we used the whiteboard a lot today because chana really needs work dissecting shorashim. this was intuitive for sarah, but not for chana. i love the white board and it really makes things clear. chana doesn't like not knowing things automatically. the word "yarash" came up in a bunch of different forms today.

shishi is very long...

so we did half of revi'i spot checking words, and half the full pesukim. then i wanted to do the second half of chamishi, and 2 pesukim in shishi. chana was burnt out before we got to chamishi, and it got progressively harder and harder for her. i insisted on a break even though she doesn't like breaks. but then we went back to it before she was ready. so the end was pretty tough. she handled herself well considering how much she didn't want to do it (as compared to a mere couple of months ago, when she would have been tantrumming and flopping all over the place--is she maturing or just in an easier phase? either way). but her brain could hardly remember the words and translations. i decided not to do rashi today, for which she was grateful.

snow day III

well after being away at sleepovers for 3 days, chana came home and we hit the book. she did shlishi. she didn't want to do the whole thing. we agreed to do 15 minutes of it. 15 minutes took her right until the last pasuk except for the last half. she was delighted because she didn't have to do the entire thing, and i was delighted that she did it all except that little piece (which she happens to know well-and he built a mizbeach).

then we did chamishi. chana wanted to start from the middle, so we agreed that i would point to the words that she needs to review for the first half, which she did, and which she (mostly) knew. then she whizzed through the second half. then i told her about my 8th grade cantata, where we did the pasuk "and he believed in Gd/and Gd considered it an act of righteousness." i demonstrated a booming voice.

in the middle chana asked me why, whenever i remember something, i look up at the sky. i gave her a very quick nlp lesson about how when we access visual memory we look one way, and when we access imagination we look in a different direction, and now chana can tell if somebody is lying.

then we did rashi. chana at this point was rather done, but she held her temper admirably and got through them. total time 45 min.

snow day

well, for obvious reasons there aren't really snow days in homeschool. sure, we spend a bunch of hours playing in the snow but that would probably just be part of the curriculum. snow days actually end up being good days to have playdates because the kids that go to school are home. chana was invited to sleep over, which means i won't see her tomorrow at all. so i said i'd like her to do chumash before she goes, and she agreed. she pretty much zipped through chamishi, which is nice. we have one pasuk left in chamishi. she asked if we were going to finish it today, but i said no. may as well wait the extra day and get in another round of chazara. then she's up to shlishi, which she really didn't want to do. it is one of the longer ones. so we agreed to do 15 minutes of chazara. then i turned to shlishi in noach. as soon as she read the word "mabul" she said, "hey, wait a minute..." and we laughed. she did it even though she didn't want to. in 15 minutes she finished about half. there were a LOT of words she didn't remember. and a few she remembered that i was surprised. overall i am not that impressed which how much of noach she remembers. then again, i am a perfectionist. i was impressed that she quickly remembered "na" means "please," a result of lots of chazara. i was not impressed that she still doesn't remember "anochi." (i just did a quick check, though, and sarah knows what it means. so i guess she'll likely remember it at some point).

happy snow day tomorrow! with sarah home to keep an eye on jack and chana away so i don't feel like i should be working with her, elazar and i will hopefully hit the snow.

chana did shlishi today (specially requesting not to do noach). then she did chamishi up to where we are. i had her review the last couple of pesukim a few times. then rashi. 1 hr 15 min no break. now we play the rest of the day :-)

and though it was within 5 min, chana read all her rashis pretty correctly. she had some trouble with the translating, but no more than usual. so her willpower beat her need for a break. she is very strong willed.

rashi

chana's objections to rashi:

mainly, no nekudos.

this creates all sorts of problems. she can't tell the name. she can't tell past/present/future. she can't tell when the yud is pronounced and when it's quiet. she can't tell when something is a prefix and when something is part of the word. it is very aggravating.

i have always thought that the way to do it is just practice, practice, practice.

chana says the way to do it is i should just tell her, tell her, tell her.

we did chamishi and one new pasuk. i am not feeling strong about the end of revii, and feel like it needs more review. i would have done the milim today, but i had chana review sheni of noach. she acquitted herself nicely, though she needed some words told to her. overall, she actually remembered some of the more difficult pesukim.

then she realized she was doing sheni in noach instead of lech lecha (which i thought would have been clear as it was speaking about noach the whole time) and she started crying (because she didn't want to review noach). i wanted to review another aliya today in lech lecha, but she's not concentrating.

chana likes to work without break to get it done, but at a certain point she needs a break. she said she wanted to do rashi (rather than the 10 min break i wanted to give her). so i started, but she couldn't get the words right and couldn't read the word "avram." so i stopped.

so then chana tried to do the milim from revii, and she's having trouble.

i read something interesting this morning, on a homeschool post about a program that does accreditation for high school homeschoolers, so that when they send their transcripts to colleges it's nicely recorded. you have to fill in instructional hours. somebody made an excellent point. she said: what takes me 2 hrs in the evening, i can do in 20 minutes in the morning, and the morning work is better! instructional hours make no sense without taking that into account.

anyway, so although i would like to do the milim from revii, and would like to do rashi, and have time before i pick up elazar, i am stopping now. maybe we can get back into it today, but chana will likely not be happy about that. she is willing to do the work now--her brain is just not cooperating.

the dreaded rishon

chana cried through the whole thing. she asked me to wait until 2:30 to do it, and i agreed. then, when the time came, she started complaining. i finally stopped her and said: you told me to wait, and i agreed. now it's time. i don't want you to complain about it. i made a concession that we would do only 15 minutes--whatever she covered in that time. (she finished it. i supplied words she forgot).

