January 2012 Updates: May the Cool Force be With You!

Our big gorgeous girl has been also growing , with her long hair reaching a new length record (below the middle of her back).

I managed to make a good “fish braid” at last!

Hahgoot has been going really well with her OT sessions. She has been cooperative, energetic and

had a great time playing with Carly.

She finishes the sessions famished... Here we are having a big lunch at Subway, Hahgoot’s favourite sandwich place.

Although there has been a big improvement with behaviour, energy levels, mood swings and

tantrums, Hahgoot still finds getting dressed a challenge some days (it still isn’t automatic), while

on the other hand she finds the multiplication table easy to handle... So there are still gaps to work on.

We had a revival in interest in workbooks after a break over the holidays:

Hahgoot likes this Maths workbook in Hebrew (top left) that has Maths research as its aim, she enjoys this multiplication workbook (top right) which is simple in presentation and not cluttered, and is challenged by this Hebrew

workbook (bottom) which is full of logic puzzles, riddles and creative open ended tasks,

designed for gifted students in Year 2.

Hahgoot got a worksheet I designed using illustrations Grandpa Ido emailed, following an activity he did with his other grandchild, Amity

(now living in Boston). Hahgoot filled the worksheet and sent it to Amity.

Barak put together a special lesson plan for teaching Hahgoot poetry\history\geography:

he chose a song (“Shir HaEmek”), researched it, and then built a unit of work to teach Hahgoot about Emek Yizrael (an agricultural area in Israel). He taught her to sing it, they listened to many different recordings of the song, researched difficult words, looked at relevant images and most

importantly, had a good father-daughter bonding in a creative way.

Hahgoot wrote a general letter to all her pen-pals letting them know she is moving house (she wrote the English version and I did the

Hebrew one). Then she sat patiently, filled the envelopes and decorated them.

Hahgoot has been a keen pen pal and has been regularly corresponding with Charlotte Walsh and

Deena, who were already busy writing often although we haven’t moved yet...

Left: a birthday card for Inbal, from Israel

Right: a letter to Laurie, from the USA

Top, left: a congratulations

card to her pen pal Noam, from Haifa,

Israel, who recently became a big

brother!

All the rest are various drawings she

did this month.

Hahgoot wrote me some nice cards

The brave Jedi warrior

Last glimpse of Chanukah:

Doing a crosswords puzzle

in Hebrew

Hahgoot has been enjoying the LeapPad very much, and has explored the functions of filming video,

snapping photos and drawing to their full extent.

Hahgoot, Kermit and I went out to see the cute Muppets movie (I was more

excited than Hahgoot about it...), while Barak and Alma went shopping.

Barak managed to win a “Happy Feet” doll for Alma at one of the arcade

machines!

We all had a fun day at Burwood Westfield

The cool “Blues Sisters”

That was one tiring month... Time to read her favourite Greek mythologies

comics book and go to sleep...

In our next presentation:School holidays fun, part 1

In which the girls spend time together and with the de Giorgio family at the Australian museum.