to buy or not to buy?

yesterday we finished chazara.  today i wanted to review shvi'i one more time, since there was a lot of hesitation and words that she asked for.  she objected, and by the time we got around to chumash she was excited about doing new pesukim and i forgot that i planned to have her review shvi'i again until she finished.  i let her choose however many new pesukim to do, and she did 7.

then i wanted to review all the rashis w/o nekudos.  we took a break and then she did all but 7 rashis.  we will convene to do the rest later.

i would still like to review shvi'i, but will have to figure out a way to present it to her that will be agreeable.

in other news, i've been contemplating the purchase of the little midrash says set for navi. (the family midrash says.)  first, i was disappointed that it only is for nevi'im rishonim.  but then i thought, let me not get ahead of myself.  right now chana doesn't know all that much of any navi.  let her do all nevi'im rishonim and then i can think about neviim achronim and ketuvim. 

i borrowed a volume from another homeschooler.  it is very readable. the problem is that there is a combination of pshat and midrash.  it is not clear that the midrashim are midrashim.  they are presented as part of the basic story.  although i don't object to the choices of midrashim (they seem to be the types i would choose, similar to rashis i choose), i do have a problem with them being enmeshed like that.  i like my students to be able to distinguish between pshat and not pshat. 

i have to weigh the extreme readability plus the fact that they very well might be picked up on their own (an advantage if i unschool the boys) against the fact that i am opposed to my kids learning without being able to distinguish between pshat and midrash.  (plus they are expensive: over $20 a volume, though if they were just pshat i would purchase them in a heartbeat as an investment.)

in other other news, i've started having chana recite birchas hatorah before we do chumash.  she only does the brachos, and not the mishnayos etc that come after them.