Chukas

So we're at that poetic point in Chukas where it pays to be a professional Chumash learner because I've given shiurim on it.  I've studied it with mefarshim before, so I can kind of hack through the translations as we are sitting there, having put in hours of prep understanding this in previous years.  First of all, I could not hold back from pulling out the map.  The Stone Nach has a great bunch of maps in the back showing the territories of Sichon and Emori and Moav and cities in them.  So I showed her where they were and she rolled her eyes a little.

We decided since the rashis are overwhelming we'll do half of them a day instead of all of them.

As we were going through the new pesukim, she said, "I never want to review these.  I'm not going to remember any of these words.  Either I'm going to ask you every single word or--"
I said, "Fine, no problem.  I'll review them for you.  I'll read it and translate it all for you and you'll listen."

Chana said, "Well, can you not pause and ask me a word here and there?"
I said, "I'm sorry, I can't not do that."
She said, "You can't not not do that?"
I said, "What? No, I cannot not not do it.  I can't not do it."
She said, "No! Then I'm going to whine and yell that I can't do and I don't know it--"
"Deal."
--"And you're going to say 'what's the shoresh'""and I'm going to find the shoresh and them I'm going to be annoyed because I DID know it."
I said, "Deal."
Chana said, "No! Abort mission!"
I said, "No.  That's exactly how it will work.  I'm glad we worked that out."  I stuck out my hand, and we shook on it.

Bamidbar haiku

Before we started, I ask Chana to do a little sikum.  She said, "Haiku?"  She decided to give a summary in haiku form:

Moshe was angry
Hashem gave no meat to Jews
They missed being slaves

home stretch of vayikra

We've been reviewing the last parsha in Vayikra, it seems, for weeks.  This is just how it feels.  It probably hasn't even been two weeks.  The Hebrew is complex and I've basically been just translating for Chana while she follows along.  I don't know if the vocabulary will stick in her head any less than if she were doing the translating herself.  And this way there is enough of a flow that she's remembering the meaning of the pesukim.  Hopefully next week we can start Bamidbar.  I would like her to finish Bamidbar and Devarim before going to high school.

time to move on or not?

So Chana's been working on these rashis for about 5 days now and she wants to move on and stop doing them.  She's somewhat familiar with them.  She still makes plenty of reading mistakes.  She still cannot tell from reading what the main idea of the rashi is.

As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that I can have a conversation with her asking her what would be the factors that determine whether a rashi is done well enough to move forward.  I know I've had certain ideas, but I wonder what her ideas are.

Though I have a sneaking suspicion she'll say something like, "I don't care! I hate all rashi!!!"

unexpectedly fine

Tazria went smoothly and Metzora is going well.  I remembered it being harder than it is (it really is easier 2nd time around, since I learned it with Sarah) and Chana doesn't seem to be bored by it.

She said to me today that she was talking to someone who said that in school they just rush through the pesukim and don't get to think about it and don't really understand it and don't review it.  She turned to me and said, "I think I'm learning Chumash better than they do in school."

Never thought I'd see the day where she realized that chazara is a good thing.  I'm glad she sees the benefit.

How is Tazria going?

Chana is actually not finding it as boring as I feared.  I'm also delighted to report that although the parsha seemed a bewildering jumble of cases and new vocabulary words when I learned it with Sarah, it's making a lot more sense the second time around.  It might be because I'm more fluent in it that Chana is not finding it that tough.  I've been pretty able to provide her with translations when she requests them, and so far there have only been a couple of words I had to look up.  Also, the aliyas are short, and she likes that.

chazak vayikra

Instead of chazara, I insisted that Chana make some sort of document or table or graph.

We still have to do rashis.  We did about 37 rashis on this parsha.

Chana was rather opposed to the idea of doing any form of project, oaktag, pictures, graphs, tables or anything like that.

And I wanted her to have an overall sense of what was covered in the parsha.  So what I did was look at each paragraph in the Chumash and dictate the type of korban, who brings it, and what animal it is.  This is what she wrote (you can probably guess which parts I didn't dictate):

Olah: cattle male
Olah: sheep male (look at that! They are both male how interesting)
Olah: dove or baby dove

Mincha: fine flour, oil, Frankenstein (frankincense), fist full,
Mincha: baked in oven
Mincha: griddle
Mincha: deep dish

No chametz, no honey

Korban raishes (shavuos)
Rashi two breads and first fruits

Salt on every korban

Mincha becurim (rashi) mincha of the omar (barley)

Shlumim (peace offering) cattle male or female (:O?)
Shlumim sheep male or female

I think it’s time to stop

No eating fat or blood (ew who would?)

