pre-rosh hashana

Perhaps I should start by saying, "Don't homeschool close to the chagim."  Or "Never attempt homeschooling before a 3-day-yontif."

Anyway, for Chana, I wanted to show her the different parts of shacharis shemona esrei, which is her basic level chiyuv.  She doesn't like to say an unfamiliar one when she is stuck in amidah and can't ask if she's supposed to say this paragraph or not.

If we have time, I'd like to go through malchiyos, zichronos, and shofaros with her.  Outside the text.

I had a brainstorm to have her go through the Torah readings for both days (and hopefully the haftorah of the story of Chana, which has special significance to her name and why that is her name).

So we had a miscommunication and she thought she was doing the Torah portion instead of Chumash, and I thought in addition (she is up to chazara of shishi and I'd really like to be through sefer Shmos in a couple of months).  A batch of chocolate chip cookie dough did not improve her mood, in case you were thinking of trying that tactic out.

She agreed to set the timer for 10 minutes and do however much.  She got through half the Torah reading.  It's a nice chazara.  She doesn't remember the difficult or unusual words, but I wouldn't expect her to.  I would have been delighted if she had known it better, but on the up side, it is clearly not her first time going through this material.

And now back to cooking.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the boys' fighting (Jack and Aharon) was SO bad I had to call Ari down for backup (luckily it's Labor Day) and Elazar was asking where his cookie dough was over and over, even though I kept saying I'd give it to him in 10 minutes (he eventually went to the fridge and found the one with his name on it).