We are still in catch-up mode. We finished the official school year back in April, but we have not finished our history curriculum. I believe in finishing every curriculum unless the children already know the information. Well, they don’t know history. Yet. So we will finish this curriculum before we go on to Volume 3.
Since we have a new daily schedule, doing history is actually easier to squeeze in. I read to them during their lunch and then I have them color and work on the map right after lunch. If we don’t bother with crafts, we can even do one chapter a day.
I am looking at June and July to finish half the book, and the kids are going to four different camps. So I feel the need to do one chapter a day. Get it done is the name of the game. I would like to alternate with science at this point, but I feel compelled to stick with history until we finish it. The science I have planned for them for next year involves some writing and lots of experiments and I would rather wait until we officially start the new school year for all that.
So here we go, The Diaspora or Chapter 20. The book has 42 chapters, so we will be right in the middle of the book by the next chapter. Yoo-hoo! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Almost.
I will be honest with you, I knew the word diaspora because we have it in Romanian. It is exactly the same word. But we use it to refer to Romanians living abroad – what you might call ex-pats. I learned the other meaning of the word in English through this history lesson – the scattering of the Jews.
I love, love, love homeschooling because I love learning. A love of learning is probably a #1 prerequisite for a homeschooling mom. Even though I hope to delegate most of the learning to the kids themselves in a few years, I still want to teach and be involved quite a bit because this is how I learn new stuff.
We did the map and coloring page. They loved the story of the clever rabbi of Cordova so much, they asked me to read it again. I obliged. And again. I refused politely. I will not read it three times. But then I asked them to tell their dad when he got home about it. It was surprising that they did not know how to retell the story. Maybe they were tired by then? I am sure they will somehow pull it out of their hat in a week or a month. I have noticed that it takes children some time to really take something in and then share it with the world.
By now I have given up on crafts. I showed them some of the activity pages with Jewish symbols, but I just recently removed some crafts hanging from the ceiling from an older lesson. I had no desire to make something else that must be hanged over the doorpost etc.
I had brought some craft sticks to make puppets for the story, but the kids just kind of looked at them and nodded, not showing any interest. I was not going to push either. We are in catch-up mode. Quick and easy is the name of the game.