Chatas (sin offering)

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog haha im not looking at the keyboard nanananana

Chatas cohen is cow son cow (duck?)
Chatas senhendren (old people :3) cow son cow (equal to cohen?)

Yes break! (thank you aharon)

Chatas president (nasi) male goat
Chatas regular person female goat
Chatas sheep female sheep (no one?)
Chatas witness or tomai or swears falsely female sheep or goat OR if you cannot afford it two doves or two baby doves (one chatas or one olah) ORRRRRR can’t afford THAT 1/10 of an afah (300something eggs (eggs?) ) fine flour no oil no Frankenstein (frankincense)

ASHAM (guilt offering) betray god accidently with kodesh ram, worth 2 silver shekel pay back it + 1/5
Asham mitsvos you should not do and didn’t realize.. uhh.. ram 2 silver shekel
Asham betrayed god, denied his friend, in a pledge, or giving a loan, or stealing, or fraudery, or found something and lied, or swore falsely (this is why we don’t swear we PROMISE), return + 1/5 RAM 2 silver shekel

the schedules in our own minds

Just 3 perakim left to Shmos.  It's November 3rd and I wanted to be done with Shmos in October.  Luckily, in homeschool we can just keep going into the summer or into next year.  We can learn at odd times and during vacations and in the car.

So Chana has done pesukim about the menorah a number of times, including Parshas Teruma and chazara.  And today she said, "The menorah has 6 branches?  I thought it had 8."

This from the same person who 5 minutes later, when she was getting confused about the knobs and the almonds and the flowers etc. said, "Don't show me pictures!  You showed me pictures already and I know what it looks like."

She did zip through these pesukim, though.  I think we'll finish this week.  And I do think she has a better grasp of it than she did before.

not quite there yet

I had some hopes of Chana finishing Shmos by the end of October.  We did finish Ki Sisa (ack, my Israeli-teacher upbringing wants to call that "Ki Tisa"), but it's taking a week for chazara.

Chana asked, "What happens if I don't finish Shmos by the end of October?"

Answer: "Then there's November."

She liked that.

I would like to finish chamisha chumshei Torah before she goes to High School.  And yes, it is looking like matriculation for high school is in the cards ("What about socialization?").  Ideally, before she goes into the specialization in high school Chumash, she would have a general idea of all of pshat.  But I did that with Sarah, and I don't think it made much of a difference.  Or perhaps it did.  And Chana does review more than Sarah did.  But who knows.  I do know that I don't feel as concerned about it as I used to, although I still think it is preferable.

Chana assures me that once she finishes sheni, the rest of the parsha goes quickly.  She figures 3 days for the rest of chazara.  So we are on schedule to start Vayakhel next week.  I am very curious to see how much Chana will remember from Teruma-Tetzave, since there should be a lot of the same vocabulary.  It will be MY fourth run with this vocab, too, since I did it twice with Sarah (Teruma Tetzave, and Vayakhel Pekudei) and once with Chana (Teruma Tetzave).  Do I know the vocab yet?

(On a side note, on Tisha B'Av eve I've been going through Megilas Eicha for about 10 years, mostly in English.  This was the first year that I read it mostly in Hebrew and just spot checked for English words.  Maybe in another five years I'll understand most of the Hebrew without any English.  Learning is a lifelong process.)

pre-rosh hashana

Perhaps I should start by saying, "Don't homeschool close to the chagim."  Or "Never attempt homeschooling before a 3-day-yontif."

Anyway, for Chana, I wanted to show her the different parts of shacharis shemona esrei, which is her basic level chiyuv.  She doesn't like to say an unfamiliar one when she is stuck in amidah and can't ask if she's supposed to say this paragraph or not.

If we have time, I'd like to go through malchiyos, zichronos, and shofaros with her.  Outside the text.

I had a brainstorm to have her go through the Torah readings for both days (and hopefully the haftorah of the story of Chana, which has special significance to her name and why that is her name).

So we had a miscommunication and she thought she was doing the Torah portion instead of Chumash, and I thought in addition (she is up to chazara of shishi and I'd really like to be through sefer Shmos in a couple of months).  A batch of chocolate chip cookie dough did not improve her mood, in case you were thinking of trying that tactic out.

