Tuesday, August 6, 2013

In the Beginning

In my ongoing attempts to declutter, August is the boys' room.  I'm trying to consolidate all the books onto fewer shelves.  It's difficult because part of unschooling is that I want to have things on the shelves.  Who knows what will catch someone's eye?  On the other hand, I just this morning read some research about "constraint satisfaction:"
When presented with too many choices — no matter how beautiful or beneficial — it can be overwhelming, and we are paralyzed by indecision.
That's why having constraints, or any sort of limits, is beneficial and leads to solutions. 
In fact, "much creativity emerges from constraint satisfaction. ... Einstein had one of his major breakthroughs when he realized that time need not pass at a constant rate."
So space with not too much in it is probably better for the mind to function.  It often seems that fewer toys in a space are more easily played with than an overwhelming amount of toys.
So I moved out all of the books between Chana's reading level and Elazar's reading level.  Like all the exciting sci-fi books I hope Elazar might pick up one day.  Then I started putting more books away, like limudei kodesh things that I might want, but will not be much use to a child who stumbles over it.  Like the chumashim that Chana is not using but Elazar is not up to.  As I scooped those up, I kept a Bereshis out.  Elazar walked by it and asked what it was.  I told him it is his Chumash.  He got excited and asked immediately to start learning it.  
Then I started looking for our aleph bina.  I figured he'll probably be wanting to sit down and start learning to read periodically.  But I can't find it.  I'm sure I had it out last year when he was interested in the aleph beis.  But I don't know where it is!  I can't imagine where it went.  
As I was hunting for the aleph bina, Elazar found "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" and the boys started playing that.  
But he brought the Chumash down a half an hour later and wants to learn!  
I'm so nervous.  I want it to be fun for him.  Every time I try to teach him he gets bored very quickly.  Is this normal because he is young?  Is there a method that would captivate him?
I'm figuring a five minute lesson where he enjoys it and desires more.

No comments:

Post a Comment