Wednesday, June 2, 2010

bet you never thought after a week like this there would be a day like this

today was one of those magical days that makes a person love homeschooling and marvel at her good fortune to have the privilege of seeing her child learn.

well. ok. not all was perfect in eden. but it was overall glorious. first chana asked how much we were doing. i ambitiously said 3.5 pesukim, which was almost 9 lines. the pesukim overall seemed pretty easy. she started tantruming and refusing, and i gave her a warning. (then elazar deliberately started throwing raw macaroni and we took a break so i could enforce him cleaning it up. then we needed to make popcorn for breakfast).

there was some haggling over unfamiliar words. chana cannot understand why i don't just tell her the word. why do i have her guess. why do i have her try to figure from context or give her hints or draw it. why n0t just tell her. i have a suspicion that the more mediums a person uses, it attaches into the memory by more hangers, so to speak. it follows diff neural paths. or some scientific thing that it helps her remember better. as i was trying to discuss this, elazar was rolling jack around and around and jack wasn't so happy and i was a bit distracted (these details i usually leave out because i was sticking to educational theory and practice, and not all the attendant practical things that go on during homeschooling). i told chana we'll see.

anyway, back to the magical part. chana remembered שוב when i used it in a sentence, whereas yesterday it was like i was speaking greek (or some other foreign language ;-P). her breakdown of the various grammar prefixes and suffixes was masterful. she didn't remember all the suffixes, but found them easily in r' winder and plugged them in expertly.

when she got to the word חי, she immediately said: "chai, מת" and perked up and drooped like i always do and then said "life." in other words, her neural pathways were grooved in the path i had paved and she remembered the word using the little trick i always do :) :) success.

we talked about the word פן and i told her how i always told sarah it means "lest" but sarah had no idea what that meant. and i said it meant to be scared something will happen. like don't go into the street, פן you will get killed by a car.

chana made a fabulous cognitive leap why would hashem be worried something will happen if a) he knows everything that will happen and b) he can control everything. a delightful question. i wrote it down and did tell her that hashem doesn't control people and he lets us choose our behavior. she said, though, that He can stop the car from hitting. she thought that hashem would certainly do such a thing for moshe rabbenu.
i did mention that moshe ran away from a snake, being worried it would bite him. she said, the nachash was still around then?! i said, no, a regular snake. poisonous? yes.

we also had a fun time physically enacting "he will send his hand." at first, chana didn't know what that means. to detach your hand and send it somewhere? i showed her how it means the brain sends the hand with will. seeeeeeend the hand (and i stretched it out) and we did it a few times, and she had jack do it (though technically she sent his hand, not him, since his will doesn't do that at our command). she said jack was "he" so it fit into the pasuk better.

tomorrow we will see how hashem will handle is "fear lest."

and chana did not need a single break for all this.

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