Hello, I believe I may be interested if you still have them. How much would shipping be?

I was going to say the same thing as JFS about the Samantha American Girl movie. It's called, "Samantha: An American Girl Holiday." One of the main themes of the movie is about Nellie and how it is for children who have to work in factories and it is set in 1904. It really is a sweet movie.

These are huge as well. I looked it up online, and found this page, which is kind of interesting. http://dragonflywoman.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/dragonflyswarm/ From what it says, maybe it is a feeding swarm. I didn't get too see what they looked like or how many different species there might have been. I don't really know anything about dragonflies. It's kind of neat.

I'm just wondering if anyone would happen to know anything about dragonflies? We came home this evening about 6:30/7:00 and there were literally at least a couple hundred flying around and above our house. I have never seen anything quite like it. They were flying from as high as the treetops to as low as a couple of inches above the ground, and they were EVERYWHERE.

I almost forgot, there is a free college-level French program that I am doing from Carnegie-Melon. It's hard, but it's really good. Here is the link: http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/ They also have courses in logic, biology, chemistry, statistics, etc.

Personally, I like the Learnables. It is largely a kids curriculum, although the program can be used at any age. It is completely audio/visual. Personally, with my learning style, I have to learn to hear and understand a language before I try to read it. But that's just me. I was having a very hard time teaching myself French until I started using this program, and it is always my first recommendation. It won't teach you everything by any means, but I think it is a great start to learning any language. You can get it pretty cheap on Ebay, homeschool classifieds, etc. As far as free resources, here are some for the languages you mentioned: http://www.livemocha.com/ This is very visual, and it is free. It has German, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, as well as others. I don't know about Swahili, though. I really loved this site. It's fantastic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/ I love this site for French and I'm sure it would be great for German as well. http://www.learner.org/# I use the French in Action program. They also have a couple of Spanish programs. These are all video programs that teach you the language through immersion. They used to have German, but I didn't see it. This site would be good after you've been learning your language for a while. It is more advanced. http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php This is the only site I know of that has Swahili for free. It is not visual, though, just audio. That is all that I can think of for now. If you want to pm me about any of the programs, just feel free to ask.

I'm so sorry! Will definitely be praying for you all. My heart really goes out to that poor girl. :grouphug:

I'm so sorry. I hope she is better soon! I have pets, so I know how hard it can be when they are sick. Don't beat yourself up-you didn't do anything wrong. Things like that happen. You can't always know what is going on and you just do the best you know how. Prayers and :grouphug:.

Thanks for the input. I am absolutely new to Latin. I've never studied it before, although I've thought about it for a long time. I have studied French and dabbled with a few other languages. I don't have any kids, but do have my own business and am considering doing some online classes, or at the least, some self-education, so I don't have a whole lot of time. I'm thinking I'll see how it goes with the slower track, and if I find I have more time, I'll switch over to the faster one, I guess. They may end up just doing one or the other, so I may not have to decide after all! Stacey, the study group is absolutely free. I haven't heard back yet when they will start, but it is supposed to be pretty soon. The beginning to middle of September. If you would like to join, here is the link to the website: http://www.quasillum.com/study/index.php Here is the page where you can subscribe: http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/latinstudy After you subscribe, just post to the list stating that you would be interested in a new Wheelock's Latin study group.

Thanks Heather. It sounds like I will probably do the slower track, then. With the course you used. Did they use just the text, or did they use some of the supplemental materials as well? I think one of the groups will be using 38 Latin Stories. Does anyone know anything about that?

I am planning on joining a Wheelock's Latin study group that is starting at the beginning of September. They are talking about splitting it into two groups. One will complete a chapter every two weeks, and one will complete a chapter every week. For those of you who have done Wheelock's, how much time does it take each day to do Latin and how much did you cover each week doing that amount each day. I am trying to decide whether to join the fast track or the slow track. Thanks so much.

We got our female dog spayed a few months back. She started showing signs of being in heat a couple of days ago, but we didn't know why. It seemed really odd. She is now tied with one of our males. How in the world could this happen if she is fixed!! We are going to call the vet first thing tomorrow, but for now I was wondering if anyone had any answers for this. I'm kind of worried about her.

