You are killing me. I've downloaded the entire program for my ds and now I hear you all making fun of mep. Does it mean mep is no good?? :confused:

My kid is only 4 but he is a perfectionist, and once something is set as far as he is concerned it is SET IN STONE. I am trying italics because the transition from print to cursive is not very dramatic, so there he won't throw tantrums later on. I got the Italics Beautiful Handwriting for Children as an ebook. Very inexpensive and very close to Dubay-Getty (which is far too much for my budget). I also find a slight slant is actually easier for my child than trying to do print lettering which is upright (vertically straight).

re: chickenpox. Me too! :-)

Thanks everybody. :grouphug: I really needed a group hug. As JudoMom put it, time to regroup, rethink and come up with a new and more casual approach to things. Right, now it is time for an oatmeal bath for my little itchy one! And. Thanks. Again. :blush:

I need a bit of encouragement please. My school year started late because we were moving and to make matter worse the new place had to be fumigated as the landlord didn't and there was a serious roach infestation :glare:. In any case we started in October, but then in November poor DS had a bout of rotovirus for a week, then I was sick with it. Early December my asthma came back with a vengeance (My asthma is better but I have still many bad nights...) and DS got a cold from a desert camping trip. Took a holiday break to get my strength back and just when I am ready to get started first week of January... chickenpox! My planning for the school year has gone seriously pear-shaped and I feel truly discouraged. The way we are going we'll be at it the whole summer. Sorry about ranting about this but... :crying:

Hi. I'm not in Saudi but the Emirates. However I know Aramex, the arabic equivalent to FedEx has a shopping services where you pay $50 and get an address in the US and the UK so companies can mail items to that address and then forward them to your country in the Gulf (they charge per weight). Here's the link: http://www.aramex.com They also have an office in Riyadh! Failing this, you can organise yearly trips to the US and have everything purchase in advanced and shipped to a friend's house, ready to pick up. Hope this helps. Eli

:bigear:

Same boat here. ;)

Hello, Reading the frugal homeschooler's threads around here (all right, "lurking" would be a more appropriate term) I came across the website for an "Old Fashioned Education". It provided a wealth of information for a classical education newbie like me. I know some of the books seem a bit ancient but surely I could find alternatives? (I like SOW books). Anything to keep us within budget (as in shoestring budget that is). We are already doing MEP. Has anyone in this forum tried working with this curriculum? Pros and cons? Pretty please? :bigear: :D

My child is like this too. Your suggestions above makes me really glad I read this thread. Cheers.

Got some cds of music in Spanish for children. Turned out to be Mexican and didn 't I understand half of the words used. Then I got a whole set of handwriting books about z-b handwriting , then switched to italic handwriting. I just can't buy from a catalog, I have to see things first...

Mine takes a bath about 2 a week or if he get really dirty from playing. His hair I do about 1 a week because he hates having it done and screams right throughout (I am surprised the neighbours haven't call the police yet).

Football. It helps with eye, body, foot coordination. It also teaches to work in a team.

I actually smiled. I need this video bad. :D I for one keep telling my son to "sit proper"! :lol:

I downloaded an excel weekly planner from http://www.donnayoung.org It was painless and fool-proof. I didn't want an online planner because sometimes I am nowhere near a wi-fi zone. Like right now we are about to move and so I will be off-line for 2-3 weeks so I can't imagine not being to work on my own. Donna Young has tons of forms which you can customize and then print. No learning curve. No hassle. Works for me! :D

So grateful to you all. This is a lot of information. Not to mention that BlsdMama left me few threads to read LOL. I am going to read every tiny bit of these and then go and think some more. However I now get the difference between the TOG and SL, and more importantly I got to understand how a unit study works! :thumbup:

Wow, thank you for the information. It has made things clearer for me. I only have one child and he is very young for his age. I think I will do as Choirfarm suggests and download the trial and see what the lessons looks like in black and white. He is definitely not ready for history yet, but he is doing astronomy as he is mad about planets and stars and such... How does TOG compare to Sonlight? Please?

