dictionary skills

btw, as lovely as the "milon" idea was for sarah, that's as unlovely as it is for chana. she is not interested in making her own dictionary at all (sarah was enamored of the idea). she said she doesn't mind writing the words and definitions down, but she hates looking it up. i said, if i'm not around, and you don't know the word, which is more important--that you can write it down or that you can look it up?

obviously she said it is more important to write it down. groan.

anyway, i have to give some thought about the dictionary skills. as far as i know, most people in the world are reasonably competent with a dictionary without having been forced to do it at a young age.. or was everyone forced to do it and this caused the competence? nah, that's illogical.

pretty smooth

chana wrote down melacha. i reminded her that we learned in r' winder that the taf with a prefix was originally a "hey." (ie melachto is melacha shelo). then she looked it up in the dictionary. she was happy that she opened up to the "mem" section, but it took her a really long time to go through the letters. she opened up to the end of mem, and kept asking me if tzadi, pey, ayin, nun came before or after mem. i stood next to her and turned the pages back with her until she got to mem lamed. then i asked her if aleph came before or after whatever the third letter was of the mem-lamed word. she knew aleph was before :)

she had a hard time finding it on the page. i showed her the general area. she had a hard time picking out which definition fit. (work). she wrote it down. (geez, i'm exhausted writing all this. no wonder she runs out of steam after looking up one word).

then, wondering if i was pushing too hard, i verbally reviewed the pasuk "hashem gamar bayom hashvi'i..."
"his work!" chana said.
"asher asa..." i prompted. no response.
"th..." i prompted.
"that," chana said.
"asa..." i prompted.
"he did."

so what did hashem do on the 7th day? he finished everything.

next time, second half of the pasuk. i think she knows all the words.