The Menu

Here 'tis:

challah
butternut squash soup
arugula salad
roasted mixed vegetables
roast chicken
apple poppyseed coleslaw
steamed brown rice
brownies

No Car

Our car, which had the possibility of being ready today, won't be. :( So now we won't get it back until Tuesday. But will we let that ruin our plans of a family adventure on Monday? Nope! We're going to bus and train all over Portland. The kids will think it's a terrific adventure - and they're all free! And on Tuesday we'll be so very glad to have our (intact) car back. Yay.

Airplanes

Today was airplane day. First, a HUGE miracle on the Hudson River. I happened to turn on the radio at the moment the news started breaking. I immediately had tears and shivers. This was a real nes (miracle), partnered with a pilot who did everything exactly right. With the help of Hashem and that pilot, more than 150 lives have been spared. May they all use this experience to boost the good they do in this world. I can't imagine that an experience like that could do anything but inspire a person to live a good life.

Then... right after swimming lessons we zoomed to the library and got there three minutes before closing. We picked up, among other things, a paper airplane book that we had requested. After dinner tonight we pulled it out, and this spatial-reasoning-challenged mama actually was able to make the airplanes in the book! The directions were really clear, and gave me hope that I might be able to do origami that has more than four steps after all. :) The book is called Making Paper Airplanes That Really Fly. And fly they did! There were only a couple of designs that had me completely flummoxed. We had a lot of fun.

Nothing like keeping those dendrites growing!

Quote of the Week

Mama: Eli, be quiet in the hallway. Avi is still sleeping.
Eli: No, mama, Avi is making a sound.
Mama: No, Eli. I'm pretty sure he's still sleeping.
Eli: No, mama! He's making the sound of alef!

(Alef is a silent letter in the Hebrew alphabet.)

Two Good Family Movies

We have watched two fun family movies in the last two weeks. The first one was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which was much more fun than I remembered. It was produced the same year I was born (1968). The music is great fun, and we've requested the cd from the library. Just one note - there's a slightly risqué underwear scene in the big duet between the king and the queen. Scene-skipping is good! Just in case you want to check ahead of time so you're fore-armed. :) I thought it was an odd scene to include since the rest were so very kid-friendly.

The other movie was Ballet Shoes. This is the story of three orphans (who are homeschooled by their foster mother!). It takes place in London in the 1930s. One wants to be a ballerina, one an actress, and the other an aviator. We thought it was very sweet, and the kids enjoyed it too.

Wow, two good ones in a row. That's a record for us lately.

Our Favorite Narrator

This is a David Attenborough clip about the Lyre Bird. It should actually be called a Liar Bird! We thought this was really funny.

We Have a Soldier!

Yanki Schneck, Assistant Chief Rabbi of Rehovot, has begun partnering up Israeli soldiers with people who will daven (pray) and study torah in their merit. We just received the name of our soldier. His name is Ravit ben Batya Sisel. We only have the Hebrew form of his name which is "Ravit son of Batya Sisel" so we will not likely ever know who he actually is, but we will be closely connected to him nonetheless. I can't wait to share this with the kids tomorrow.

A Good Article

A friend in Israel, who is also adopting from Ethiopia BE"H (court date next month!), wrote an article that takes a peek at what has been happening in Sderot for years. Sderot is just 1 mile from the border with Gaza and has had rockets lobbed across the border at it for years.

The Menu

Here 'tis:

challah
egg drop soup
sweet potato gratin
roasted zucchini
brown rice
caesar salad
pan-fried chicken breasts with balsamic mushroom sauce
cranberry pie

And for lunch:

shepherd's pie

Shabbat shalom!

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!

We now have THREE fully potty-trained kids. Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just a few short months ago I only had 1.5 potty-trained kids. I'm so excited about this. Raizel trained without any effort on my part. Well, maybe a tiny bit for daytime training, but none for nighttime. Eli took forever for daytime, but none at all for nighttime. Unlike our experience with DD #1! I'm doing a happy mommy dance now.

Cars, Shmars

The part to fix the rear end of the car still hasn't come in from California. We're hoping to take the car in on Monday now. They should have a free loaner car for us too (yay). Meanwhile, we're enjoying the excellent air circulation that keeps us all perky.

