origami motivation

today went nicely, mainly because chana is immersed in origami and we were sticking chumash in between paper cicadas and cranes and horned helmets (i don't say viking helmets because i recently read an article about how horned helmets are terrible in battle, giving the enemy something to grab onto, and the vikings did not have them, despite the popular image. kind of like horned jews, i suppose).

so we continue reviewing. my goal for today was that chana become more familiar with vayirbu and vayigbru. i went over that a few times with her, and she is definitely more familiar with them. we did chumash in 3 or 4 chunks today. first, reviewing words from a while back. 2nd, reviewing the last bunch of pesukim. she's familiar enough with them that we mainly did words, not pesukim.

although i had warned her that we'd be doing 3 pesukim today, she balked. she started whining, and insisted that she could only communicate via whining. i stayed pleasant and firm. she negotiated translating a review pasuk quickly in exchange for permission to whine. i granted. she whined that 3 was too much. looking over the pesukim, after all that we had already done, i relented. we agreed to 1.5 in classic negotiation. she asked for 1, i came down to 2, we agreed at 1.5

when she saw how big the half was of the second pasuk, she started whining, but i laughed because i knew she'd react that way. it's a monster pasuk, but extremely easy. 24 words. she realized that 24 was three 8s, but couldn't figure out what 2 even parts were. finally she decided to put her finger on the first word and the last, and count them. they met in the middle at 12. she said she'd like to do 12. i said she has to do all the way until the asnachta, because it's all about one topic and stopping in the middle and starting it tomorrow will be confusing. i didn't budge, and she flew through the pasuk so quickly i couldn't keep up writing it on the white board.

delightfully, all those phrases we've been reviewing and reviewing have been coming up again and she knows them. we had מחה erase, and yekum--living creatures, and ruach chayim--spirit of life. it's nice to see the review pay off.

she also did a quick rashi: in the dry: and not the fish in the sea. i helped her with the pronunciation and she was easily able to translate it. i'd like to review the pronunciation, though. and we have to do the rashi we've been working on.

she asked why the birds would die. then she envisioned them on the trees. and the trees being covered with water. and then going up to the mountains, and the mountains covered with water. and then them flying, getting tired... and falling exhausted and drowning in the water. i felt sad thinking about it and about all the creatures dying. she didn't appear to.