Thursday, November 14, 2013

three examples of child-led learning

We are at the homeschooling coop. 7 yo is sitting next to his good friend, who is eating some kind of candy, of gusher type. The friend offers some to 7 yo. He says that he needs to see the package, to check if it's kosher. Upon expecting the small pouch, he says that it's not. His friend asks whether he can just look at the candy and decide by sight, but 7 yo says that he cannot have it.

Two main objectives of kashrut are achieved: being thoughtful about what goes in your mouth, and being able to control yourself.

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This morning, we are doing math. 7yo's work is identifying numbers up to 1000. He usually does two pages, sometimes one if it's too tough. This morning he takes a look and decides that he wants to do three pages. He feels confident and goes right on ahead.

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Next, we are doing Lashon HaTorah. He has a page of writing in translations, something that he dreaded the previous time and skipped in favor of the following, easier page of cutting and pasting. This time, he gets colored pencils, on his own colors in the suffixes, highlights the plural yud, and starts on the translation. On the words is "kindness", in plural. He says, oh, I get to write three S. I mention that he will have to add -es, and he asks, why. I explain about words ending in -s and -x, and how in order to make them plural, you add -es. He giggles and writes "kindnesses". A natural grammar lesson, sneaked in on a need-to-know basis. No drill necessary, and he asks what happens with plural of "horse".

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