reviewing

well, i prepared chana yesterday that we'd be reviewing. i told her we'd do only one pasuk, and then review yesterday's work. she was amenable.

but. today, she didn't like the idea of review. why do we have to review. i want to do new ones. over her litany, i asked if she wanted to start with the new one or with the review. then i thought it would be better to start with review, since 2 of the words (shachat and chamas) were in yesterday's. she immediately insisted that she wanted to start with the new one, and i had given her the choice. we started with the new one. i had to tell her those words and "ketz" (end)(which i think i'll stick onto the memorization list tomorrow).

then we started review. and the whining and crying came full force. i feel like i must be doing something wrong. or should i say that i go back and forth between feeling like i must be doing something wrong, because in yeshiva she wouldn't do this, and there must be other homeschoolers who are managing to teach their children without this whining drama (maybe boys are different? coz sarah wasn't that much different and i must say she's getting a huge kick seeing it from the outside). and then i feel like i'm not doing it wrong, children are resistant to learning skills and drills and fairly boring work that requires this type of discipline, and the best thing i can do is soldier through it, keep it as pleasant as possible, and make sure i don't get angry (thanks, sarah, for hours and hours of practice on that front).

it is not pleasant to be whined/cried at the entire time it takes to review. why can't she speak in a normal tone of voice??? (note to self: request this of her in a respectful tone of voice). i feel like it takes all of her energy to force herself to do it, and her feelings come out in the whining. and how much can i stomp down on that? but it is really getting to me, so i'm going to have to empathize a bit and then crack down. no whining.

anyway, we tried something a bit different today. she was moaning that she didn't remember any of it (hello! that's why we are reviewing) and i have to tell her what it means. so i did. i had her read a hebrew phrase, then i translated it in english and she repeated it. she did that a few times.

in the middle she had a full-blown crying jag, why are we doing this, it isn't fair, she shouldn't have to. that's when i sternly said that she was wrong. learning it is not going through it one time and barely remembering what it means and not being able to translate it in the future. learning it means you know what it means. and that's why she needs to review. and these are famous pesukim.

so she was fairly fluent in the first and third pasuk of noach (the second one is so easy she can translate it just fine w/o review) by the end of our session. by the fourth pasuk she'd had it and wasn't really processing it. so tomorrow we'll review them again, and pasuk 12, and today's new pasuk (13). all of the next bunch are pretty complicated with new words.

now we have rashi. and i want to drill her on the vocab words. i will review the old rashi, and i'm not sure if i should give her a new one or review the old one that we'd let go (about chanoch).