Shmos!

During chazara, it was our practice that chana not use her new computer until she did chumash.  (This did not include rashi, since she often took an hour or more break between chumash chazara and rashi chazara.)  This means, basically, that every morning during chazara, Chana bounded down the stairs and pushed me to do chumash.  I was tempted to make this the rule every morning, except that I, too, have grown used to having that hour after "morning rush" when jack and aharon wake up and need to be fed to just chill.  Also, although I suggested to Chana that maybe we would make it a practice not to go on computer until we did chumash, I just felt that isn't in the unschool spirit.  However, two days ago she did say that she liked doing chumash first thing, and maybe she would do this all the time.

Chana bounced in this morning that today we are starting Shmos.  She wondered what "shmos" means, she looked at how many pages were in the entire chumash, she looked at how long rishon was, she saw a bunch of names and got excited (she loves translating names because she flies through them).  She looked at the pictures of the keilim of the mishkan, and wondered what they were.


Anyway, as a demonstration of why I don't think it's ideal to wait: This morning, for example, Chana came down and asked to start Shmos just as aharon woke from his nap just as jack was stirring for the morning, and jack needs to be cuddled for about 20 min after waking or else he tantrums for an hour.  and aharon needs to be nursed and then pottied and then fed immediately when he wakes up or he's very cranky.  (so I had to make a choice, and I chose nursing aharon while jack waited in bed, then bringing a cranky aharon to cuddle jack.)  Chana had to wait.

She chose when to stop (13 pesukim), and didn't mind the rashis.  Ah, crisp new beginnings :-)  chazak chazak!

chana sees the position of rav, more than shmuel.  pharoah loved yosef; how could he do this. 

chazara for vayeshev.  chana remembered most of the story so we didn't do so many pesukim inside.  then we took a very long break. (3 hrs.)  when 2 boys were napping, we did rashi.  she did 18 rashis in 15 min.  she only read the hebrew and remembered them all except for one.  nice job, chana!

(i am still a bit sad we aren't using the other chumash without nekudos and with more roshei teivos.)

sometimes i don't want to do it

yesterday we did toldos and i ended up reading and translating a lot of yitzchak's life with avimelech.  chana remembered a lot of most of the stories otherwise. 

today we did vayetze and chana said wistfully that yesterday when i read and translated most of it, it was so nice.  we were back to me picking out a pasuk or so per page to get the main idea and her translating it.  we also went through all the shevatim, which was nice because chana had them in context from the brachos, so as she read them, she remembered a lot of the brachos "yehuda was the best" "hey, levi is older than yehuda?" "dan is the snake" "naftali the poet" "zevulun lived by the sea."

she got a little cranky about the couple of rashis we did, confirming that incorporating rashi into chazara is going to have to be a separate session.  i had her read a long rashi just in hebrew and see if she knew what it was about.  she got all the way til the end and recognized the last word and then remembered which rashi it was.  ("who would want to sleep on a rock, anyways?")

***

just an aside, i went out with the kids yesterday so we didn't do chumash in the morning.  after i get home from going out, there is always about an hour of crying and screaming as all the various needs get juggled and taken care of (mostly feeding and naps and adjusting to being off schedule).  that ran into witching hour (6-9) dinner/bedtime, and we still hadn't gotten to chumash.  after the littles are in bed, i'd love to just sit and veg.  but that's chana and sarah's time.  time for me to hear what's going on in sarah's life, and time for me to work with chana a little more and then to see what projects she's working on.  in the midst of this i ran out for a little walk in the drizzle.  and i was thinking, "when i get back, i have to do chumash with chana."  "i don't waaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i don't wanna i don't wanna i don't waaaaannnaa"  "what if we just don't do chumash today?" "how is chana supposed to like chumash when i DREAD doing it"

***

by the way, chumash ended up being perfectly fine and lovely.  and whenever i have those thoughts, i ALWAYS seriously entertain the possibility of just dropping it.  just don't do it.  don't do it today.  don't do it now. don't do it at all.  but definitely how about not doing it today. 

just allowing myself that breathing room makes me feel better.  after all, one of the loveliest things about homeschool is that i don't have to do anything.  we can just take off whenever we want.  we can play all day.  we can relax.  we can decide to let things go.

once i remember that, i always feel better.  and sometimes i do it and sometimes i don't.

chazara bereshis cont. aka a typical day

yesterday we did vayera.  because chana remembered the general gist of the akeida, plus there is a strong likelihood she'll be revisiting it in the future, we skipped it.  today we did chaye sora.  it's been really nice to be doing chazara in fast forward because chana is getting a nice over-arching picture of the sefer.  for example, when yaakov died, there were a whole bunch of pesukim talking about how avraham bought maaras hamachpela.  and now, just a little later, we reviewed that story.  chana saw lavan and asked about him, and i know in a few days we'll be hitting that section and it will all fall into place just a little bit more.

