First of all, a big thank you to all of you who took time to read and reply. I am pursuing a degree (very) part time and if I were to work I would work part time too. I do understand that being a parent and an academic is super hard work and I have enough sense to realize the incompatibilities of being an academic AND a homeschooling parent of 4 children. I am not drawn to a career per se. I just find homeschooling/parenting soo stressful nowdays and if I were to put the children to a B&M school, what's left for me to do? Work (in a low stress job). Honesty, my whole identity is tied up with homeschooling - homeschooling was/is my passion, my career, and my hobby. Yes, I need a break. I send my oldest to her daddy's office for two mornings and I concentrated on my second oldest. Yesterday, he had an attitude problem and instead of trying to reason with him, I just went to the library. Today we had a good day with the 8 yo and the 3 yo. The 9 yo and the 5 yo had violin lesson and then they went to their daddy's office. The house was soooo peaceful. Sigh! Thank you for suggesting hormonal testing. I am going to have a medical later this year and I will ask for that.

What do you think? Personally, I think I need to get a :chillpill:, but I don't know how. I feel like a martyr with a very short fuse. This make me feel guilty of not being a good mother and that brings up the depressing streak in me. (My mum had clinical depression but she had a totally miserable life compared to mine). I think I have entered a downward spiral. The gut reaction is to turn around 180 degrees and send the kids to the Christian school around the corner and get a job (I have had several offers) and concentrate on my thesis writing. I must add here that I live in a university campus in a developing country and easy "pick-me-ups like chocolate or shopping or going to the mall by myself are not feasible (in case you are going to suggest those :D). Am I the only one feeling totally engrossed and burdened by homeschooling/bringing up children to the point of depression? What are some healthy ways to deal with it? We get plenty of sunshine and I walk frequently, I have help with the housework and a sympathetic husband who is pro-homeschooling, but wants me to be happy above all. What's wrong with me? :confused1: EDA: Since we came here 3 years ago, I have severe anxiety attacks. Travel stresses me beyond description. (We travel to our European country of origin once a year). Lately, it has been worse. I feel like I have an elephant in my chest almost daily. I don't like it and I want to be happy and easy going as I used to be. DH wants us to take another European car tour this year and I want to be able to say "Hell! Yes!" instead of having palpitations and start crying just by thinking of it.. Ugh...

Another vote for NOEO. We are using Chemistry II with a 3rd grader boy and it is a blast.

Memoria Press complete curriculum bundles up to grade 6.

Just keep in mind that the whole family is going to experience culture shock. You don't want to have any more stressors and school IS going to be a stressor. Another thing you might want to consider is the variety of English spoken in the school. I have great respect for World Englishes and Indian English, Philippine English etc are legitimate varieties of the language, but since I am planning to send my children to either a British or American college, I would rather have their academics in Standard English. I would continue to homeschool. ps. This is our 3rd year in the Philippines. We homeschool despite of having a Christian school just around the corner. When we came here my children were 6, 5, 2 and 3 months. The two older ones had a hard time adjusting. I am glad I didn't have any school-related issues to deal with at the same time.

I voted Other. I think we are wired to have children. Call it instinct, God-given drive or whatever. I had a strong desire to have children and it didn't stop until after I had my fourth. Now, I don't want to have any more children. Not because it is hard work (it was hard work when I had three, and still went on to have a fourth), but that desire is totally quenched. My two cents...

My second pregnancy was breech and the consultant tried to manually turn the baby at 34 weeks - unsuccessfully. My boy was born bottom first and it was a good labour - Thank God. I had a super midwife! I really believe he was breech because I was doing a lot of squats!

If I am stile alive, or not in jail or the mental asylum by the beginning of the next year, I am planning on doing Memoria Press' 4th grade bundle, with Singapore math. I will also try to instruct my precious boy in modern Greek and piano. WWE4 will be used as a writing supplement and NOEO Physics as a science supplement.

Do make your own! More power to you!

LOL. It is my dream school too! I live in the other end of the world and the other day, just for fun, I was looking at houses in the area! :lol: I have the school, and I have the house, if only I could persuade hubby to move in KY, USA... and find a job for him there (anybody wants a PhD in New Testament professor?) Oh, I would need to find a job too in order to be able to pay for the move, the school and the house... Oh, well, what about teaching in Highlands? I am just about to graduate with my MA in Education. Perfect life plan... OK, joking aside, we are using Latina Christiana I and it is great. My 8 and 9 year old are loving it. Even the 5 year old says her meal prayer in Latin!

