happy chanuka!

This post has nothing much to do with Chanuka, other than chronologically.  I've decided to let Elazar's Hebrew reading go for now, since I feel it's more efficient to read only when he asks to read.  This left me with a little bit of a dilemma, since I still want to maintain daily Torah learning with him, and when I ask him what he wants to learn, he says he wants to do the Hebrew reader.  But his heart isn't in it and it takes him longer to do a page, whereas when he's in a learning phase, he blitzes through the pages.  So we've been doing a small halacha about Chanuka.  One night I read through al hanisim with him.  I started off reading the Hebrew and then translating, but he got bored in the middle, so I hustled and dropped the Hebrew and gave a gist/translation.  He cheered at the end.  That little cheer of appreciation of the miracle of the battle victory has kept me smiling at various times this week (often when I am saying al hanisim myself).

Chana is making her way steadily through Chukas.  We have about 30 rashis and her pace of getting through the pesukim is faster than her pace for getting through the rashis.

Right now, our rashi protocol (which I personally find bedieved; I do not think I've discovered an optimal rashi approach yet) is

• I choose rashis that are pshat oriented (or easy to read and understand)
• I read them to her and explain them
• I read them and explain them for 4 days
• They are familiar enough to her for her to read them and I still explain them
• She reads them and then remembers the main idea of it but still doesn't know a lot of words
• And that's how we leave it (even though I'd rather she learns the words)

I'm feeling in general that we are working nicely on skills but less well on analysis, questions, and deeper level of comprehension.  Chana does not have much patience with that and often tosses off a question but does not like to sit and ponder it or discuss it.  I brought that up to her a few months ago and it has definitely improved-- she will take a moment or two now to discuss things, but she generally prefers to "get it over with."  In my opinion, this is a side effect of my emphasis on skills over enjoyment of Torah learning and is one of the reasons I am turning more towards unschooling, even for limudei kodesh, for the boys.  (Note: this does not mean that I think that it is impossible to teach skills and foster an enjoyment of learning; I just think that my personal methods have stifled certain joyful aspects of learning and I'd like to experiment with that.)  If Chana does decide to stay home for high school (I started a post on that last month but I don't think I ever finished it) we'll probably work on deeper conceptual and analytical skills.

our current rashi efforts

I still do not have a handle on the best method to gain rashi skills.  Right now, in 8th grade, I go through the rashis every day on the pesukim we've done.  I keep an eye out for pshat oriented rashis or famous rashis or rashis with straightforward vocabulary.  I underline them to begin them the next day.  In Parshas Baha'aloscha she is doing about 30 or 40 rashis (I'll count tomorrow if I remember).  Chana and I have evolved, via bickering negotiating, that I read it and translate it for 4 days.  By the fourth day she is familiar enough with it that she knows the general idea of the rashi, and she is comfortable enough to read it herself.  I'm finding that she generally does not learn the vocabulary of the rashis.  She relies on knowing the general idea.  There are phrases and words that she can't translate and that she can't pronounce.  When I brought that up to her, she agreed that when she reads and mispronounces a word, I should interject and correct her pronunciation.  But I'm not finding that it's a really efficient way that helps her remember it.  She is getting decent practice reading rashis and she'll probably remember a lot of the general ideas of the rashis.  I don't know how much of the actual words she is learning, and how to improve on that.  It's just that there are so many skills in doing a rashi-- reading the words correctly, translating, understanding the main idea, understanding the different phrases.. and that's not even analyzing the rashi itself, thinking about what rashi's question is and how this answers the question, and what this adds to the understanding of the pasuk.

hinei ma tov uma na'im

I had such pleasant learning with Chana yesterday and today.  She's been so cheerful, making jokes, smiling a lot.  It's amazing how much in homeschooling I sometimes perceive it's about the learning or even about the parent-child relationship, when it's just a phase that the child is going through.

