1 cup. Pour contents into a glass bowl and mix well with a whisk.

4. Pour the Borax solution into the glass bowl of glue mix. 

5. Mix with your hands for a moment, the goo should form almost instantly and pour out the small amount of extra water.

Concepts discussed:

acid/base reaction

Uv light

Describing texture of flubber

Homeschooling- A Viable Option

Here is an article about homeschooling that we wrote that recently ran in the Jewish Voice. If after reading the article you would like more information about if homeschooling is right for you, please leave a comment below or email me. We would love to host an information session for anyone who might be struggling with tuition payments, have children who just are not thriving in school, feel that they would like more freedom in their family life and child's education.

 Homeschooling- A Viable Option

            When it comes to education the debate runs deep concerning topics like teaching styles, cost of education, and religious philosophies of our Yeshivot. Most of us have never thought of homeschooling as a viable alternative. Homeschooling is on the rise nationwide, growing between 7 to 15 percent each year, according to the National Home Education Research Institute. It is estimated that more than 2 million children in the U.S. are being home schooled, a 75% increase since 1999.  

            Even with those statistics, we never thought homeschooling would be in our future, but after some online research and attending the annual Torah Home Educators Conference in Baltimore last May we decided to give it a try. It has been an exciting and challenging endeavor and we are optimistic about its future. Over the course of the year, we have received many questions and concerns regarding homeschooling. Here are our responses to the most common questions we have received.

 1. What about socialization? Aren't your kids going to be socially awkward?

            We must first debunk the myth that homeschoolers spend their entire day sitting around the kitchen table pouring over books. Many homeschoolers complete their lessons in just a few hours leaving time to pursue interests and chesed activities in social settings. Homeschoolers get together for field trips, organized sports, academic classes, park days, etc.

            The socialization that homeschoolers partake in happens out in the real world. They learn to navigate social settings with mixed aged peers and have more opportunities to learn proper behavior from adult role models. Opportunities constantly arise to model and discuss proper social skills like treating others with dignity, controlling our emotions, and dealing with hardships.

            Research studies conducted by Dr. Larry Shyers concluded that homeschooled children have fewer behavior problems and higher self confidence then their age-matched peers from public and private schools.

2. What about academics? How can a parent teach their child everything a school can teach?

            Each family takes their own approach to home education.  Some families feel more comfortable buying premade curriculums and having official "school" hours. Others follow the path of unschooling which believes that children have an innate desire to learn and by following their interests, self directed and independent learners are created. Many families find a balance between these approaches. Families can outsource for subjects they do not feel equipped to teach independently by hiring a tutor, rabbi, using online programs, or by joining a co-op. In addition, students can learn along with their parent or self-teach with appropriate curriculum.

            Research conducted by Dr. Brian Ray (2009) shows that on average, homeschoolers scored about 37 percentile points higher than the national average on standardized achievement tests. This study also revealed that factors such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students. These results are not surprising since homeschooling provides true individualized instruction, as Shlomo Hamelech advised "חנוך לנער על פי דרכו".

             

3. How do you find the patience to homeschool your children?

            It is a constant work in progress. We imagine teachers have good and bad days just like we do. What keeps us going during the trying times is our conviction that we are fulfilling the mitzvah of ושננתם לבניך. We feel grateful that we can spend this time with our family building a strong family unit, imparting a love of Torah, and using the world as our text book. Our children learn at their own pace and explore topics they are excited about. Much of our learning is a byproduct of living a meaningful and exciting life together.

            Part of the impetus for writing this article is to find those few families that would be interested in this challenging but greatly rewarding endeavor. When like minded families take on the challenge of homeschooling together a homeschooling community develops. This allows for pooling of resources and a plethora of social and educational activities amongst peers of similar values.

            To get a glimpse of what our homeschooling journey looks like, please check out our blog: http://jewishhomeschoolnyc.blogspot.com/.  If you would like more information about Jewish home schooling, please don't hesitate to contact us. In addition, please consider attending the Torah Home Education Conference on May 26, 2013 in Baltimore to get inspiration from other Jewish homeschoolers.

Ilana Masri, M.S.

Ilana917@gmail.com

Speech -Language Pathologist and Owner of Classy Crafts- a kids crafting and baking program

Daniel Masri M.D.

Daniel.Masri@gmail.com

Diagnostic Neuroradiologist

Parshat Acharei-Kedoshim and Charity

As a homeschooling family, we feel privileged that we have a seemingly endless amount of hours each day to focus on our children's character development. We address Jewish values in a twofold manner. We use the weekly parasha as our springboard for discussions and our real life experiences for putting the mitzvot into action. With this approach opportunities are constantly arising to work on middot like anger management, charity, perseverance, respect, etc.

           

           This week's parasha Acharei-Kedoshim focuses on the the topic of mattanot le'aniyyim  (gifts to the poor) and is addressed through the mitzvot of leket and pe'ah . Leket is an obligation on the farmer to leave the crops that fall to the ground during his harvesting for the poor. Pe'ah is the farmer's obligation to leave a corner of his land unharvested for the poor. Tuesday morning we discussed these concepts and then turned them into a role play scenario by using some toy food and Lego blocks. The girls each took turns being either the farmer leaving the dropped food on the ground or the needy person collecting the fallen crops. We then used Lego blocks to mark off a square farm land and made sure to leave one corner untouched for the needy. This led to a discussion about acknowledging that our possessions are gifts from Hashem and that we must not harden our hearts and be stingy with them.  

            This lesson transitioned beautifully into real life practice when we went grocery shopping later that afternoon. While at the grocery store, a woman pushing her son in a baby carriage walked over to us and asked us for tzedakah (charity) so she could buy some food for her child. I promptly opened my wallet and asked my older daughter to give the woman a dollar. The smile on my daughter's face was priceless. I knew she had made the connection between her act of kindness and that morning's lesson. What I hope to do in the future is have a special wallet set aside for my daughter filled with her own earned money so that she can get a sense of giving tzedakah from money that she feels a stronger attachment to.