Day 2

Today was different.

The kids again got up early, 7 yo snuggled on the couch for a bit. That has not been happening on school days, there was so much rush to get dressed and have breakfast and grab lunchbox and put shoes on and get out the door and... This is also not my snuggly kid. I know those snuggles will end soon. I just like it when he's the one who starts snuggling.

All the snuggling, naturally, lead him to think that maybe TODAY would be a good day for Krispy Kreme. I agreed to take them, but asked them to get dressed first, unload the dishwasher, and to daven. Getting dressed was accomplished quickly, but davening was a whole different story. 5 yo threw a fit that he did not get right siddur. 7 yo's siddur was left at school, so he was using children's siddur we have at home. We have two of those and boys have been using them for years. A long time ago, 7 yo marked one as his and the other one as his brother's, but then 5 yo didn't like the marking, so we since have taped up that page. While the oldest was in school, 5 yo didn't care which siddur he got to daven from, but today he insisted that he needs the other one. When I suggested asking his brother about a trade, he just slid on the floor, kicking and screaming that he will never, ever trade. ( Not true, those trades do happen). Then he refused to daven, marched to his room, slamming doors. I seized the rare opportunity of my husband being home, and took just 7 yo and toddler to Krispy Kreme. 5 yo was not happy. We did bring donuts back, so everyone got to have some. 5 yo refused to daven in my absence, so he davened with me when I got back.

What we did schoolwise today:

• 5 yo did Handwriting Without Tears, Ktav beKalut, a page from hebrew workbook ( he wrote half adn I wrote half), telling time to quarter hour on the analog clock. I read him MathStart: Three-dimentional shapes ( his pick), he read one easy reader.

• 7 yo did writing, reading, Lashon HaTorah, Chumash and math. For math, he announced around the time I was davening with 5 yo that he'll just do math now, before I even wrote down plan for the day. He did three-digit subtraction and declared it to be super easy. Later, when he saw his brother read clocks, he asked for that too. He could read clock in 5 min increments, but he did not know terms "quarter to", "quarter past", so we worked on that. For writing, he wrote down the names of all countries in East Asia. He read a book about different occupations. Lashon Hatorah was also "easy-peasy", he stopped at two pages. For Chumash, I had a dilemma. He rebbe unkindly dropped us off in Vayeira, perek 19, pasuk 5. Look it up, you'll see what I'm talking about.

(I do not like my kid thinking that Anshei S'dom were just planning to shake melachim's hands, to get to know then better...I'm not sure if I should just skip into the next perek.)

Anyway, he read two pesukim. I asked him to write down unfamiliar words, then tease out shoresh. I told him the translation and he wrote those down. Then we put the pasuk together with translation. In school they were either memorizing pesukim with trop ( and he had memorized wrong pronunciation a few times), or breaking pasuk into parts and memorizing a hebrew chunk with english translation. He seemed to be tuning out understadning, because the pressure seems to be on finishing two parshiyot a year. So now he knows Lech Lecha by heart, but probably could not translate half of the words from it

I would like any suggestions on how to improve Torah learning.

Back to our day: after all this, they boys had a snack and then we tried out for homeschooling swimming team and failed miserably. I was orignally told that we should just show up, their level is fine and the coaches will work with them. Once we got to the pool, the boys got into water and could not swim the length of the pool, that was that. In the car, on the way back, 7 yo said gloomily that now he cannot reach his personal goal of becoming a good swimmer. I did not know that was his personal goal. I wonder which other personal goals were unattainable before.

Now the toddler is napping and the boys are enjoying glorious sunny warm day in our wild backyard. Later on, we'll pick up two friends and make pizza for dinner. The oldest always asks to help me make pizza, but he usually had to do homework instead and I was in a crunch to get dinner on the table before the other ones ate the kitchen.

What do I like most about these two days? Feeling at peace. Not having to report to others. Making our own schedule. Working out our own rhythms.