too much to keep track of

so. the dreaded half pasuk.

we are in perek aleph, pasuk chaf tes (1:29). i was mistaken that it was 3 lines. it's a whopping 3.5.

i asked chana when she wanted to do chumash. she said later. (hint: she doesn't want to do it). when later came, i asked her when she wanted to do it. she said after the movie she is watching. the movie had 1hr20min left and i said no way.

eventually i told her to please pause the tv (LOVE dvr!). we were doing ok to start. she decided to translate the 2nd half before reviewing the first half. she vaguely remembered that hashem gave the man and the woman things to eat. she remembered it being fruit and birds and creepy crawlies, and said she did NOT want to eat a turtle.

here's where review is good. because all hashem gave them in this pasuk to eat is grass and fruit. but the pasuk is extremely long and it's very difficult for chan to keep the thread of what is going on.

so i have an idea to review backwards. first i divide the first half of the pasuk in half. and i hope we can just review that today. that's a line and a half and it's plenty to keep straight. we review it phrase by phrase backwards. on the face of the earth. what's on the face of the earth? grass that makes seeds. and what about the grass? hashem said i gave it to you.

that goes so well i hope for the second half of the first half of the pasuk, about the fruit. she does the fruit. then i try to put the two halves together (total 3.5 lines). complete and utter meltdown. she can't do it, it's too much, why did they (who is they?) make this half so long that it's so hard to do this way. i asked her if she had any ideas how to do it. no, she doesn't.

lest you think up to that point was all easy smooth happy translating, note that elazar was jumping on top of us and asking to go to the playground, jack was kvetching a bit on the floor, and elazar was sometimes jumping on him, too, but mostly patting him, and chana stopped in the middle to lie down and pretend she was jack and to wrestle with elazar. (i hear in "real" school these sort of things don't happen).

so right now, she kind of has the elements of the first half of the first half of the pasuk. she doesn't have the second yet, and she doesn't have the thread of the whole thing.

BUT i think she's done plenty. i think we'll maybe review the second half of the first half inside next time, and verbally review it as a whole and just move on. it's a lot to keep track of when you're so new to chumash.

i haven't figured out how (if) to post hebrew here, and cutting and pasting the pasuk isn't working, so you probably have little idea of what i'm talking about.