Raizel

It just dawned on me yesterday after I buckled all the kids in after our fourth stop of the day (!) that Raizel is now no longer any extra work beyond what you would expect for a normal 2-year-old. When she was first home it felt like she was 5x the "normal" amount of work, and that probably was no exaggeration. The first six weeks were pretty intense parenting, the next three weeks were moderately intense, then a few weeks of just a little above average, and I'd say the last week or two have really settled into a nice place. She continues to just amaze me. She feels more and more like she is from US and not someone else.

We've also been doing some learning pretty successfully. Last night I gave Raizel and Eli their own spiral bound paper notebooks ($0.05 at Walmart... I got them on my annual trip to Walmart; that's about my max!) and they can sit and color and "learn" with me and Amirah. Amirah has one too and she can color while I read parsha (torah) stories.

We have the wooden lines and curves that go with the Handwriting Without Tears program, and while Amirah writes letters, Eli makes the same letters with the wooden pieces. Last night he was asking if he could write a P, F, E, etc. It was very cute and he actually did really well! Maybe I'll start him on writing sooner than I did with Amirah if he continues to be this into it. Eli participates in a lot of the math with us too, and I got him his own Pre-K math book that he can do during math time with Amirah. When we take out various math manipulatives (pattern blocks, teddy bear counters, etc.) everyone gets some to play with. It's really good, and feels more and more like all of us will just get into the rhythm of "learning time" and it will be possible to do! Our daily schedule for learning will be:

before breakfast, davening (prayers)
8:30 breakfast, then free play
10:00-11:00, Judaica
11:10-12:00, secular (reading/writing/math)
12:10-1:00, science or art or music or ?

The afternoons will be free for field trips, library, other outings, plus swimming lessons 2x/week. We'll see how it goes!