Today, randomly, in the middle of Chumash, Chana asked me if a person davens for something halfheartedly, is it answered.  (Bear in mind, she's 13, so we don't really speak unless I call her over to do work.  So when we sit down to do work, other things often come up, which I'm delighted about.)  I have not, sadly, made the time to do the tefila chabura that I had wanted to do this summer.  (I've chosen learning with my aunt, shiur prep, and date night as priorities.)  So when this question came up, I was excited.  I said if you made an appointment to speak to someone in charge, and then you halfheartedly asked, would it likely be granted?
Then I asked her if she could think of some benefits to asking for something, even if it is halfhearted, and even if there is a strong possibility it won't be answered.  So we are having a conversation about what tefila does for the beseecher.

I've also been asking Chana to write a couple of Ivrit sentences every night when I'm not there.  I told her to use a dictionary (online of course!).  And I check them in the morning.  So far they've been understandable and legible!

rashi standards

I asked Chana today what, in her opinion, are the standards that would signify that she "knows" a rashi.  She said: "That I can read it mostly correctly.  And that I know the main idea."  It's nice to know we are actually on the same page.

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!!!"

rashi rashi rashi

Today Chana decided to read aloud the rashis and I would correct her pronunciation as soon as she mispronounces a word.  Then I would point word by word and translate for her.  We did that.  She did 13 rashis that way and then asked me to do the last 3.  (Those 3 rashis were 6 words, 7 words, and 2 words).  I didn't argue.

She was conscientious about working on pronunciation and she was in good spirits.

resolution of sorts

So how did it go yesterday?  Aharon screaming about eggs, Chana sniffling about rashis, Chana being emotional in general, Mommy being negative and lacking confidence and feeling grouchy and burnt out?

I dragged Chana on an errand.  She didn't want to go and I put my foot down.  She said she wants to be alone, I said I was concerned about her emotional state, and I insisted.

We spent the first part of the drive with her saying how she is so angry in general, and me saying that this is normal, at which point she asked me-- if it's normal, why am I concerned.  I didn't know what to answer her.

(When I discussed it with my husband later, he intelligently said that just because something is normal doesn't mean we ignore it.)

We went on the errand (by very happy coincidence, two of the boys were on a playdate and Aharon was pretty low key) and it was just time spent together, being physically next to each other.

When we came home, Chana was much calmer.  To the point where I was tempted to try rashi again.  But I've made that mistake before!

We left rashi alone for the rest of the day.

This morning, Chana came over to me first thing and asked to do Chumash.  We did new pesukim, and then started rashi.  She immediately began to get emotional.  She was crying quietly, and tears kept running down her cheeks.  (They reminded me about my mention about the skill of working while experiencing very strong emotions.)  She was upset, but in a place where a part of her was noticing her upsetness.  She commented that her voice sounded like Jack when he whines, and we smiled.  And we had a conversation about her tears.  (And we took a break to look at the pictures floating around the web recently about the different chemical composition of different types of tears.)

We also tried talking about different approaches to handling these rashis.  She said there were too many, and I suggested a few different ways to make them manageable (we'll only do a few a day, we'll focus on some skills but not all skills, etc).  She had problems with all my suggestions.  I pointed this out, and she agreed.  I suggested we celebrate when she got through the rashis, perhaps by going to a restaurant, and she refused.  Why don't rewards work?  I suggested she agree since she'd be doing the rashis with or without sushi, and she still refused.

I read all the rashis to her and translated them.  Although there are a lot, I don't think the concepts are too hard and I do think they are interesting and useful and straightforward to read.  As we went through the rashis, I think she saw that was the case.  It also helped that we waited until she was in a better state of mind.

down on myself

This is the kind of rut I don't like to spend a lot of mental energy on, and maybe writing about it sinks me further into it.  But I figure a lot of people experience this so I may as well put it out there.

Right now Chana is lying on the couch under a giant cardboard box.  It's a box that has been converted into a car/rocketship, complete with giant window.  The boys have been using it all week.  Right now it's a fort for sulking.

