Just a few things to be aware of. Yes, this is very popular in NZ, but Christmas break is our summer and peak tourist time so extremely busy. All schools have at least six weeks off and most adults have three weeks over Christmas as well. You would have to have everything booked in advance to make sure there was space available. If you wanted to do both islands you would need a ferry booking as well, which may be too late at this stage. We don't have huge multi-lane highways so travel times can be a bit slower so you need to take that into account when planning travel distances each day. I see Rosie has answered while I was typing. I was also going to mention the distances in Aus. The country is roughly the same size as the US so "a few days" won't get you far. You are looking at a full day driving between each of Brisbane to Sydney or Sydney to Melbourne or Melbourne to Adelaide. If you let us know what you have booked so far we may be able to suggest something that would work.

:grouphug: I'm right there with you. After 17 years they still do not get that cramming 21 people (including 9 under age 10) into a room to open Christmas presents is not going to work for us. Apparently it is all my kids fault for ruining Christmas.

I would be more likely to think he meant ADD or ADHD

We were told to wait a week between dosage increases. DS was 15 at the time and taking short acting Ritalin. The side effects had always gone before the week was up and once he was on a stable dose he has had no side effects other than loss of appetite. We have stayed with short acting so he can take one dose with breakfast and one with lunch. We tried the half pill but the taste was foul when it was cut, so for a while we were doing a mix of 5 and 10s. He eventually settled on two doses of 20 (he weighs around 170).

I couldn't answer because I live in a small country with no other countries around by land or boat. I have lived in two other countries as well (one large one small) and have always lived close to a border but it has always been a sea border with the only option being to fly out. I have traveled internationally a lot, both to live and for vacations, within Australasia, Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East. My passport is currently expired and I don't plan to travel in the next five years (partly financial, partly health/care-giving responsibilities) but after that I hope to be able to start traveling again.

If you were going to do the book at home I would say absolutely, not too young for him. But, I would be concerned in a co-op situation about what age range the other students were going to be. If the other students were mostly lower elementary then the teacher would probably bring it down to their level and it could feel too young for your son. If there were going to be other students in the class his age then it would probably be OK. We skipped General Science completely. DS went from the elementary books to Physical Science then back to Anatomy (which had just come out) then onto the High School books. We never did the elementary Chemistry and Physics because he was already into the High School sequence by the time it came out.

Yes, the printed books look exactly like that. Sorry.

At our house symptoms similar to yours were the result of gluten sensitivity. The hunger comes from not being able to absorb the nutrients due to vili damage. Weight gain doesn't fit with that though. Prilosec didn't help here, but when gluten was removed from the diet the pain was gone within three days.

I have used all of SWB's books and some of Amblesides. We started with the first book in 8th grade and took a year per book, but that only worked because I had a smart kid who was highly interested and loves SWB's writing. There is no way I would jump into SWB's second book with a 7th grader or use her first book with a 6th grader, or her third book with an eigth grader. The fourth book isn't out yet, so that leaves you nothing for 9th, 10th or 11th grade. I really don't see how you would make this work.

There was quite a bit of talk here a few years back about this series from India. (Scroll down to History) We have added the Class 12 Themes in Indian History (vol I,II and III) to our history cycle and enjoyed the different perspective. They are free to download, so you could have a good look to decide if they are suitable.

I did it with two twelve year olds. Yes it is totally free. We just watched the videos and tried to answer the questions. We didn't add anything to it because we were using it as a supplement, not trying to make it a high school credit. I just had another look at the info page to confirm and it is 12 weeks of 1-2 hours per week, so nothing like a high school credit.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/634645-looking-for-cinnamon-bread-recipe/?do=findComment&comment=7390976

If you can't find it you could use tapioca starch instead. I use the two interchangeably depending on what I can find at the time.

The same people who did Secrets of the Castle also did Tudor Monastery Farm and Tudor Feast.

We had a similar experience with Sonlight, adding more and more to it until finally giving up after core F. We did end up using Omnibus next, but not as written. We skipped some books, read but skipped assignments for others, added in more lighter books (lots from Sonlight G and H). I did this with a gifted kid and still don't think he would have done well with Omnibus as written at age 12. I only had two students at the time I did this, so am of no help with how to do it with a large family, but I would think that it would require a lot of hand holding due to the age of your student. There is also a lot of mature content in the ancient literature, which I wouldn't have been happy handing over at that age without me having pre-read it to know what was coming up. There is going to be a huge jump in level from SL core E (recommended for grade 4+) to Omni 1 (grade 7 on steroids). I think what I would do in your situation would be a combination of Omni and SL- to slow down the omni to let them mature and to provide some lighter books among the heavy omni selections. If you wanted to use the core F selections as well you could slot them in among the history books as well. Hope you find something that works for your family.

My DS did LOF through to Trig before starting AOPS with Algebra. There was plenty of challenge for him and I think he even would have got stuff out of the Prealgebra book. In your situation I would definitely start with Prealgebra.

Another thing to take into consideration is that day 3 of a new dosage is too early to judge long term effects. We were told to expect up to a week to adjust to each new dosage, so I would give it a few more days to see if this settles down. I would also work on things like math earlier in the day.

We are just headed away for the weekend and not sure if i will have internet access, but I should be able to get back to you Saturday night (your time).

We returned home a year ago after five years in Doha. I'm happy to pm with more information. I can also put you onto my friend who runs the homeschool group there and has lots of connections which may be helpful to you.

I personally wouldn't go for either of those after Singapore, but whatever you decide on, make sure you do a placement test. She may test further ahead than Saxon 7/6 and will definitely test ahead of TT7.

It is a year at College level, which would normally be considered two years at high school level.

Have you looked at the samples on the Peace Hill Press site? Here. 104 sample pages should give you a decent idea what it is like.

Bright Ideas Press, which publishes MOH, also publishes All American History, which is a two year program for grades 6-12. As far as fitting it all in - MOH1 has 36 weeks but volumes 2,3 and 4 only have 28 weeks each. All American History has 32 weeks each year for a total of 184 weeks (5 school years plus 4 weeks). There will be some overlap between the two so I am sure you could fit it all in to five years. If you want to stick to chronological, just look at the table of contents for both and slot the lessons in where they fit chronologically.

Even before I had read the second half of your post I was going to suggest starting in 8th grade with Physical Science. Yes you can skip general science - we did. I wouldn't recommend waiting any later than 8th grade though as there is quite a learning curve to textbook style science and having that experience before high school (and before biology) is very helpful.

Sounds like a good plan.