She agreed to set the timer for 10 minutes and do however much.  She got through half the Torah reading.  It's a nice chazara.  She doesn't remember the difficult or unusual words, but I wouldn't expect her to.  I would have been delighted if she had known it better, but on the up side, it is clearly not her first time going through this material.

And now back to cooking.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the boys' fighting (Jack and Aharon) was SO bad I had to call Ari down for backup (luckily it's Labor Day) and Elazar was asking where his cookie dough was over and over, even though I kept saying I'd give it to him in 10 minutes (he eventually went to the fridge and found the one with his name on it).

comment on the vocabulary of sheni of tetzave

This is the kind of vocab that she is not going to remember.  Unless she does it many many many many more times.

But i guess the idea is that she remembers what they generally look like.

As I was writing this, Chana said, "I have no idea what's going on!"  Which is actually the goal, which is what I was in the middle of writing.  So I translated the bunch of pesukim for her all together so she could grasp the flow.

how did it go?

How did Chana's first Chumash go after vacation?

Bear in mind, Chana didn't really have summer vacation.  We did Chumash every day until she went to sleepaway camp, finishing up Parshas Tetzave right before she left.  And when she came back, we did some Navi right before we went on vacation.

So, how did it go?

The answer is I have no idea.

I was on the phone with a dear friend who called me to catch up.  In the middle of this conversation, Chana, who had been awake for over an hour already, decided to do Chumash.  I told her it wasn't a good time for me.  She realized she finished the parsha so it's a week of chazara.  She opened to rishon.  She said, "It's 8 pages."  I nodded, since I was on the phone.  She did it herself.  She complained that she didn't know some words.  I handed her a translation.  She called me over at one point to remind her what "ephod" is since it was translated as "ephod."  I said apron and she remembered.  Then she finished.

So I guess everything was fine.

chazak teruma

We finished Teruma.  It feels like we zipped through it compared to slogging through Mishpatim.  Artscroll rashi was invaluable.

I think I enjoyed this much more than Chana.  I've studied the mishkan in general, and gone through pasuk by pasuk with Sarah, and I think I learned the words in the pesukim a lot better 2nd time around. I hope I'll retain the translations somewhat.  I feel really accomplished in my own learning.  Even though by chamishi I was basically sitting next to Chana with the artscroll following along and making sure we translated it accuratedly for the new pesukim, I feel like I understand the pesukim a lot better now.  I should have probably put in that kind of time for Mishpatim.  I just feel like sometimes Rashi is not the most pshat translation, and it takes some time to go through mefarshim to get a straightforward pshat.  I don't always like teaching rashi's interpretation of a pasuk, no matter how much all the yeshivas teach it that way, because then the kids grow up thinking that's the meaning of the pasuk, when it is really just one opinion, and not even the most pshat oriented one.

We did very few rashis this parsha, and the few we did, I just summarized for her.

one of the downsides of homeschooling--when siblings are around during a lesson

chazara of mishpatim did not start on a great foot.  chana didn't do chumash until i was putting the boys to bed.  so i'm on the couch, reading a book and doing bedtime routine, and chana is on the other end of the couch, asking me for words.

some of them i remembered.  but a lot of them i didn't.  (remember, i didn't really know a lot of pshat of mishpatim?)  so i keep saying to chana, "i don't know" or guessing and she says it doesn't make sense. maybe some of them did make sense.  the boys are kind of jumping all over me and talking and it's hard to hear her.

chana: what is mmmphgreebrrmph?
jack (at exact same time): can you take us up the stairs?
me (to chana): what?
jack (thinking i'm talking to him): can you take us up the stairs?
chana: what is mmmphgreebrrmph?
me: What??

jack (thinking i'm talking to him): can you take us up the stairs?
chana (at same time): WHAT IS mmmphgreebrrmph?

me: WHAT?

jack (thinking i'm talking to him): can you take us up the stairs?
chana: WHAT IS mmmphgreebrrmph?!!!!

ultimately, chana frowningly skipped over the words she didn't understand.  i wanted to tell her the words but the boys were jumping all over and talking.  she was also grouchy.

afterwards, i said she should look up the words she doesn't know.  she said if I don't know them, why does she have to know them?  i'm the teacher, and i am supposed to be teaching them to her.

i felt that was chutzpadik, but also felt that i was in the middle of bedtime routine and couldn't address it well.  (i also have found, with teens and preteens, chutzpa is best addressed 24 hrs later and not in the middle of the dispute.)

when we discussed it today, i brought up that she said that she doesn't need to know it if i don't know it, with the intention of asking her if my not knowing it AND her not knowing it gives us the result of her understanding the parsha.  but she clarified that she felt that it was not her job to look it up, and she wanted me to look it up.  she suggested that she review rishon again, this time with me looking the words up.

personally, i'm pretty frustrated that she's asking me what pesukim mean and i don't know what they mean.  i find that even if i look up the english and understand what each word means, i often do not understand the pshat of the pasuk.  example: 21:30: if a ransom was put on him, then he will put a redemption of his life, like everything that is put on him.
huh??  it's talking about something about the ox that gores.  what exactly it's saying, i'm not sure.  i have had this experience numerous times in this parsha, and i guess it should keep me humble.  this is how a student probably feels a lot when trying to translate chumash.

who benefits from review?

instead of doing chumash today, we decided that chana would review az yashir.  the language is complex and poetic, and i wondered if she remembered it, or if review doesn't really help much.  i have found in general that she remembers what she remembers, and even with a lot of review, certain words just don't stick in her memory.  maybe if they were more frequent, but they aren't.

chana didn't want to review the whole thing, so we agreed 10 minutes and she set the timer.  she finished it in 7.  she asked me a lot of phrases.  she said she remembers the general storyline, but forgot a lot of the detail words.

however, i found that i remembered a lot of the words.  i was pretty impressed with how well i knew it!  it was a good review for me :) if all goes well, i'll get to do it 3 more times.  hopefully by then i'll have a better grasp of mishpatim!  i don't remember it being so complex with sarah.

the day has come

surely most days will not be like this.  but this morning, chana is going to see a show with her bubby.  so last night we agreed that chumash would be 10am.  she woke up early so she would have time to do what she likes to do before chumash.  at 9:55, of her own volition, she went to eat so she wouldn't be hungry for chumash.  then we started.

we started with chazara.  we have been doing chazara of one aliya per day, plus chazara of some of the pesukim of the aliyah we are in the middle of.  naturally, as we were about to get started, aharon woke up.  i told chana to please do the aliyah on her own.  she is at the point where she mostly knows it and felt comfortable running through it by herself!

then, even better, i told her to please review the rashis by reading them in hebrew aloud if she feels comfortable.  since she is at the point where if she doesn't know each word, but she overall knows the meaning of the rashi, that's good enough, she felt comfortable doing that for all but the more recent rashis.

when i came down, she was just finishing up.  then we reviewed the new rashis and did a little review of the end of shishi, and she whizzed through the rest of the pesukim til the end of the aliyah.  granted, these were pretty easy pesukim.  but she did them all with almost no help. 

it's really nice to see how much she's grown in her skills.

Shmos!

During chazara, it was our practice that chana not use her new computer until she did chumash.  (This did not include rashi, since she often took an hour or more break between chumash chazara and rashi chazara.)  This means, basically, that every morning during chazara, Chana bounded down the stairs and pushed me to do chumash.  I was tempted to make this the rule every morning, except that I, too, have grown used to having that hour after "morning rush" when jack and aharon wake up and need to be fed to just chill.  Also, although I suggested to Chana that maybe we would make it a practice not to go on computer until we did chumash, I just felt that isn't in the unschool spirit.  However, two days ago she did say that she liked doing chumash first thing, and maybe she would do this all the time.

Chana bounced in this morning that today we are starting Shmos.  She wondered what "shmos" means, she looked at how many pages were in the entire chumash, she looked at how long rishon was, she saw a bunch of names and got excited (she loves translating names because she flies through them).  She looked at the pictures of the keilim of the mishkan, and wondered what they were.


Anyway, as a demonstration of why I don't think it's ideal to wait: This morning, for example, Chana came down and asked to start Shmos just as aharon woke from his nap just as jack was stirring for the morning, and jack needs to be cuddled for about 20 min after waking or else he tantrums for an hour.  and aharon needs to be nursed and then pottied and then fed immediately when he wakes up or he's very cranky.  (so I had to make a choice, and I chose nursing aharon while jack waited in bed, then bringing a cranky aharon to cuddle jack.)  Chana had to wait.