I haven't been so happy with how rashi has been going.  I've been, b'dieved (not optimally), being okay with her being fairly fluent at reading it with the majority of the words pronounced correctly or close to correctly, and knowing the general idea of the rashi.  This is not my preference, since I'd rather she know how to translate it phrase by phrase, and that she would learn the new words.  But it's too much.  I had to choose to do more rashis like this, or to do fewer rashis and concentrate on better translation.  I chose the former, since it has the added bonus of bekius (knowing a larger amount of information).  It has the negative of not working so well to improve rashi skills.

Somehow, today, there are 16 new rashis to do.  Chana is completely overwhelmed.  We must have gone a few days where we didn't do new rashis.  Chana gets annoyed if I scout out new rashis while she is doing new pesukim, and so I try to do it after she's finished.  But that smacks too much of "prep" which I dislike.  So I guess I finally sat down and underlined a bunch of rashis yesterday, and there were a lot of them.

***
I had to interrupt writing this because my 2yo, Aharon, is having an on-the-floor-kicking-and-screaming tantrum about an egg.  He wanted a hard boiled egg.  I have none.  He took one from the fridge.  I decided to let him crack it because he thought my refusal to let him crack it was a conspiracy to prevent him from having the hard boiled egg.  He cracked it, and then was dismayed that it wouldn't peel.  Then he got another egg to try again, and freaked out when I took it away.  Then he got upset that the eggs I was boiling weren't ready.  Then he was upset that they were going to be hot.  Then he refused the sunny-side-up egg I made with his cracked egg.  Then he screamed when I ate it.

And the whole time I'm still thinking about Chana being overwhelmed with rashi and wishing I could figure out how to reconnect with her.
***
Aside from rashi not working out so well, Chana's been complaining about how she dislikes math (even though it's going great) and one day last week, she and Sarah were saying how much they disliked Chumash.  Sarah has unfond memories of Chumash.

I've been feeling morose about that.  Why is it that the two subjects I teach them are the ones they dislike intensely?  Is it me?  Is it the way I teach?

It's possible that they just dislike anything where they have to do drillwork.  And yet I know there are teachers who impart skills and the students do enjoy it.

Add into the mix that it seems like my 2 and 4 year old have been tantrumming a lot.  And yelling at me and hitting me.  Or maybe they've been their usual, but I've been edgier.  I have been hearing myself speak in ways that I would find embarrassing if I were to be overheard.  And then I note that I'm concerned with image, but less concerned with the emotional damage I'll wreak.  Am I experiencing burnout?  Am I allowing their behaviors and reacting in a way that encourages it?  I've been out, by myself and on date nights, and it hasn't been helping.  (I've been more mindful of my reactions to the tantrums, and that has been helping.)  So between it being a somewhat more intense toddler phase these days, plus me feeling overall like my girls dislike learning the areas I put the most effort into, I've been down on myself.

It occurs to me that during the early teenage years, I don't speak that much to my daughters (it minimizes arguing), and when I do, it is schoolwork related, and so a lot of our learning interactions are laced with the undertones of adolescent mother daughter conflict.  Is that why they have unhappy memories of our work together?  It saddens me because studying Torah with my daughters has been one of the happiest and most rewarding experiences of my life.

Maybe they got more out of it than they feel they got.  Maybe they have an underlying feeling of dislike of slogging through the skillswork, but maybe they also have an overall sense of Torah that they don't even realize, because it's so much a part of them.

It's hard to not be down on myself and not question and not wonder if I've been going about this wrong.

But I take a deep breath.  Sarah's a wonderful young lady.  I hope, and there is every reason to believe, that Chana and I will emerge from the tumult of these years.

It is possible that I'm teaching Torah in a way that causes them to dislike it.  I'm already trying a different approach with the boys, anyway.  So maybe I made mistakes.  Maybe I bungled it somewhat.

I'm going to take my usual approach.  Cut myself a break.  Let these thoughts simmer.  If I think I made mistakes that I have an opportunity to do better with in the future, then I'll try to do better.  If it's in the past, so be it.

Back to the practical.  I've got a list of 16 rashis and a daughter who's not talking to me.  My priority is to have a pleasant interaction of some sort with her, and that is trickier than doing those rashis.