As this is our first year of hs and it happens to be pre-school I feel I can manage planning lessons and such. As we move up I feel I may need some help. I am considering TOG but after reading the website I was left with the impression that they sell you a guide on how to use other books and that is it. I know I am probably wrong but can you tell me about TOG? Does it bring detailed lessons plans, or do I have to go through the list of books and figure up what I am going to do that week? Also, the list of books suggested was really long. How expensive does it get for a year if you buy them all, and what happens if you do not? Sorry about the long post but TOG appears to be a good curriculum but also one that looks as if I will have to save towards and budget for (not to mention shipping can take weeks!). :bigear:

The best is when you start dreaming in both languages. Thank you so much for the practical advise about teaching certain subjects in different languages. I am not a native English speaker but I have worked as a translator and done plenty of simultaneous translation in the past. I teach ds reading in both languages at the risk of him picking up my accent (although the speech therapist said this is unlikely). DS wants to read to badly he is actually started to do it on his own so I cannot hold him back -and I don't think I should either! I can manage feet and fit nicely but other words defeat me, like bubble and bauble. :tongue_smilie: I try to compensate for my accent by getting dh to read to ds as often as possible weekends (dh works until late and drives 1,1/2 hours to get home). This morning ds announced to dh what he wanted for Christmas: "I want a train grande!" So he mixes quite a lot. Poor dh can only say "2 cervezas por favor" and "paella". ;)

Thank you, first of all, for the massive hug. I needed it! :) I realise I need to take a :chillpill: and step back before I actually antagonize ds against Spanish. Family pressure is immense. DH wants ds to speak English like a scholar like now, and dm (darling mother of mine) wants ds to speak Spanish like Cervantes, well, like now. She forgets I could not say the "tr" sound for ages! To me, if ds understands Spanish (and he does) it means speaking is sure to follow. Of well, I guess I feel better today :D

I have tried my best to sound like Stephen Fry but I sound far more like comedian Paul O'Grady (he's got the most hilarious Liverpudlian accent). I think learning a second languageand be fluent and sound like a native are two very different things. I am amazed that for 3,1/2 years I spoke to my ds in Spanish 100% of the time and yet he's got an English accent saying the few words of Spanish he does know. I am sorry to sound so down but...hey, I feel down.

I am guilty of not following a thread I started (I am house hunting at the moment). I guess the problem is that we live in the Gulf and I am homeschooling. So he doesn't get A LOT of English from native speakers. On the other hand I am the only source of Spanish. When we lived in the UK I couldn't find any Spanish speaking friends. In the future we may travel to Spain for a holiday but there is no way I can afford to do it twice a year. I think I follow the suggestion of teaching something like math in Spanish. We also do crafts in Spanish. I must say ds understands children's stories in Spanish very well. As a matter of fact, if I am cross with him he only takes me seriously if I scold him in Spanish! As a curious note, even if the Spanish has suffered my ds no longer has horrible tantrums now he can finally say what he wants even if it is in English. God, I am so embarrassed.

There is planbook but it doesn't do grades and journal entries are a mystery to me. I enter them but then can only see them if doing a report. Also I haven't found a way to introduce terms other than making days "non-school days". To make matters worse I didn't start school on the day I was supposed to and there was no way of changing the start day on planbook. It looks pretty on the screen though...

I don't know where you live but if you google it you might find a store nearby or a mail supplier. I got mine from a weird Japanese shop called Daiso. ;)

Hi there. I don't have excel, as it is not mac compatible and I am not about to fork out on ms office. However I do have Appleworks which has a spreadsheet. It is not like ms excel but... Yes I can teak, but I was hoping to find something ready made as there are only so many hours in the day (blushes). However, I am coming to see this may be the only way I can have a planner like I want. DH offered to help using applework's database so I see the light at the end of the tunnel. :lol: