whew. total time 1hr 45 min today. including 2 long breaks. i'm wiped.

so yesterday chana took to the idea of index cards with the words and definitions. we couldn't find index cards so i wrote them on a small notepad. then chana reviewed them, of her own free will, a few times.

she was disheartened that she didn't know any words. but i told her that is the point; we wrote down the words she doesn't know! she did it until she knew a few of them.

then we did new pesukim, which she entered with full vigor because she wasn't emotionally wrung out from doing chazara. (we have, in the past, done new pesukim first, but by the end she is always grouchy no matter what order we do it). at the end she said, "i wonder what is going to happen next!"

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this morning we could not find the notepad. i did find some index cards, so tomorrow's chumash chazara will be chana writing the words and definitions onto them (especially as she had trouble with my handwriting). so we had to do milim from the chumash. chana was doing ok, but then she got disheartened and cranky and stopped.

(oh, and today was designated once a week rashi day, and i wussed out and we did only chazara of 2 very small rashis...)

so we still have milim in half of revi'i left, and we have chamishi and new pesukim to do...

getting into summer mode. as per em's suggestion, we shall do rashi once a week only. chana said she doesn't want to do chazara, just new pesukim. but i'm not so pro that.

then i wonder if she really does learn new vocab from reviewing. i don't really keep track of how many words she remembers vs how many do not stick in her head. i just have feelings about it. which could be completely and wildly inaccurate.

but then i think, how can chazara be bad? well, aside from her hating it. but it has to help her remember at least some of the words, right? right? it seems like it does. i would estimate (perhaps inaccurately) that if she doesn't know X words, she learns, from chazara, about half of X. so if we didn't do chazara, if those words will show up a lot in torah, she'll learn them eventually. but otherwise she won't. and this way she learns about half the words she didn't know. so that's good, i guess.

compromise

we came to a resolution. when chana's tone starts to bother me, i will say, "your yelling is bothering me. scream 5 more times and then stop."

this was a process to get to. first i said, can i say, please stop, the yelling is bothering me.

chana did not feel 1. capable of doing this nor 2. desirous of not yelling.

so i said how about i say, "yell 3 more times."

we agreed to 5.

we are not sure how this will work. we will surely have opportunities to try it out. stay tuned.

so for the 3rd (? the days are running together) day, i'm providing her with the words. they are the same words, and i think she learned K.L.H in its various manifestations. and how vital is it that she learn the less commonly used words?

we did milim in shlishi, and are in the middle of revi'i, when chana started screaming and yelling. and now she's in timeout. again. i'm just waiting for her to come out. we have about 45 min until i have to go get elazar.

she's become much more confrontational in all areas of discipline, so chumash is just a side effect. it's like when people ask, "how do you homeschool your own child? we would kill each other!" it's just like any other area of interaction between us. what does a parent do in general when a child doesn't listen? there are a variety of ways to try to get cooperation. discipline, thinking about what i am asking of the child, making the task more interesting, etc (bribery, threats, yelling -- if you use those in other areas, you'll probably resort to them in homeschooling, too, and they are probably about as effective).

anyway, i'm gonna go chill til chana decides to come out.

pps

so i wanted to tell chana i am proud of how hard she works, but i knew her reaction would be what it always is, "i don't know it, i can never remember the words etc."

so i asked sarah if, looking back at chumash, she had the impression that i was proud of her for working so hard. and she abashedly said, not really. and i asked if the impression was more that i was mostly annoyed. and she said well, she was annoying. i said, because i also felt like she worked very hard and i wanted her to know that, and i wanted chana to know that. and she said maybe i should say it very often. and i said, i did say it often to sarah. but the truth is, the overall impression she has is not that her mom was proud of how much effort and diligence she put in, but how annoying she was.

which means that I had better work on my facial expressions and my verbal expressions, and be more positive.

(devil's advocate--i do also think, though, that sometimes the tough stance is necessary!! conflicts of parenting...)

postscript

well, i waited chana out and she knocked on the door. i went over and asked if we should hug and start over. she said no, but she was mellower.

i said that we had 25 minutes until i brought sarah, and she has 2 pesukim and the new pesukim and the rashi. she said "it's so much!" i said the rashi is 5 words! i went to the chumash to see how many new pesukim we would do. the first one looked hard but the next 2 were easy. chana moseyed on over and i said the 1st one was hard but the next 2 were easy. she finished it all.

total chumash time (including a nice long time for sulking) 48 minutes.