She chose when to stop (13 pesukim), and didn't mind the rashis.  Ah, crisp new beginnings :-)  chazak chazak!

chana sees the position of rav, more than shmuel.  pharoah loved yosef; how could he do this. 

chazara for vayeshev.  chana remembered most of the story so we didn't do so many pesukim inside.  then we took a very long break. (3 hrs.)  when 2 boys were napping, we did rashi.  she did 18 rashis in 15 min.  she only read the hebrew and remembered them all except for one.  nice job, chana!

(i am still a bit sad we aren't using the other chumash without nekudos and with more roshei teivos.)

sometimes i don't want to do it

yesterday we did toldos and i ended up reading and translating a lot of yitzchak's life with avimelech.  chana remembered a lot of most of the stories otherwise. 

today we did vayetze and chana said wistfully that yesterday when i read and translated most of it, it was so nice.  we were back to me picking out a pasuk or so per page to get the main idea and her translating it.  we also went through all the shevatim, which was nice because chana had them in context from the brachos, so as she read them, she remembered a lot of the brachos "yehuda was the best" "hey, levi is older than yehuda?" "dan is the snake" "naftali the poet" "zevulun lived by the sea."

she got a little cranky about the couple of rashis we did, confirming that incorporating rashi into chazara is going to have to be a separate session.  i had her read a long rashi just in hebrew and see if she knew what it was about.  she got all the way til the end and recognized the last word and then remembered which rashi it was.  ("who would want to sleep on a rock, anyways?")

***

just an aside, i went out with the kids yesterday so we didn't do chumash in the morning.  after i get home from going out, there is always about an hour of crying and screaming as all the various needs get juggled and taken care of (mostly feeding and naps and adjusting to being off schedule).  that ran into witching hour (6-9) dinner/bedtime, and we still hadn't gotten to chumash.  after the littles are in bed, i'd love to just sit and veg.  but that's chana and sarah's time.  time for me to hear what's going on in sarah's life, and time for me to work with chana a little more and then to see what projects she's working on.  in the midst of this i ran out for a little walk in the drizzle.  and i was thinking, "when i get back, i have to do chumash with chana."  "i don't waaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i don't wanna i don't wanna i don't waaaaannnaa"  "what if we just don't do chumash today?" "how is chana supposed to like chumash when i DREAD doing it"

***

by the way, chumash ended up being perfectly fine and lovely.  and whenever i have those thoughts, i ALWAYS seriously entertain the possibility of just dropping it.  just don't do it.  don't do it today.  don't do it now. don't do it at all.  but definitely how about not doing it today. 

just allowing myself that breathing room makes me feel better.  after all, one of the loveliest things about homeschool is that i don't have to do anything.  we can just take off whenever we want.  we can play all day.  we can relax.  we can decide to let things go.

once i remember that, i always feel better.  and sometimes i do it and sometimes i don't.

chazara bereshis cont. aka a typical day

yesterday we did vayera.  because chana remembered the general gist of the akeida, plus there is a strong likelihood she'll be revisiting it in the future, we skipped it.  today we did chaye sora.  it's been really nice to be doing chazara in fast forward because chana is getting a nice over-arching picture of the sefer.  for example, when yaakov died, there were a whole bunch of pesukim talking about how avraham bought maaras hamachpela.  and now, just a little later, we reviewed that story.  chana saw lavan and asked about him, and i know in a few days we'll be hitting that section and it will all fall into place just a little bit more.

we haven't been doing rashis because there haven't been that many.  chazara will change tone a bit when we hit them, and if chana isn't prepared, she might get cranky.  i may have to do it piecemeal: 30-45 min chazara (that's how long it has been taking us to get through the parsha), then break for a few hours, then 30 min for rashi.  (my problem is once i break, it's really hard to get back to it.  yesterday we stopped at chamishi because i had to go out and it was bedtime/witching hour when i realized we hadn't finished).

we had to stop in the middle today (we always have to stop many times in the middle) because i was informed that elazar made a bowel movement behind the couch.  why?  because he doesn't want to use the toilet.  we stopped for cleanup and discipline.  he told me he peed there, too.  he rebuffed my suggestion that he use the potty.  said he prefers behind the couch.  i hope we are not at an impasse on this.  afterwards, he took some spray and sponges and happily cleaned the bathrooms til we were done.