earlier in the day, we had this conversation:

mommy, i don't want to do noach! i finished it already! why do i have to do it?
do you know it?
no.
then you have to do it so you'll know it.
but i don't want to know it! why are you making me do it?
why am i making you do it?
but i don't care about chumash!!
(hugging her) i know.

the king of sodom went out to greet avram-- chana asks: doesn't that mean hashem will bless the king of sodom, if he blesses avram? because hashem will bless avram's blessers?

chana also asked how the kings of sodom and amora got out of the wells of material that they fell into.

chana did revii and one new pasuk and the rashis (she was pretty burnt out by the time she got to rashi, and didn't do great). i want to do rishon of noach today but she doesn't; nor does she want a break (i want to give her an hour break; she's been working for an hour straight minus one 2 minute playing with elazar break). but jack is awake so an imposed break is coming. will we get to rishon of noach? tune in...

today we just did revii with the map. we google imaged "plain" so chana could see "the plains of mamre." she asked about the survivor's motivation for telling avram. was he bad? good? so we did the little piece of rashi about him hoping avram would die in battle so he could marry sara. i read it and translated it.

then we did 2 new pesukim. chana is still having some trouble with a lot of the vocab, so i guess it needs more review.

we still have to do rashi. chana feels she worked too hard today (48 min no break except for 2 min toothbrushing) (she thinks it was 50) and should not have rashi. i'm going to give her a long break.

it took about 15 minutes to get through shlishi, though chana kind of ran out of steam for the last 2 pesukim. then we took an hour break, then did some highlight chazara for the first 10 pesukim of revii, then did the next bunch. then the rashis.

chana asked how k'na'an was a slave of slaves (and the kna'ani was then in the land). good question. they were not appearing to be the slave of slaves.

we did rishon today. chana complained about having to go through it pasuk by pasuk, instead of just words here and there. i said that the fact that she was having trouble with it indicated that she needs to do it. she got through it nicely, and then we did revii starting from pasuk 10, then did one new pasuk, since the new one and the last one have enough new words and phrases to keep her busy. then picked out some tough words from the beginning of revii. then did rashis.

i brought up the idea of doing an aliyah from noach. she yelled, but not as loudly as one might think. i'll probably bring it up a few more days and then, when we are having a leisurely day, have her do it.

chana ripped through shlishi today. yesterday she reviewed the parts of revii that we have done, plus rashis, but no new pesukim and no chazara of other aliyot.

after shlishi, a small break, then we did rashi, then the first 10 pesukim in revii just by vocab words (which chana didn't really remember out of context), then reviewed 3 pesukim completely, then did a new pasuk.

the new pasuk is really confusing about rather a lot of information. the runaway came and told avram. chana was not clear what he told avram. she didn't understand that "ivri" was avram's "last name" (coz he came from the other side of the river) (i just wrote that because chana is reading over my shoulder). then it says "he" was living in the plains of mamre, which chana did not recall was referring to avram, and that mamre was a person and an emori, and emori is a nation, and he was the brother of eshkol (big kick out of his name being "grapefruit) and aner, and they are people in a bris with avram.

we translated, then i explained it in english. hopefully as we keep reviewing, it will help.

chana was a delight today. this morning i wanted to get in a bunch of pesukim before i dashed out to the science museum. so i reviewed orally most of the pesukim of the 4 kings. then i did insist she point out the things on the map, which she did reluctantly. then we did 2 new pesukim. if we had more time, we would have done it more thoroughly and would have done more pesukim. but this way it wasn't too rushed and we did a bit and we'll do more tomorrow. i showed her the names of the 5 kings and showed her the puns we had discussed in the car. i had forgotten about sinav--sone av. hates his father in heaven. chana didn't realize that 'father in heaven' means hashem. she doesn't think of Him as a father, nor in the sky.

then when i came home, i asked her if she wanted to review rishon, sheni, or shlishi. she picked rishon. and she did a nice job. she still doesn't know all the words. she doesn't know all the words from noach either.

i'm not sure what exactly my goals are. if i want her to know 100% of the words, i'm not accomplishing that. and the chazara gets too boring for her. but the way i'm doing it she gets a decent review of the flow of the pesukim, many of the words, and the storyline. so i guess my goals are kind of half-hearted. we're not striving for perfection, we're striving for familiarity, i guess. and i think that's what we're getting. one of these days i'm going to have to go back over noach and see how much she remembers. i'm afraid to bring that up because of the tantrum that will engender. and then i think to myself, what kind of a parent am i. afraid of my own child. but it does pay to be strategic. she does want to earn money. maybe some parts of noach in small increments.

ooh, that reminds me, i totally forgot to do rashi today. oh, well. tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.

maps

so today we had very little time before the US history movie club. 20 minutes. maybe a bit less. so we orally reviewed the pesukim, and i showed her the map and told her the 4 kings were from the north, and they attacked all the tribes on the way down, and circled back. then when we did the pesukim inside, i had her identify each thing on the map (btw, chori is NOT the same as horite in chana's mind). so tomorrow we will do the 5 kings coming to meet the 4 kings. she doesn't know who is going to win yet... or what this has to do with avram...

in the car i discussed rashi's comments about the names of the kings. she enjoyed that. and i think she enjoyed it more doing it outside the text because she wasn't bogged down with reading and translating.

tomorrow is science museum, so it looks like chumash is going to slow down a bit the rest of this week.