On Tuesday we did our first late-afternoon swim lesson with papa in charge of all of them, and it worked out great. I picked him up at work, they dropped me off at my students' house, they went to the community center and had their lessons (well A&E did anyway!), papa entertained the littles, and they arrived back at my students' house spot on time. Tuesday everyone seemed on the slightly cranky side, so my little bit of teaching felt like a mini-vacation, and everyone was back in good spirits for dinner. A&E are thrilled that papa will get to watch them swim once a week, and I'll get to watch them the other day. Yay, papa! Last term, we had swimming lessons at 10:45, which kind of cut our mornings pretty short. Now we can do a consistent learning time in the mornings, and have every afternoon pretty much wide open to do whatever we like.

Our New Favorite Bread Recipe

I've been making this bread for the last month or so. It's our new favorite. It makes fantastic sandwiches and is much more, er, flexible than the cracked wheat bread I'd been making for a few years. It's been tweaked and tweaked, and this is the final recipe. :)

OATMEAL BREAD
2 c. raw oatmeal
4 cups boiling water
5 tsp salt
1 T yeast
1/4 cup sugar
6 T oil
4 c ww flour
4 c flour

Combine oatmeal, boiling water, and salt. After it has cooled, add remaining ingredients. Let rise until doubled. Divide into loaf pans. (I usually make 6 small loaves for perfectly-sized kid sandwiches.) Let rise for 1 hour. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. YUM.

A Way to Help

There is a new program that pairs up Israeli soldiers with Jews who will pray and study torah in their merit. I have signed up and I encourage anyone else who is able to do so too. Here is the original announcement:

An open letter to all Achenu Bene Yisroel

After learning about the heart rendering appeal of the Gedolay Torah to intensify our Tefilos and Torah learning during this very trying time for Klal Yisroel, we have undertaken to join and aid them in their prayers.

The Medrash Rabah and the Yalkut relate that during the war against Midyon, for every one that went out to battle there was a designated person whose task it was to pray and learn for him.

The Great Gaon and Sage Rebbe Chaim Kanievsky shlitah when asked about this tradition pointed out that Dovid Hemelech, as well continued and instituted the practice, that for every individual who was in combat, there was another person selected for the specific task of praying and learning for him.

Therefore in order to continue and accomplish this Minhag, we ask soldiers and/or their relatives who would want a “partner” in Torah and Tefillah to email maortlmo@gmail.com or fax 011 9728 9450027 and give their Hebrew name and mothers Hebrew name without any other particulars such as family name or other identifying factors, so that we may disseminate them among those who heed the call to add Torah and Tefiloh for the sake of those who find themselves in
jeopardy chas v’shalom. Anyone who finds himself or herself chas v’shalom in danger or in shelters because of the war may also feel free to call or email to the
above.

To bond with us and receive a name of your “partner” please email or fax the above.

May Klal Yisroel in the merit of joining together, speedily see a successful end to this trial and campaign as quoted in the Parsha “without loss of life”.

Camping

That's what we call this picture that Amirah made. :)

National Debt

Did you know the national debt is nearly $36K per household right now? OY. Okay, I'm now returning to my Happy Homeschooling Hut.

Our Week of Learning

Ah.... a nice full week of learning. Life as normal. Yay.

Tefillah - just continuing our regular routine every morning; nothing new

Oral and written Hebrew are cruising right along, and Eli finished learning his alef bet! So I made a big alef and bet out of brownies for shabbat dessert on Friday. He loved it. We'll be working on vowels now. The alef bet only consists of consonants; vowels are only included under the letters for beginner readers. Tht wd b lk rdng Nglsh ths w. Vowels are helpful! We'll just go right along, and if he wants to just dive into Hebrew reading after that we'll do that. He can always learn his alphabet next year. :)

Parsha - we will finish the book of Bereishit (Genesis) this week! It was an action-packed week of torah readings... Yosef is now second-in-command in Egypt, and all of his brothers have come to Egypt and learned who he is. He got to see his father for the first time in a very long time. The Jews are settling in nicely... for now!

Mitzvah of the week - we just reviewed and summarized the laws of Channukah, having just completed the holiday on Monday

Melacha of the week - we studied the melacha of dosh AKA threshing. Threshing removes the edible part of the wheat from the non-edible part. Anything that resembles this act, as in anything that involves extracting an item from its natural container, is also prohibited. Amirah thought it was hysterically funny that milking a cow fell under this melacha. The fact that we would drink the milk, but leave the cow behind just got her funny bone. Goes for nuts too.