I like it! I like to see how many weeks/days remain! For a geeky person, you could have percentages on the side! :lol:

I am a Greek and I will talk about classical Greek and koine Greek pronunciation - please bear with me and you will see the similarities. a) I took classical Greek in high school - the teachers explained a little about the way scholars *think/assume* ancients pronounced their words; then they started teaching us by using the modern Greek pronunciation. Their rationale? We don't know for sure how ancients pronounced their language and since they are not around to understand us or judge us, let's speak it the way we speak. b) I have met plenty of seminary graduates that, upon finding out my nationality, try to impress me with Bible verses in koine Greek. They have learned the scholarly pronunciation- I don't blame them - but what they utter is totally intelligible to my ears. What a shame... c) My husband is a Greek/British with a PhD in Theology and he is currently a professor of New Testament and Greek. From his research, he has found that the scholarly pronunciation does not have any serious basis. He is teaching modern Greek pronunciation when he is teaching koine Greek. Some students might curse him later on, I don't know. At least they could show off and read a few signs in intelligible Greek when they went to a Biblical Lands tour in Greece. d) I took Latin classes in high school. We learned the classical pronunciation. It is by far the simplest one. Very very simple. When time came to teach our children Latin, my husband insisted we teach the ecclesiastical pronunciation that is closer to modern Italian. If we don't, we will commit the same "crime" Koine scholars commit in teaching unintelligible Greek to seminary students. Conclusion: a) Since we are not going to converse with any ancient Roman/Greek or Medieval scholar, let's learn something that might be useful when we go to Italy or Greece. b) It is *marginally* harder to learn ecclesiastical Latin. It is easier to switch to classical pronunciation. All the best!

We enjoy the book too. We play in teams: Daddy and the little ones against Mummy and the older ones. Good fun!

Sigh! This week was full! full! full! It was the first week of the new school year (we school all year). I am trying to implement the LCC model and it still it was a full week. I am homeschooling a 4th grader, a 3rd grader and a Ker that does 1st grade work. She is almost 6 years old, by the way. Latin was great! The children really enjoyed it. I kept History, Science and Geography for once or twice a week. The recitation kept the children learning! I am impressed. The girls take violin and piano lessons, the 3rd grader only piano, but keeping all of them practicing and doing school and chores and behaving and... and.. and... almost killed me this week. I need to streamline more. How? I am following the Memoria Press recommendations for their new curriculum bundles - just doing chemistry for science instead of their choice. Sigh!

Ooops, yes. Latina Christiana I.

A friend gave me her LC1 to try. She gave me only the TM. I think this is the only book she has. Is it possible to teach just from the TM? Thanks

Hi all, I am drooling over the new Memoria Press grade bundles and seriously considering to try the 4th and 5th grade next year. For those that have used any Memoria Press materials, how independently can they be done? Or do they need heavy teacher interaction? (Latin being the exception, although I have "seen" people here using it independently with the DVDs). Thanks

My 3rd and 4th grader did the Swimming creatures by themselves - with the occasional input from me. They kept a notebook and wrote 1-2 sentences from their reading. They were doing a Heading or two at a time and took them a whole calendar year. They retained the parts we did together, less from the parts they did on their own.

We are starting our new school year in February and I so want to buy the 3rd and 4th package, but a) I have bought the new books already b) cannot sell them because we live abroad... c) even if I go ahead and buy them they will take ages to come... Booohooo! I just have to wait patiently for the next year... Sniff, sniff...

I have just received the latest edition. I didn't have a good look at it yet, and my children are young, so I am not planning to use it anytime soon. The actual writing instruction is probably 1/3 of the book. The other 2/3 are articles you can read and do some exercises - a useful feature.

Go for it! Set you own traditions and remember this when your children are away and they want to set their own traditions.. Happy Holidays!

This is what we do, especially now that I am in graduate school and some times (esp at the end of the semester :001_smile: I need to do MY school uninterrupted). Officially, we are doing 6 weeks on, 1 week off, but even then we do 'light school' - self-paced math review using another curriculum on the same level, reading, etc.

We will finish HOD Bigger by the end of January (we started in June), so we will start afresh in February. I have already Preparing on the shelf, we will start Latin and I will try to streamline our school LCC-style. We will keep the History and Bible suggestions of Preparing and do Chemistry for science.

Thank you for knocking some sense into me, my dear! Yes, what I have works, and what I bought already will work also. Any changes will have to wait until next year or until something does work for us. Sigh! It is nice to shop around though!

We are schooling year round and we will finish our current curriculum by the end of January. I have already purchased curriculum, but I am sooooo drawn to the MP's complete bundles!! I have a third grader and an fourth grader. I would probably continue doing Singapore. We already use R&S Grammar and Spelling. Ah! My heart aches! Totally enamored! I dare not mention my fantasy of switching curriculum to my husband! He has already spent a good amount of money and I cannot sell what I have as we live abroad... Sniff, sniff...