We have been using the Liping Ma, dd Gr. 2 and ds Gr.1, and it has been quite a challenge for us. We had a brief stint in China and I wanted to maintain their Chinese when we came back to the States. They go to a Saturday school which uses the Stanford curriculum and the families who attend are mostly all Chinese. I work with them during the week to do their homework (it is forcing me to improve my Chinese) and they also have a tutor once a week. Because of the lack of pinyin it has been a bit of a struggle for me especially for the Gr. 2, not so much for the Gr. 1. The CD-Rom that comes with the curriculum is invaluable to us. It is a very strong and solid program which is good for us and it has forced me to keep up with my Chinese. If you do not have access to a local Chinese school then, depending on your commitment, you could do the Gr. 1 program with your oldest and have a weekly Chinese tutor. My biggest advice is to make sure it is a daily practice. HTH :) Pancha

Hi Everyone I am new to the boards (have been reading a lot of threads but not posting very much yet). I have been busy planning away for our homeschool curriculum next year and have been completely immersed in it. I have gleaned lots of valuable advice, especially from the bilingual board and would love to hear your suggestions for us next year. Here is my dilemma. My dc are currently at the lycee (dd in CM1 and ds in CE1) but next year we will be homeschooling. We are English speakers at home and my French is mediocre at best. But I can help with the homework and I do know that we will need to get a tutor to continue with the French studies. I will be using TWTM approach but the emphasis will be in English. I would like to continue to have them learn French for perhaps 1 hour a day plus additional reading every day. They are doing very well at school and their current teacher says that they are at grade level in French. So my vision of our French program will be something like having them do daily francais et grammaire avec textes and to watch and listen to audio French. I would love to supplement with histoire et geographie (thinking of 6e as this correlates to us going back to the Ancients). So my choice would be to either do the BELIN and Hachette books or to do the CNED in French. I like the flexibility of the first approach and worry that we will be too tied to the CNED program. However, I want to make sure that dc stay on grade with their French. Down the road, I see them taking the French AP and maybe even living/working in France if they wish (they have European passports). The downside of the first approach is that I would be constantly having to find books and material for them as opposed to having everything laid out (is that correct?). So not really sure and would love the advice from the forum. TIA Pancha