well, that was not thoroughly uneventful (surprise, surprise :-P)
the word by word translation went fairly smoothly, because she knows most of the words. we had a bit of a tussle on the word "ha-ba'im." i wanted her to write down the shoresh and she didn't want to. and it was tricky, because it's a noun, not a verb. "the comers."
'asher bo ruach chayim' posed some challenges as well. firstly, chana has a tendency to translate "bo" as 'come' even though it means 'in him/it.' secondly, the literal translation lines up as "that in him wind life." and let me tell you, a cranky chana has no patience for that. i wanted to show her in the pasuk how it means that (has) in it (a) spirit (of) life. but no patience.
chana tends to translate the words she knows without reading the hebrew. as i mentioned a few times, i don't like this because it breeds no familiarity with the hebrew. but she is quite resistant to reading it. since doing it how i prefer (hebrew phrase, english translation) was becoming a bit of a who-will-win-this tussle, i gave in to her expressed preference that she do english, then hebrew. but now that is sliding and she doesn't do the hebrew unless she doesn't know the word. so then i ask her to read the pasuk afterwards, and that's not getting any happy points.
at a certain point, i stood up and told her that i'm waiting for her to be mature and stop behaving bratty. she requested that i not use the word "mature;" she is not an adult. i said she can behave mature like a 9 yr old maturity. she said the word mature sounds funny and please don't use it. i said tell me when you are ready to stop behaving in a bratty way. she said she was ready. and we went on.
i believe this whole thing took under 5 minutes. maybe 7.
these are pesukim that she doesn't really understand the translation of, but she knows the word by word translation very easily. i wonder if it is worth doing chazara for these or if i leave it alone, these kinds of things will eventually click.
hey, i know how to check that. i'm going to ask sarah to translate them. brb.
good news. no need to hock.
Purpose
I am planning to try to blog our daily chumash struggles, triumphs and activities. For grandparents, it will keep you updated on chumash progress. For parents (that's you, Ari) it will facilitate our parent-teacher conferences and give you a chance to input your opinion on how you want things handled. For friends interested in education of elementary school age children for chumash, well, there might be some of that.
How This Began
I am an Orthodox Jew and I've been homeschooling for fourteen years. Teaching chumash is one of the most important subjects, and one of the most challenging. We care so much that our children love Torah. v'shinantam l'vanecha. We want so badly for them to have the skills and the ability. Skills work is a particular challenge for homeschoolers, who have not accepted boredom as a fact of school. Or should I say it is a challenge for the mom/teacher...
My oldest "graduated" homeschool (her choice) and is in high school. When I started, I was teaching chumash to a 3rd grader, with a toddler and an infant for company. We now have one chumash learner, one preschooler, a toddler and an infant.
I largely "unschool" and when I started this blog, I was reading Alfie Kohn. Many of my posts explored this. Although I currently am not brave enough to unschool chumash, I am seriously thinking about it for the boys.
My oldest "graduated" homeschool (her choice) and is in high school. When I started, I was teaching chumash to a 3rd grader, with a toddler and an infant for company. We now have one chumash learner, one preschooler, a toddler and an infant.
I largely "unschool" and when I started this blog, I was reading Alfie Kohn. Many of my posts explored this. Although I currently am not brave enough to unschool chumash, I am seriously thinking about it for the boys.
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