Vayikra 20:20-21

It's odd that these 2 sexual prohibitions are listed as having the punishment of "ariri," meaning to be childless.  Usually these are besdin -- court -- punishments.  Is it true halachically that there is no court punishment?

On a side note, in on of our more absurd and yet classic interactions, I asked her to read the rashi so I could evaluate how her blind rashi reading is.  (People ask how I know how my children are doing in school if I don't administer tests.  I sit next to them as they do their work and get a feel for if they understand the material and are capable of doing it or not.)

Chana wanted me to read it to her.  I said if I read it to her, I won't be able to tell how she is at reading a rashi she's never read before and has had no introduction to.

We bickered back and forth a bit.  I tried some Playful Parenting techniques like pretending to be a teenager and reacting how she reacts.  It did break the tension and it was fun, but it was not actually effective in getting her to read the rashi.  So I turned back into Mom and insisted.

She was annoyed, but she did it.  Then I started to translate it and somehow I annoyed her by not doing it how she wanted me to, and she refused to finish the rashi.

Today is the next day and we haven't done that rashi yet.  It's Friday and now that Shabbos is late, I often think we have plenty of time and then we don't.  I still have to make Shabbos and I don't know if I want to tangle over this rashi today.  I've been not very contentious about rashi lately, because she's been reluctant.

beware lest

Chana suggested I not get too carried away with giving her rashis.  She reminded me of a time not too long ago when she had so many rashis that she got burnt out we had to take a break for a few months and do no rashis whatsoever.

I'm happy we are still working in the book with no nekudos in the rashi.  Some of them she's not getting, but some of the words she reads really nicely.

back to rashi

So today we sat down to do the rest of the first paragraph and a bunch of rashis.  Ordinarily, on a short Friday I would skip chumash altogether except for what Chana can do independently, and we'd probably do it motzei Shabbos.  But in a rare situation where Aharon is napping and Jack has strep and Elazar is showering for shabbos, we have a trifecta of calm to work on Chumash.

However, Chana is having none of it.  After our rashi break I'm dragging her back kicking and screaming.  And to add insult to injury, we are resuming with a Chumash without nekudos in Rashi.  If I was on the fence yesterday, I am more determined today.  She is in 7th grade and it is time to practice reading rashi without nekudos.

So she crabbed and kvetched and complained and was generally in a bad mood.  I must emphasize that in a bad mood without hormones is a completely different experience than a bad mood under the influence of hormones.  Even though she was annoyed and whining and complaining, when I said, "Come on, Chana, let's get going" she said, "I'm in the middle of a tantrum" and laughed.  And it wasn't even very intense.
That is not to say it was pleasant.  Basically, Chana has always been upset when we start something new (training her to get a spoon herself for her breakfast cereal when she was 4 took at least 2 weeks of screaming) and her nature is to be crabby until she adjusts to the new reality.  My job is to be patient and show her that even though her feelings are screaming at her that she can't do it, she can and she will.  Despite the pressure, my job is to firmly but nicely insist on her doing it.

In my opinion, her ability was decent and she read a lot of it correctly.  I think she's ready to do it without vowels and although I would have liked her to read it correctly one more time after I read it to her, she refused and I didn't push it.  We did 5 pretty small rashis.  I lost track of how long it took.  And she didn't do more than 4 pesukim.  But they had a number of new and unfamiliar words.

I think it would have gone better if she wouldn't have talked herself into being so negative about it.  But maybe she just needs to adjust.  We'll see how next time goes.

So how is Vayikra going?

Today is Thursday, which means we go to Parkour, and we usually do Chumash in the car on the way over.  It's about a 20 minute drive.  I was surprised that Chana brought the Chumash, since she doesn't really like to do new pesukim while I'm driving and can't really look at the pesukim.  It goes like:

Chana: mumblemumblemumble
Me: What?  Can you read it again?
Chana: vayakmumblemumble
Me: What? I can't understand you
Chana: somethingIDon'tUnderstand
Me: I don't think that's a word.  Are you sure you have the nekudos right?
Chana: Never mind!
Me: But how can you translate it?
Chana slams the Chumash shut.

