It is a strong, well-organized paper. :) Two comments & tips on how to improve: 1) The paper reads in some places as a bit of an awkward mix of formal and informal writing. She could render it more "academic" and more formal by avoiding judgment absolutes ("one of the most important questions ever asked") and abandoning second person for general statements (replace "you first have to understand" with "one first has to understand" or something similar). It may also be a good idea to refrain as much as possible from personal comments such as "sadly" or "thankfully". 2) I found the last paragraph a bit unclear - I did not understand why people would be pardoned for their sins, but it would made no difference, had the story ended before the resurrection. I think that point could be elaborated on a bit more, why resurrection specifically makes all the difference. Otherwise, I would be pleased with her writing - good job. :)

My children can study pretty much whatever they want, provided they satisfy my general framework. It is a quid pro quo, really: I require of you to do A, B, and C, and in exchange I am going to get you resources / finance a mentorship / however else you want to learn D, E, and F. So, there are some things they study that way. Then within that framework I allow them to emphasize / deemphasize areas. I do not allow them to rule them out, and there are minimal requirements, but I am okay with one daughter doing a basic progression in a subject, for which she employs some 3 hours weekly, and with another daughter wanting to REALLY get into it and obsessing it for 8 hours weekly and wanting a separate program / different modality of learning / etc. So, we can negotiate intensity and requirements within the areas which are still required. That way we have a cookie and eat it. I also plan some leeway in text-heavy areas, so sometimes we can negotiate readings, order of readings, or supplementary readings... but again within a general framework. I tie languages partially to their interests, that has been a big success. I allow self-scheduling, and we also schedule sessions with me / deadlines. So, for the most part, there is freedom as regards time and when to do things. I DO NOT ALLOW: choosing their primary materials for areas that are not emphasized (they cannot make an educated choice about them), ruling out entire areas of study (rather, we adapt the load and intensivity and negotiate negotiable specifics), intense rabbit trails taking over main schoolwork (they are to be pursued separately most of the time), negotiate basic output / exam requirements.

I know what you mean. :D Not really, meanwhile it has become a native language of several generations of people, and the colloquial layer got well-developed. There is however a certain distance between the literary and the colloquial language, and newer generations have problems reading the Bible, and there is also a problem of scientific vocabulary since due to the structure of Hebrew it is difficult to loan words so there are all kinds of crazy neologisms... but it is a "normal" language today, changing as all other languages do.

Ideally, you read Latin and check the other language as needed, or read side by side - BUT, when you have young Latin students, for whom that is one of the first readings (Caesar is usually the beginning of texts studies), it is not the most economic approach, especially not if your point is just to check the Caesar box and nobody is enjoying it all that much. The things we read together we attempted going from Latin, and I was parsing it into our language, but what they read on their own was translated text. I do not think they ever finished it, I should ask them. I let it slide. I am intentionally lax on Caesar. I do think it is an important piece of the puzzle, but I see no need for as detailed familiarity with Caesar as I see with Virgil's Aeneid, or Ovid's Metamorphoses, or some Cicero's speeches. So, in the grand scheme of things, I sort of view Caesar (along with Sallust) as an author to "sacrifice" at the beginning and while still getting adjusted to the language, etc. I, personally, really do not stress Caesar in any way, so limit myself to anthology-level selections, and attempt to broaden it by trying to read a bit more than that, even if translated, to the extent we could bear it, but that is about it. YMMV.

Selections in Latin only for analysis and translation (Caesar is typically one of the first prose authors covered) + learning that bloody opening passage by heart (because "everybody does it" LOL) + then a bilingual edition (with jumping to and fro versions, a mix of read aloud and independent reading) for reading... as far as one's patience allows. Lots of tea, some chocolate, "this too shall pass" attitude, training patience, stoicism. Interrupt it at some point and get refreshed with some NICE Latin, such as Ovid. Then get back to Caesar, as much as patience allows. As you can see, we do not really like Caesar here, LOL. No play, games, nothing, we just wanted to check that box and MOVE ON. Maybe if I had boys :tongue_smilie:, but with girls, nope. It was USEFUL, but not very enjoyable. Maybe they get back to it at some point in the future. For my own self, I doubt. :tongue_smilie:

One of my daughters had a noticeable touch of perfectionism to her. Not a FULL BLOWN perfectionism, with meltdowns and being frustrated all the time, but a visible touch nonetheless and sometimes it would get hard with her because she would take herself, and life, too seriously to be able to simply enjoy the ride to the best of her effort, but without overthinking her shortcomings and walls. Then puberty hit her. And wow, did she change. A LOT. It is almost as though she has grown a different basic personality (of course, not that extreme, the basic traits are still there, but the whole mix has a VERY different flavor now than when she was elementary aged). She has become a lot more open, easy going, a lot less hard on herself, sometimes even to the other extreme (cynical-phlegmatic rather than getting worked up about things; vanitas vanitatis kind of mood rather than taking things so seriously as she used to). In retrospect, what helped, other than crazy hormones: - Working on SKILLS that require sustained effort and TIME to be developed, rather than giving an instant gratification of "getting" it (such as an instrument, learning to draw, a sport, etc.); - Modeling at home "non-catastrophic" thought patterns and behavior when things go wrong or when faced with any kind of problems; - Modeling being able to do things "properly", but without taking them so seriously, knowing that in the grand scheme of things it is not all THAT important and not worth our nerves; - Modeling not taking yourself so seriously and putting our struggles in context; - Cultivating disposition to humor; - Reading Ecclesiastes :lol:; - Simple maturity.

I agree that Oliver suits him. :)

I err on the unsanitized side, though I did sanitize some of them a little when they were REALLY small. 5-6, though, unsanitized.

Jewish / Italian. The golden rule was not to add work to other people, which translated to picking up after myself and taking care of all the things related to me (my room, most of my laundry when I was older, etc.). Other than that, my mother taught me how to do everything around the house, but so that I would know it - I do not recall actually having to do "practice" it on a regular basis. Except for some cooking. No. Money was not transparent, I never knew exactly how much money we had, and vacations / travel were wherever my parents determined when I was small. When I was older, I had the option of staying at home or arranging alternative vacations / travel for myself (with friends, or visiting family and relatives, whatever), at my parents' expense, but I had to ASK for it, not assume my parents to read my mind and my wishes. Not really. I liked living with my parents and it never felt stifling as regards my personal freedom. I did at some point want to move out for the fun of it (being "big", in my own place, etc.), but I never had an urge to leave nor did my parents attempt to "suggest" I should leave. Yes. They were not so much worried about independent living, because already as an older teenager I basically lived on my own while in their house, without bothering them too much and often without really seeing them for days, so it was more of a "flatmates" situation than a "parents and a child" situation. I was a good kid, and VERY independent, so they did not mind me living in. They never had to solve any of my issues (with school, taking care of me and my needs, etc.). No, but I would not terribly mind it either, provided enough space for a "flatmates" situation as I had with my parents. Still, I would prefer them out on their own.

That is an awkward age. A lot of intermittent silence / "meaning of life" / sensitivity / depression of spirits. They are growing up, their emotions are intensifying, and they have no language yet to describe what exactly it is. As hard as it may be on you, I would try to downplay it and not make it an issue lest it become an issue, "suggested" by you. :grouphug:

Figured out on my own before school. :tongue_smilie: At school, no idea how do you call the method, we were not educated in English, but in a rather phonetic language, so it was easy. By the time we got to learn English, we were reading already, so nobody taught us to specifically decode words in English. I had no idea what phonics WAS until I crossed Atlantic, and had no idea about reading wars. Everybody I knew was reading, period, and English was awkward to read, but it had a certain logic to it which you grasped after a while and it became quite intuitive too.

Do you have a link to some source for this, in terms of numbers? I have wondered about this often myself as it seems to fit in with some of my anecdotal observations, but I have never read anything "serious" about the topic, so... :bigear:

I would not really put it on the easier side for an English speaker :tongue_smilie:, but it is not impossible either. Many of the "early modern" (as in, beginning 1900s :lol:) texts are way MORE difficult, actually, because the language had not become colloquial yet so there were many Biblical constructions and weird neologisms and stuff.

:iagree:

Very normal. :) I like the picture, BTW.

You need to find out the realistic balance that works for you and your family. You know your limits, in terms of mental and physical stamina / time constraints / interests and long term plans / other life concerns and duties.