we haven't been doing rashis because there haven't been that many.  chazara will change tone a bit when we hit them, and if chana isn't prepared, she might get cranky.  i may have to do it piecemeal: 30-45 min chazara (that's how long it has been taking us to get through the parsha), then break for a few hours, then 30 min for rashi.  (my problem is once i break, it's really hard to get back to it.  yesterday we stopped at chamishi because i had to go out and it was bedtime/witching hour when i realized we hadn't finished).

we had to stop in the middle today (we always have to stop many times in the middle) because i was informed that elazar made a bowel movement behind the couch.  why?  because he doesn't want to use the toilet.  we stopped for cleanup and discipline.  he told me he peed there, too.  he rebuffed my suggestion that he use the potty.  said he prefers behind the couch.  i hope we are not at an impasse on this.  afterwards, he took some spray and sponges and happily cleaned the bathrooms til we were done.

emotions and learning

I've been thinking I should change the name of the blog to "emotions and learning."  It's ridiculous how ignored it is that emotions are completely intertwined with the learning process.  I've read a number of studies (don't ask me to quote them) that explain how memory, retention, understanding and all sorts and types of learning, understanding, and remembering are tied to social relationships with friends or teachers, or tied to motivation.  It seems a simple and logical point that children--hey, all people--who want to learn something or feel that it's useful end up learning it more quickly, end up sticking with the process through frustration, and end up remembering it better. 

(I conclude from this, btw, not that we should turn somersaults to try to make the learning interesting or "show" them that it's useful; rather, it would be more efficient to allow learning to emerge from the students' interests and as an outgrowth of what they desire to know or do). 

It's also important to note that the social process of learning does similar things.  I think about learning by myself vs. going to a class or giving a class or sharing ideas with friends.  I used to think it was because of ego or the need for social approval, but I'm beginning to think that we are designed to find social learning more enjoyable.  Learning shared is learning enjoyed, plus the additional benefits of collaboration, clarification of ideas, and increased accuracy.  

how is chazara going?

we are on day 3 of chazara.  it's been a bit disappointing.  like when i used to teach in a school and i would give a test and the students wouldn't do so well.  i remember going over and going over pesukim with chana, and yet she didn't remember them in chazara.  (though she did remember the rashis we did over and over).

so this is what we've been doing: every day we have been reviewing one parsha (making chazara about 10 days).  every page or so, i choose a pasuk that reviews the flow of the story.  if there are pesukim that she won't remember but they are important to review, then i read and translate it for her.  so she's getting a review of the flow, and some of the words, even though overall she's not reviewing milim.  whatever she learned by repetition, she learned.  we haven't had that many rashis, since she didn't do so many rashis on that parsha. 

it was ridiculous today because even though aharon finally fell asleep, jack was asking me to wrestle and kept trying to smack the chumash out of my lap, and elazar was shrieking about i'm-not-sure-what-anymore.  i also had the take a toy fishing rod away from him a bunch of times because he was using it as a weapon.  when he used it as a fishing rod and he "caught" me, at least that kept him busy.

CHAZAK CHAZAK

chana finished sefer bereshis!  now we have to figure out how to do chazara.  i told chana she does not take ownership of her new computer until after chazara, but she can use it each day after chazara.  so she has been urging me to figure out how to do chazara. 

i agreed that reading pasuk by pasuk to review would take excessively long. 

back to the old question: what is the goal or purpose of chazara?

is it to review vocabulary words?  no.  either she knows them or she doesn't.  a review of the words she doesn't remember will likely not help them stick into her head any better.

is it to review the flow of the stories or to remember specific parts?  if so, we don't have to do it inside.  i can review parts without the pain of translation.  however, i don't know which parts she doesn't remember.  as chana put it: how am i supposed to remember the ones i don't remember?
i have to find the sections i think she won't remember.

i would like her to review some of the more difficult famous pesukim to increase her familiarity with them.  that means i have to choose the famous pesukim. 

well, it's feeling like chazara is going to take some prep and work on my part.  something i generally prefer to avoid. 

i have an idea of randomly opening up each parsha and doing a few "spot checks" to see if chana can translate the pasuk and come up with the background.  that's more my style in terms of prep.  i think it will be a decent review and fairly effective.  especially in terms of investment vs output.

i'd also like to review some of the rashis.  i guess i could just flip through those and ask her to read a few here and there.  stay tuned.