Here is a lesson planner form that you can customize to fit your needs. There are a couple of different templates as well as a school calendar that you can custom make and print out, and it's free. I'm not sure if this is what he is looking for, though. http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/planner_form.asp

You can butcher Jersey cows for meat. That's what we ate last year-our friends raise cows for meat and we buy from them every year. I think they said they chose Jersey cows because their meat is more flavorful, but they are smaller. I'm a little foggy on the details, but I'm pretty sure that was their reasoning. You can also butcher Holsteins. That's what our friends usually raise. Jersey milk is better for cheese and butter though because their milk has more cream. The Holsteins were bred specifically to have a higher milk production, so their milk has a much higher water content and less fat.

I personally love The Learnables. It is great for kids. You don't get into reading/writing until the second book for the first level, and even then it has a very gentle approach. I've gotten it really cheap on Ebay and homeschool classifieds. Some people don't like it, but others love it. I think it depends on what works for you. Here is the site: http://www.learnables.com/

I don't know if it covers outlining, but it seems pretty complete. If you go to the page where you order the individual lightunits, there is a small icon that says "sample" above each individual lightunit. If you click on that a PDF file comes up with several pages of examples from that particular lightunit. I never noticed it before. It shows much of the content to give you an idea of what is covered. http://www.clp.org/store/by_course/34 This seems to only be with the sunrise editions, though.

The advice I have heard is that it is best to stick with learning one language at a time so as not to get confused and also because you will make better progress that way. If the languages are very different, then it can sometimes work, though. What languages are you considering learning at the same time? There is a site dedicated to language learning. They have a forum of very dedicated language learners. You may find some useful information there: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html I hope that this helps.

There is a free language learning site called Livemocha. It has free language lessons, and you can help people with learning English in exchange for them helping you learn Italian (or a host of other languages). They give you short essays to write and you are graded on them by other users. I think it's really neat. Here is the link: http://www.livemocha.com/ For some reason the site hasn't been working on my computer, but I really loved using it. Just a note, though, it is considered a social networking site by our internet filter, and was blocked. I wanted to give you a heads up since some people don't believe in using anything that could be considered social networking. You've probably heard of this. I like the French version very much: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/lj/

I am studying French and trying to improve my comprehension. Does anyone have any suggestions for videos I can watch in French, preferably on Youtube, since it's free? I've tried to find interesting videos to watch, but I can't seem to find anything. I am watching French in Action, but would like other things as well. Kid's stuff is great as well as adult. Thanks.

I have been considering doing the Wheelock Latin. There is a study group and they do one chapter every 2 weeks. They already have about 3 study groups going right now, but I joined the list and emailed them and they said that if there is enough interest, they will start up another one. If you are interested, and we both made a request, perhaps they would start up another group. Here is the link: http://www.quasillum.com/latin/latin-activities.php Here's a Latin/Greek learning forum on a site with a lot of free resources. They have a whole section for Wheelock's. http://www.textkit.com/ http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/

I have bought and sold on this site for a couple of years now and it is my favorite site. It is free up to a certain number of listings, and after that the price is about $5 for one year and you can have up to 30 listings at a time. There is also a feedback system. I love it. http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/

Thank you for the links, Kareni. I am looking at them now. I had tried searching the site, but didn't really find anything, so that is great, thanks. Laundrycrisis, what Latin text are you using? After reading on the forum, I've started thinking about learning Latin. I've heard especially that it helps improve your knowledge of English. I've been looking at Wheelock's, and there are study groups that I could join, and that would keep me motivated, but I've heard that there are others that are better. Rosie, the Sri Lankan meal sounds great! Tigersgrowl, that is great. I had to do that when I homeschooled, too. I think it's fantastic that you are so motivated and that you really care about learning. It's interesting to read everyone's replies.

I wonder Christian Light would be a good choice? It is a curriculum that can be mostly done independently and it is not very expensive. It is also a Christian curriculum. Here is their site: http://www.clp.org/christian_light_education Also, School of Tomorrow can be done independently. I do not care for it as much as Christian Light, but it is a good curriculum for doing independently and it is not very expensive either: http://www.aceministries.com/ Also, Rod and Staff has some Christian books in Russian that they may like: http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/list/Russian_Books/ I hope this helps. If you want to ask any questions about either of the curricula, just let me know and I'll help if I can.

Thanks for your replies. Wow, Deb, that's great. I would love to do more self-education, it is just hard to justify the time. I love to learn, and am studying French at the moment. I have so many things that I would love to learn about, but I have a hard time justifying spending the time when there are a lot of more useful things to do! I would love to do more of it, though. I saw the self-education section of this forum and thought I would see if there were people who self-educated and what they did.

I was just wondering if any of you on here self-educate, and if so, what are you studying right now.