It is a language that seems gloomy, doomy and daunting, is it not? "Seems" being the key word though. ;) Hebrew has certain morphological intricacies that are governed by a different "logic" altogether than the typical Western languages studied... however, it is often said that within that logic of its own (well, really - of Semitic languages), it is quite consistent once you get into its flow. It is a bit like switching from the standard to the metric system, LOL: it not only "relabels" your world, but it also parses it differently, in chunks of different quantities, and you have to learn to deal with approximation within that new logic, but there is still method to it, it is not a mess. So, its complexity is less a matter of genuinely greater morphological burden (although just about any commonly studied language beats English at that), and more a matter of a kind of a different "parsing" of the world. You have to get used to a different concept of the tense, for example, because Hebrew does not really have classical tenses and tense organizations as English does... Hebrew "tenses" are more like elaborate aspects, having to do with the quality of action more than with its point on a timeline. You also have to get used to the supreme importance of grammatical gender, which changes nearly everything you are going to say (there is a joke that you cannot curse a dog in Hebrew because first you would have to check whether it is male or female, LOL), and which is also ruled by some weird-flavored logic for English speakers... but they get used to it. :) You also have to get used to all kinds of weird constructions, but none of that is impossible to grasp and implement. I am not even sure that I would consider Hebrew more complex *in absolute* than Latin, or even Italian. It is just more distant for most people, less culturally familiar, without any significant lexical overlap, beginning Hebrew is often like going to a linguistic Mars... a whole different world, with little resemblance to what you know. But in absolute? Barring literacy, which IS a concern in its own category, I am not sure. Maybe somebody who was distant enough from both worlds (imagine somebody from rural China who only speaks their dialect of Chinese) would actually not see a significant difference in overall complexity, since the easier and the harder aspects of each language would pehaps round it to roughly the same. Literacy is the major problem, though. Hebrew is one of those languages which you cannot read until you speak them, literally - and it is an EXCELLENT cognitive exercise. I have not encountered a better method to train some nuances of grammatical thought than reading Hebrew without vowels. You cannot read it if you do not know what you are reading, you often must read a sentence in advance to figure out how to read some word (with time you develop speed and intuition, of course), and Hebrew reading is basically a game of elaborate "guessing" quite often - but intelligent guessing. It is not my first language, but it is one of the few languages I do like to think I am not altogether bad at. :D My children claim that it did more for their linguistic and cognitive development than Latin and Greek combined, LOL. But it is not because it is uniquely complicated, I think. It is because it is genuinely different from their world and it shapes mind to think in some additional ways which otherwise might have remained hidden. So, in that respect, I do think that it helps with language learning in general, developing abstract thought, and with further studied languages.

Take a look at Latin for the New Millennium, it may be a better fit than a more traditional program.

Israeli texts for government schools for Tanach, if you speak Hebrew. They do not assume a Jewish lifestyle and approach things from a more historical / connections with literature and general culture / philological angle.

Yes. :)

35 weeks x 6 days.

Yes. Grazie / Gracias is the exact equivalent of "thanks", morphologically (noun, plural). Obrigado/a is like saying "[much] obliged" (adjective relative to the one who speaks).

DH. :lol: By the way, speaking of Behrman house, I found this to be useful for more advanced / older kids, as a good bridge to Israeli literature, with good selections and study questions, and everything is menukad in case it matters to you.

You were literally done after school? I was not in a homework-heavy school either, which was wonderful, but there was always a certain amount of readings to do, a translation or two (not that you had to do it and hand in, but you had to know it for the next period), and school was lectures and examinations, very little revision / exam prep. So, by extension, even if we were done early, there was still work to do (theoretically, as I often did not do it ;)). My eldest is in a French prep school and the amount of classical homework is much lesser than what the American prep schools students have, but she is still not done with school when she exits the building. She still has a lot of time, which she uses for music, Jewish stuff, reading, etc. - but the school definitely takes some of the "free" time. I imagine that if she were not advanced, she would have to pull in some actual regular effort in it, outside school hours, every day. Right now her only "real" challenge is French, but for a child without her background, I can easily see potential long hours of study. Thus my observation. (Ontopic, if I had to do only 6 subjects in the typical US scheme, I would do language and letters 1, language and letters 2, math, history, science, and something in the realm of worldview / philosophy.)

But the OP, if I understood her correctly, wanted to educate her children in the language, not "only" have them learn it. I am not sure she can do it if not proficient herself... how would she grade assignments, develop Spanish literacy, teach her children biology in Spanish etc.? I think no quantity of DVDs can fix things that much if the whole educational context would be in faulty Spanish. Learning things via exposure always happens, but there is a difference between a foreign language and a language of education. Children should be educated by proficient speakers, otherwise not only problems with the language, but also with the content of academics surface - you cannot learn well that which you do not understand on the primary, linguistic level, and which your teacher cannot paraphrase / simplify / fully understand herself. If we are talking "only" about learning a foreign language, I agree with you, but if we are talking about turnin that foreign language into the default language of education, I truly think that things change.