Middah of the week - we studied the middah of busha, embarassment. This is the little voice inside of us that tells us right from wrong. Busha will (usually) prevent us from doing the wrong thing. Lower levels of busha come from being afraid someone will catch us doing something in the world out there that we're not supposed to do. Higher levels of busha include refraining from doing something because G-d will see us doing it.

Reading - we're continuing just rolling around in the Grade 1 Hooked on Phonics books. It's still review pretty much, but it's working well for now. We'll continue this in the coming week.

Writing - copying short sentences based on the Little House books was a huge hit! We'll do some more in the coming week.

Math - Math is still good. It seems to go on for pages and pages and pages in a row of very similar addition and subtraction activities (each one ever so slightly more complicated, but it is awfully repetitive). We're jumping around a little, picking out other pages in other parts of the book, many of which are pretty easy for her. Things like ordering a bunch of pictures into chronological order. Ordering things by size or height. Telling time. So this week, we'll do a page of addition/subtraction (about 12 problems) + a page from elsewhere in the book.

Readaloud - we just finished These Happy Golden Years. Almanzo has wooed and wed Laura, and she has now moved out to his homestead. What a magnificent series. We can't wait to start the last one.

Art - mostly lots of drawing projects. Dean really wants to lead a weekly drawing class after work settles down in a couple of weeks. We look forward to art time with papa!

Science - Amirah sees science everywhere. We don't even need to schedule it. Yesterday she came up to me and said, "Mama, I took a sample from one of my seashells and I would really like to look at it under the microscope." She just thinks this way all the time. We were watching a BBC clip on YouTube about the deep ocean, specifically about the large night-time migration of the deep sea creatures that rise up to the shallower waters to feed. A 2-second clip of shiny golden creatures went by and with a puzzled voice she exclaimed, "Squid don't go up to the shallows to feed. They go there to breed!" I don't know if that's correct or not, but it just illustrates how she is constantly taking in all this information and filing it away. She definitely has a huge love for science, biology in particular.

Outings - we had a great day at the zoo on Wednesday even though it was only 39 degrees. Very few people. Thursday night A&E spent the night with their cousins, which is always a hit for them. Friday their tia took them to the zoo and brought them home around 3:00. At first I thought I would get TONS of cleaning done in addition to cooking since I only had 2 kids, but NOPE! It was no easier; it's the 2 littles that make most of the work! :)

Shabbat was nice, and now a new week is beginning. Tomorrow morning Amirah has another playdate which I'm sure she'll enjoy and in the afternoon we'll go on an owl hike at Tryon Creek State Park. And poor papa will go to work and work, work, work. The school term starts Monday, so he'll be pretty busy.

Should be a pretty good week!

The Menu

challah
zucchini mushroom soup
spinach kugel
lamb chops w/gravy
mashed potatoes
mashed carrots/yams/apples
cole slaw
brownies

The brownies will be cut up and made into the shape of an alef to celebrate Eli's completing his learning of the alef bet!

Fun Challenge Blog

This great blog called "Think! A Program Designed to Encourage Kids to Think Outside the Box" posts a weekly challenge for kids to complete. Things like: go on a walk and tell your child to pick 7 stones that are 2 inches wide or bigger. Don't tell them anything else. When you get home, challenge them to see how high they can build a tower from the rocks. I glanced through many of the suggested challenges and it looks like they would all work with a very wide range of ages. I'm looking forward to trying them out. I've been looking for a few new ideas to spice up our learning time. Math games have been very spicy! A real hit, and it's great to see the cogs turning and developing new logic skills.

Oy

Bomb Threat Mailed to Jewish Academy

"CHICAGO -- WBBM 780 News reports that a mailed bomb threat was received New Year's Eve in the West Rogers Park neighborhood that threatened Jewish day schools in Chicago and the suburbs.

The letter was received Wednesday -- in the regular mail delivery -- to the Associated Talmud Torahs and the Ida Crown Jewish Academy, 2828 W. Pratt Blvd., according to a Rogers Park District police lieutenant.

The letter indicated a bomb threat to Jewish day schools in Chicago and the suburbs.

The police Bomb & Arson Section is investigating. Further details of the letter will not be released."

This is hilarious!

This is really funny. Make sure you watch it to the end!