Succos

It's chol hamoed and Chana mostly works at night so after the boys have been going to bed, we've been doing some algebra (about 15 minutes worth) and yesterday we did Chumash and Rashi.  It's the end of a long day and I don't look forward to dredging through the skills work.  (Mostly it's the Rashis; the pesukim go pretty quickly.)

Yesterday I was reading a lookjed digest and I saw there are online course offerings in Nach.  They have for grades 8-9, and grades 10-11, I forget the exact grade breakdown.  I perked up when I saw 8th grade and looked at what was being offered for Chana's grade level.  There were two Melachim courses, the first half and the second half of Melachim I, and there was a course on Eliyahu.  I was thinking about looking into it more, and how exciting it is, and then I was thinking about how I could actually do this with Chana myself instead of registering her.

Which got me thinking about how many things I've wanted to do as a homeschooler over the years vs. what actually gets done.  I'm sure there are homeschoolers out there who have an 8th grader (or any other graders) and actually get through a schedule, and have regular Nach sessions.  In choosing the unschooling route, our lives don't take that path.  I'm comfortable with the science and social studies and halacha that comes up that way.  But occasionally I have twinges.  I imagine starting school at 9am and going til 3, with an hour for lunch and maybe a 15 minute break in the morning.  And we learn academics.  I imagine how much Chana would learn if we did that.

Then I think about all the things she does with her time that she wouldn't get to do if I structured her time that way.  And all the things she learns.

I figure one of these days I'll sit down with her and confirm that she knows basic conjugation of Hebrew tenses, past, present and future.  That probably won't take very long.  And this evening, after algebra, I said let's do Chumash, and she sighed, and I asked her if she wanted to do Nach instead.  She eagerly sat down and we delved into Dovid Hamelech.  It was a lovely chol hamoed treat.