God in America From Jesus to Christ series Jesus in China

I totally understand and sympathise with you as we have very similar circumstances. All my family is abroad too. A schedule might be worth considering. Your 7 and 5 yr olds should be able to do some work independently. Have you heard of "Managers of Their Homes?" This has helped me order our day and feel a sense of accomplishment daily with our 3 children. Dd 4 enjoys workbooks and sticker books, painting, and gluing so this frees me a little while I teach her brother who is 6. Meanwhile DD 2 gets an old, used workbook for "school". She insists on doing what her siblings are doing otherwise it gets chaotic. When I have one-on-one time with DD4, DS 6 plays with DD2. These are just some of the ideas I glean from MOTH. Also, we are done with school by lunch time except for reading to the children and DS fun reading time, which we do for an hour after lunch/break. I also feel a need to spend time alone (which is why I am up at midnight-bad habit though!)otherwise I get weary and irritable. When DH comes home, he helps by giving baths to the children.They are amazingly calm around him. Meanwhile I get out my audiobook on the ipod while cooking and doing chores and that's quite satisfying to me. After dinner DH makes me escape to the bedroom and lock the door on some days for about half an hour to recharge. I have also found grocery trips alone bring a measure of serenity. I had to find new ways to recoup my energy. A nice long brisk walk is something I really look forward to but it doesn't happen consistently. Wish you the best!

Two hours each must be spent on the following people: o Nelson Mandela: A South African and international leader 5 hours o Miriam Makeba: South African singer who was forced to live far from home for most of her life 2 hours o Mother Teresa: a nun who helped poor people in India 2 hours o Neil Armstrong: first person to walk on the moon 2 hours o Deshun Deysel: Uses the lessons of sport to make a difference in people’s lives (Member of the first South African expedition to Mount Everest) A note states that: Teachers must teach about Nelson Mandela, but can choose to replace one of the others with a local, provincial, national or international person who has made a positive difference. Use the broad questions above as a guide to structure the lessons. The other subjects all have a similar level of very specific detail of what must be taught by when. If this is implemented for homeschoolers and compliance is enforced, it is going to greatly restrict our freedom of education. Oh! I had just responded on your other thread before seeing this one. Well, after all Mandela is pivotal in the shaping of your country so I can see them expecting the children to know something about him. Without knowing about him there'd be a huge gap in your children's history lessons. I guess I am not understanding what "freedoms" you are refering to. Does the problem lie in having to teach certain topics, like the one you gave on Nelson Mandela? I am still trying to find these in the long long documents to get a better understanding of what you are refering to.

I just saw this and this would take quite some time to read through. So far all I see is goals and objectives for each subject for all the grade levels. I am more familiar with grades 1 and I think even though the requirements are very specific, you could accomplish this with the many curriculums out there. Do they require you to use specific textbooks too or do you have the freedom to use other materials to accomplish the same goals? I looked at our states requirements and they are just as detailed and wordy. I am looking for information pertaining to Home Educators and don't see any yet. It would be helpful if you could tell us where to find that information showing what is required of homeschoolers. Do you have a homeschool legal defense group, something similar to HSLDA that could help identify loopholes and potential problems? The information on South Africa by HSLDA is not current,so not much help there.

Thanks for the very good points. Yes, she would definately have to target a wider audience. I just thought of coloring books too. I enjoy studying world history, it's a passion. I took a World History Class in college and our instructor used the most interesting books. We had one on WW1. It was a collection of letters from soldiers many of whom were african fighting for the British. There was even a letter from an african king. I loved this book because it was a first person account of the events. I also came across a book on amazon written by Ibn Battuta an early middle eastern traveller who visited Europe, Africa and China and he wrote accounts of his travels. These are books I would definately use when our children get older. Thanks Terri, I will send your comments to her.

I met an african homeschooler mom whose is almost done with homeschooling. Her DD graduated high school and she has a DS14. She lives in Kenya and has been considering becoming a provider for resources on African studies. I have little ones 6,4, and 2 so I did not have much to suggest other than history, geography, and storybooks for the younger age group. I told her I would ask the wonderful ladies on this forum. Ladies, What resources would you consider using for your african studies? What would you like to use but can't find? Thanks in advance!

We use http://www.amazon.com/Year-Devotions-Preschoolers-Little-Blessings/dp/0842389407/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272071198&sr=1-1

Here is some information on the various types of lentils or Dal. Last week I made Red Lentil Curry from allrecipes.com and my family loved it. The website seems to be down at this time.

Rosie try the International flat rate option. It is quite reasonable.