I afterschool my daughter because the PS curriculum is inadequate and way too focused on test preparation. I also want her to learn languages now. I don't homeschool mainly because my English is not good enough and PS works as an immersion environment. I just don't see how I can provide her with so many hours of native English conversations. In a year or so I may decide that her English is settled enough to homeschool, because honestly time IS a big problem. As for her enthusiasm... Well, she is not too happy, but she sees the effect of it, and so she accepts it. Just today she came to me and said that we need to do more Language Art, since she didn't feel she got enough. I honestly didn't expect that from a 7yo.

I wouldn't worry yet. Although when my son was 24 months and barely saying a couple of words I did. However, at 25 months he started talking, and at 27 months he was talking in long sentences. Your son may just not see a need in talking, especially since he is signing.

I am not sure about offering a low-res CD. In my experience, a lot of people will print those, especially those who buy only this CD. It is surprising how many of them just don't care about quality. I would consider selling such a CD only together with either prints of these same images or a high-res CD. Low-res CD for me is just images formatted like for internet posting, I usually watermark them along the bottom.

I think you best bet would be prereading them. I didn't find them particularly scary, and my DD7 devoured them and then reread them a few times. She had no problems whatsoever, but she is not what I would call sensitive. Only you know your child enough to decide what is fine for him. As for the quality... I agree that Harry Potter is a better written book, but it was Percy Jackson and the Red Pyramid that awoke my daughter's interest in ancient Greece and Egypt. And no, it is not necessary to know the myths beforehand.

The war in Portugal, Spain, and France part of the era really clicked with me after reading the series about Sharpe by Bernard Cornwell. It seems to be well researched, and books contain short appendices that explain what really happened, where, and when, and what was added for the sake of the story. It is mostly about war but even though I am usually lost when it comes to the descriptions of battles, his books left me with good pictures of what really happened there.

I thought about it some more. Yes, of course she will not be studying 7 languages at once. That is probably my main problem, I don't want her to study 6 languages and 4 sciences all at once in high school. Or, rather, I am afraid that she won't want it :) Right now we have 4 languages going. English and Russian are not done as "languages" but as language arts and literature. I tried introducing grammar on a more formal level during our study of Spanish, but she is just not ready yet. So it is more of an immersion right now. Armenian is spoken by a few of her friends, and her dad is Armenian. He speaks Armenian, although it is a foreign language for him, and can correct her. Right now we want her to pick up enough vocabulary and basic grammar to understand and converse with her friends. Unfortunately, it is a rare case when someone here is really literate in Armenian, and definitely not the second generation. All of them switch to English as soon as topic goes beyond basics. So I think we will drop the lessons after a year or so and just leave it to her conversations with friends and her dad. After that I'll add Latin or French. I definitely want her to read classic French literature, especially since I came to realize how often translation kills the original. Now I understand that I should have started with French and added Spanish later, but it is too late now. Oh well. I may drop Spanish somewhere in high school if she is good enough by then and can talk, read, and write fluently AND she is overloaded with other subjects. Of course, it will also somewhat depend on her academic preferences. I want to thank everyone who answered my question, it is really starting to fall in place in my head :)

I have received most of my education in Russia, in an absolutely average school, and then in an average university. While I would agree that my math and science level was head and shoulders above those I met in a graduate school here, it was definitely at the expense of humanities. We had decent Russian language and literature classes, but the rest was almost nonexistent. I think we had 2 hours of foreign language with nothing to show for it at the end of the school; 2 or 3 hours of history with homework that most of the time meant to prepare a narration of a page or two from the textbook. I remember doing it during the last five minutes before the class. Guess how much I remember from it. I don't think we wrote a single essay for history, except for the essay style tests, which were really narrations from the same textbook. But I still can explain high school algebra (and probably even calculus, I just haven't tried it) to a student. So at least in Russia it was a trade off. I think that sports, drama, etc can and should be outsourced and done in free time, but a whole block of academic disciplines just can't. My oldest is only 7, but an attempt to marry Russian-style math and science with European-style humanities over long run and still stay within a reasonable timetable is already giving me a headache. Plus there is a problem of transcripts...

Thank you, ladies. My main problem is that while I don't view Russian as a foreign language, it comes with LA, literature, and history and will stay until graduation. It is much more than a foreign language from the scheduling point of view, so I cannot just not count it. I don't want to overload my daughter too much. But, Ester Maria, you almost convinced me that it is all still possible :) I'll keep your suggested schedule in mind and then make decisions when the time comes.

It's very interesting, both the video and the Charlotte Mason bit. I always did dictations the same way as Ester Maria. Actually, when I was in school, we did dictations, which were to check our spelling and punctuation skills and later (about middle school age) also narrations, which meant we had to listen to about a page of text twice and then write it down keeping the content close to the original but not word by word. Is there a real need to remember exactly a page of text after hearing it once or twice?

I think I know what they mean. When I first moved to the US I met several other immigrants who moved here as children. Their English was marginally better than mine, and their Russian stayed on the child level plus they acquired some accent, too. So what I saw were rather intelligent people (I met them in my graduate school) who spoke two languages but were not fully literate in either one. It truly is scary, and it greatly affected me. So we speak Russian only at home, and my daughter goes to public school to balance it. Unfortunately, the scale is now tipped in favor of English, so I am working hard to bring her Russian to the same level. We are almost there, bit not quite. Anyway, the point is that the kids have to converse in a language on a high level, at least in one language. Often, when you speak in a language you are not quite fluent in, you will pick simpler words and use simpler constructions. It is fine if they hear one language simplified, as long as there is another place or another language where they get input on a good level. Otherwise they just don't learn to think in more complex language. At least, this is how I see it.

I am pretty sure I saw a problem like this in one of the elementary level workbooks, although I don't remember which one. It is certainly not a college level problem. ETA: I have a rising third grader, so it was at her level or below.

I am trying to plan ahead a little, and I can't decide what to do with spacing the languages I want to learn with my daughter. She is 7, almost 8, a rising 3rd grader. She speaks Russian and English fluently for her age, and we are aiming for true literacy in these two languages. She has also started studying Spanish about 6 months ago. Spanish is useful here, but I would prefer her to learn French as her main foreign language, and she likes it, too. She also wants to learn Latin and Greek (and ancient Egyptian, but I think I convinced her to wait till college for that one.) With learning spoken Armenian thrown into the mix, we are getting 7 languages, which I think is a bit too much and at least some of them will suffer. So, what would be the best way to spread them over time, and which one(s) should I cross out from the list if I want her to know them, not just be acquainted with them (except Armenian, that one will have to stay as everyday conversational language, which I think should take 6 months - 1 year). Oh, and from the Latin/Greek pair she is more interested in Greek.

There is a workbook and tests available on-line. http://www.rosettastone.com/homeschool/sem

We have a December cutoff,so my DD was 6 years 9 months when she started 2nd grade.

I think theme books are all stand-alone, but there probably is much more info on DVDs. To me, All Things Fun and Fascinating is a good trade-off, but we have just started. And I only have the student book. If along the way I feel the need, I may get the teacher's book too, and maybe the DVD course as well, lol.

StephanieF, I have no idea what is on teacher's DVD:blush: For us, the book is enough.

I also agonized for a while over this same question. I went with All Things Fun and Fascinating for my 3rd grader. So far we like it. I looked at the previews at their site and just by looking at the content The Ancients seems to be more advanced. My DD is 7, and not a very good writer to put it mildly. I hope All Things Fun and Fascinating will work for us.