Anyway, today she muttered a bit about the spacing.  I said I thought maybe now that she's older it won't bother her that much.  She muttered some more and then did 5 pesukim.  She had planned on doing until the first parsha setuma, which is 4 more pesukim.  They had enough unfamiliar words that she wanted to wait to do it when we were sitting next to each other.

Lots of things happened today, and now Chana is at a bat mitzva from someone she met in sleepaway camp, and so we won't be doing any more work this evening.  Haha, in our homeschool she works in the evening so she's "missing a day of school" to go to a party.

There are a number of fascinating rashis on the first pasuk that I am completely unfamiliar with.  They are a bit complicated so I'm picking out phrases and underlining them so she doesn't have too much difficulty with them.

And I can't believe I have never seen these rashis!  And then I realized: When did I even learn Vayikra in high school?  I didn't.  I'm not sure how much we did in elementary school, either.  I know the high school trends have changed and I think more schools are covering it now.  But this is new to me!

Hormones

Tonight was one of those nights that people are talking about when they say, "I could never homeschool my kids!"

My daughter is preteen.  It's been building up for a few days, the bad mood, the surliness, the crying at the drop of a hat, the fury at anything and everything, most especially her mother.  Tonight, some of the things she said had me mentally filing them to share with my sister and another friend with a preteen daughter, for example: "Don't say 'Good'!  I can't stand it when you say that!!" and "Don't tell me to reread it!  I was going to reread it" after she deliberately mumbled a phrase and she hadn't reread the last phrase she deliberately mumbled last time without prodding.  etc etc.

The line from the Princess Bride kept going through my mind:  Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!  Hahahahahahaha.. until he keels over.
But I substituted: Never do Chumash with a preteen daughter when she is hormonal! Hahahahahahaha.. and then I keel over.

Last week I felt we were speaking too sharply to each other.  This mostly comes up during Chumash because we (thankfully) aren't in much conflict at other times during the day.  I told her on Shabbos that I felt like I wanted to try to react better.  Most of our conflicts last week ended up like this:
Me: Stop screaming.
Her: I should stop screaming?! You're the one screaming!
Me: I'm only screaming because you screamed at me first!
Her: I didn't scream first! You're the one who screamed first!

I figured that since we always end up arguing over who started screaming first, maybe I should just try to control my powerful negative reaction when I *perceive* that I'm being screamed at, and maybe if I'm nicer, we won't explode.  I shared that with her on Shabbos, and she appreciated it.

This evening, every time her tone got obnoxious, I reminded myself inside my head that I was going to be pleasant when she was obnoxious.  I think I did this 6 or 7 times.  (At one point, I said to her, "You are screaming at me."  And she said, "I'm not screaming.  I think you think screaming is louder than I think it is."  And I was thinking at the exact moment she then said: "Actually, you think my screaming is louder than I think it is, and I think your screaming is louder than you think it is.  So we actually both think screaming is exactly equal, but reversed."  Yes!!! A moment of rare accord.)

Also, I decided to do a rashi tonight.  She asked why she has to do rashi.  I asked her to tell me.  Seeing as we have this conversation every time I ask her to do rashi.  She shrieked said, "I don't know! That's why I asked the question! Why would I ask a question unless I want you to answer it!"  Then I said I want her to learn to read and understand rashi.  And she shrieked said she already knows how to read rashi.  And I said she needs to learn how to understand rashi.  (Never mind that she didn't know the samech from the mem sofis and when I mentioned that, she shrieked said, "I forgot! I'm allowed to forget!" Yes, you are allowed to forget, but not if you insist that you don't need practice because you are already great at it.)  Then she pitched a fit objected that I was asking her to translate too much.

I think she did a pretty decent job translating.  I'm still a little disturbed that we are using rashi with nekudos and I don't know how she would be at rashi without nekudos, which is really what I'd like her to be able to read.  But hopefully with more familiarity will come fluency.

I was pretty irritated by the end and, while I did manage to hold onto my Zen (mostly), I think this whole thing was a valuable experience for us.

While it's not delightful to interact with each other when she is in a bad mood, this gives us a lot of practice working on our self control and conflict resolution.  It's an opportunity for me to model kindness in the face of provocation.  It's an opportunity for her to restrain herself to snarling instead of a full-blown freak out.  We are trying to be respectful of each other while we are both extremely irritated.  It is during the crucible of these moments that I find my better self (after sometimes also finding my most hideous self) and refine my patience and my character.  It is these moments that will be some of my daughter's most valuable lessons.

It is not pleasant to homeschool through these times.  But when you ask me, how do I homeschool and teach and discipline when my children are obnoxious and difficult and horrid?  The answer is, I'm glad I do.

Luckily, I also get a lot of "do-overs" when I don't handle things as well as I'd like to.  Tomorrow will be another night.

Oh, wait.  We still have math.

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.

mizbeach

I sat with the artscroll rashi book open today.  But that wasn't nearly enough.  I'm google imaging right and left.

http://www.utom.org/library/pictures/tabernacle/copperalter2.jpg

That's the picture that I found most useful.  My favorite is that it labeled all the different weird Hebrew words like border and netting.  I did this with Sarah and I don't recall a lattice netting.  (google "lattice" for Chana, but then I ended up pointing to our radiator cover that also has a metal lattice.)  Guess I learn something new each time.

I did peruse rashi in English to discover what it means to put something under from the bottom.  Superfluous and saying the same thing twice.  Chana wanted to know why.

PS.  Chana had her bas mitzva and we still haven't finished all the meanings of the brachos in shemona esrei (though she can fulfil her technical chiyuv of tefila without it).

PPS.  I had been wanting Chana to work on writing Ivrit and I told her to come up with an idea for a story but so far that's all we did.

PPPS.  I'm not impressed with Sfasenu 4.  It's getting that I pretty much need to sit next to her when she reads it and I'm not sure she's actually improving in her Hebrew.

artscroll rashi

I have excellent skills.  I went to an elementary school that did Ivrit b'Ivrit.  From kindergarten to 8th grade, our limudei kodesh teachers did not speak English to us.  In fact, I believe the principal specifically hired teachers with poor English.  At least, they always told us they didn't speak English.  I went to a rigorous high school and was in Honors classes.  For one test, we had as many as 50 rashis, Ibn Ezras, Rambans etc to know inside.  (For comparison, my daughter, in a rigorous high school non-Honors, has about a dozen.  Probably the honors classes are similar to mine.)  I feel comfortable opening a mikraos gedolos and looking inside.

With all of my wonderful education that we all who are homeschooling are desirous of giving to our children, so they don't have to crack open an artscroll, today I opened the artscroll Rashi to deal with the mishkan.  And it is glorious.  The picture of the menorah is so clear.  Chana was not that interested, since I had kept muddling through it when we were doing it and she didn't want to hear about it anymore. ("I KNOW about the goblets and the buttons and the flowers.  You showed me so many times already!") But I really hadn't understood exactly what the pesukim were saying about the different locations of each.  It just seems so much clearer with Rashi laying out the details, and artscroll translating Rashi so beautifully.  I opened it to deal with the planks.  I will be using it for the rest of our pesukim on the mishkan.  And hopefully with the boys in the future.

chana happily did chumash today.  we are still struggling with the words in these pesukim.  i did a rashi or two orally, which she didn't mind.

rashi hiatus

the rashi complaining has been starting up again.  maybe it was a little before pesach, but certainly since pesach.  the complaints have been getting louder, more vitriolic, more emotional.  chana's been complaining that she hates chumash.  then she amends it--it's not chumash, it's rashi.  so many rashis.  so hard.  she haaaaates it.  etc. it's affecting her attitude towards chumash.  she dreads it.

am i pushing too hard on the rashis?  i think she's capable.  i don't think we are doing too much.  we have been doing a lot.  the rashis are long.  not overly complex language, but not simple.  the concepts are meaty.  (add to that the pesukim are really breaking our teeth just figuring out pshat.)

so after fielding numerous complaints about this, and having chumash often turn into the "please stop yelling at me" "but you're speaking with a short temper too" "that's because you're yelling at me" "that's because i'm frustrated that it's so much and so hard" back and forth that is so unpleasant (though bh we are getting pretty good at disentangling from it), when chana started in today, i decided that since mishpatim is taking us so long to hack our way through, we will not do any more rashi here.  IF we need the rashi to explain a concept, i will explain it to her outside, and she will not have to go back and review it for translation, vocab, structure of concepts, etc.  (there IS a lot going on in these rashis!)

so we'll be doing rashi "outside" for now.  we can focus on the pesukim.  burden is still on me to figure out the pshat of the pesukim, but i'll just use rashi to explain anything i want explained to her.  hopefully this will make things less painful.

also, i'm beginning to feel the pinch of time constraints.  one of the things i adore about homeschool is that there are no time constraints.  since you have hours and hours, months and month, years and years, you can go at your own pace and not worry about "supposed to be up to"s.

chana has probably 2 yrs and 2 months left to homeschool (though she is perfectly willing to continue chumash throughout the summer, she is going to sleepaway camp).  i would love to finish going through chamisha chumshei torah with her.  we are only halfway through shmos.

chana may actually be right that if i drop rashi, it will be much easier to get through the pesukim.  on the other hand, her rashi skills are coming along nicely and i don't want to drop that.  maybe a compromise, where we do rashi separately?  or i select fewer rashis and we do them at a different time and not with chumash?  that always feels strange to me, as rashi is to be learned with chumash.  maybe just fewer rashis.  i will have to give this some thought.

i really dislike teaching for some end goal (finishing x in a certain amount of time) instead of going at a natural pace.

ps chana asked a few times what do all these pesukim have to do with real life.  as soon as we switched "sheep" "oxes" and "goats" for "her ipad that she saved up for and bought with her own money," things became very clear to her.

math rashi

Even though I haven't been brave enough to unschool Chumash, I dropped math 2 years ago, when Chana began to seriously dislike fractions.  I slowly introduced them to her a year plus later, in a very relaxed way, when we didn't "need" to keep up with any curriculum, talking a lot about pizzas and how many slices they have, and moving on to addition and subtraction and reducing and multiplying and dividing and improper fractions.

It was nice that when we hit a rashi that had fractions (hashem remembers the sin for 4 generations and does chesed for thousands; rashi says hashem's punishment to chesed has a ratio of 1:500), Chana was receptive to reducing the fractions and showing how they are equivalent.

Rashi

Rashi, Rashi, Rashi.  Always Rashi.  I've gotten a little lax with Rashi.  Not with the amount.  Nope, Chana is slogging away at many long Rashis, complaining as she does so.  In fact, it's become a daily comment that she would not dislike Chumash except that she has to do Rashi.

In two ways I've slacked off a little.  First of all, nekudos.  The chumash we are using has nekudos in Rashi.  We started using it because the typeset is so much easier for her to read, and she's very visual and these things matter to her.  I had high goals of once she was proficient with nekudos, to review it with another chumash without nekudos, and that seems to have fallen by the wayside.

The second way is regarding translation.  If she doesn't know the exact phrases, but she reads it in Hebrew so that the hebrew phrases become somewhat familiar to her, but in English she only translates it overall of by the general idea, I've started letting that go.  Because she has been getting so irritated and feeling so bogged down by knowing every single phrase, so it's been feeling like if she knows the general idea, that's good enough.

I really want her to have good skills.  As always, I wonder if I'm sacrificing too much for those skills, and if she would have an overall more joyous chumash experience if I wasn't hocking her with so much Rashi.

Right now, though, I'm sticking with what I'm doing, as I sense that the Rashi isn't so overwhelming and she doesn't dislike or dread Chumash.