But you are still saving 85% of the cost of going to a private school. Costs are going up. Look at the cost of college. One study has it at almost 6 times what it was in 1985. Textbooks are ridiculous, some are over $200 per book. That's why there are sites that sell the international version of those textbooks for half the price. And I remember when paperbacks were about 1-2 dollars, now they're 7-8 dollars. Knowledge is valuable, we live in a knowledge based economy. As the knowledge gets more specialized, there are fewer people who have it, so it's going to cost more to learn from them.

Why K-12? I don't think it takes that long for one language. I think other countries start with one language at K, then add another in a few years. Then the phonics and grammar of the second language can be comparative vs fresh learning. Writing also is easier since you've generally learned the character set, unless you do something with a whole other character set like Japanese. After that it's really just about vocabulary. The hardest is getting speaking fluency, especially if you're not fluent yourself.

I'm getting my daughter a Hello Kitty fountain pen. I'm hoping it'll help her take her writing to another level, because right now, it can be nice or atrocious. Sometimes all in the same day. I found my old fountain pen and went on a hunt for ink. Then after googling, I found you can refill the cartridges too. or get a converter. And if you want to swap inks, you can just tape the end of the opened one. So now I have too many options. jetpens.com has a bunch of cute pens too. Now I'm wanting to buy a bunch of the colored ones, in all sorts of ink colors. My stepson can't even read cursive. He's a product of public schools.

It's better here in the winter too, the cooler air has less humidity and is clearer. The stars twinkle less though. And I think when some people lay outside when it's muggy and hot, they can't see through the discomfort and the sweat dripping in their eyes. Lying on the beach would be better, there's usually a light sea breeze and the horizon is clear. Hunter, what is NtK? I was concerned with learning science from a 50 year old book, but if it's basic material, it's probably fine.

I think the star gazing is probably like anywhere else, great in rural areas, bad in urban areas.

I found a discussion on field guides here: http://www.lonelypla...hreadID=1907782 They also host expat discussion too. I've found a mammal guide for SE asia that was about $15 at amazon, but realistically, you won't see many mammals there, there's just too much pressure on the populations. A bird book would be most useful. Trees/plants would be next. Maybe fish or reptiles if you can find one. Also, I was looking to see what kind of stuff would be available in Vietnam, and there is this: http://www.vinabook.com/tu-sach-the-gioi-dong-vat-cac-loai-chim-m11i48129.html You can have Chrome translate to english, and it's not completely accurate, but essentially it's part of a 12 book set of animal life books. Basically each book costs about a dollar. The books aren't in english, so I wouldn't buy it if I were you, but it's just to see what kind of stuff is available to kids in other countries.

Sounds so exciting! I found nature guides to be cheaper in the locale you are in than in the US. I'm going to assume you're going to Cambodia since you're learning Khmer, and you might be able to find some in Singapore, Hong Kong or Japan for the SE Asia reqion. Singapore/Hong Kong are also English speaking, so if you wanted an English language book, that might be the better choice. If the Cambodian educational system is like the Vietnamese one, the school books are sold in bookstores. You could get math workbooks for ridiculously cheap. Like the workbooks I bought were less than 10 cents each.

Zula patrol has a great episode on moon phases.

There's a later (1989) edition of the book available, although I see 4 volumes. For me, that would be a candidate for pdf conversion as a backup. I don't see why you'd want elementary books, they're just sub-sets of the high school stuff.

Hey, if you have all of this, can you weigh it? There's usually a 50 lb weight limit for bags, I'm just wondering how much those books would weigh. And honestly, most international flights still have an free allowance for checked bags, so things can be checked. Also, for those thinking of laminating, I sometimes just use page protectors, and just write on the plastic. works fine, no effort required. Although, there may not be much replacement for dry erase markers in some places.

All the extra weight will affect gas mileage too, if that's a consideration. Books are by far the heaviest things I own, and if I were RVing it, they'd certainly be examined very carefully.

I got a travel game set which had a mini set of dominoes. That started me on a small universal games set project, so that I could travel and do any number of games, from something simple like mancala to board games and even math games. So when I get stuck(again!) in a rural place in a 3rd world country and the power is out, at least I have some games to play. It includes a set of gaming dice, which I find is very good for all sorts of math games, a deck of cards, and a decktet and a piecepack, a set of chess pieces and a bunch of colored tokens, and some laminated paper boards, like a chess board, and some other ones. Also some of the game pieces are on magnetic paper, so they can be played during travel also. And I have a letter sized magnetic whiteboard that can go with it, which has multiple uses. And a small book of games. Of course the best games are made up anyway... That does not include word type games, and I'm not sure if I'd bring my travel scrabble set, or the word building card game which I can't think of the name right now. The card game would be lighter/smaller.

The problem I have with the Handbook of Nature study is that the animals are very much Northern US animals. If you were to end up somewhere in Africa, Asia, South America, or even the southern US, you just don't see those animals. We don't get chicadees, or robins or bluebirds here in Florida. We have Anhingas, Herons and Ibises. They don't even mention alligators. There are no chestnuts, willows or ashes. We have palms, mangos, citrus and bamboos. In fact, now that I look at the tree section, there are only 2 out of 17 trees here. And arts and music are very much more available than in the US. I think people sing/play music a lot more than they do here. Especially if you do go somewhere without all the electronics, there's a lot more time for musical entertainment. Maybe the visual arts might be restricted due to lack of supplies, but there's also dancing, sculpture(clay usually can be available), wood carving(if not clay, there's always a knife!), sewing crafts, knitting, etc. I'm not visualizing where you'd go to be completely off grid for so long, I don't know that there's any such place where you also want to take your kids. But the places I'd consider moving to - Costa Rica or Vietnam, there's plenty of connection to the world. Even the rural areas aren't more than a few hours away from internet access. And usually a day trip to a big city. Unless you're on a deserted tropical island. Then that Handbook of Nature Study would do no good, they don't even have palms in it. Or parrots. Or poison frogs. ;) I do have one book I'd definitely take - Encyclopedia of Discovery Visual Dictionary by Weldon Owen. It was a bargain book at Barnes and Noble, but it's really dense in information and fairly compact. Covers Space, Earth, atmosphere, prehistory, plants, animals, human body, ancient civilizations, architecture and countries of the world.

There's a company that scans books for 1 dollar per 100 pages. I'm tempted sometimes to send in my History of US set so we can carry that around and read it in the car or something..

I think I could do it right now, with a tablet and an ereader. I have an annotation app, so we can write on our pdf worksheets, although it's not our first choice. I have a solar charger, although I haven't tried it with the tablet. I have science, math, language arts and history material on the tablet, and literature on the ereaders. Definitely would need to stop at some internet cafes once in a while to get more ebooks though. And backups to the cloud. But realistically, once I'm wherever I'm at, I go to the bookstores in the big cities. There's usually plenty of kids books, and usually they're quite cheap. I'd buy some bilingual kids books or picture encyclopedias in the local language for language practice. Also probably math practice books would be easy to use, not much translating needed there. And some regional nature books, there's always english language stuff for tourists. And paper and art supplies(and a scissor or knife, which wouldn't be allowed in a carry-on anyway!), although I tend to bring a small amount with me anyway. I love going to other countries' bookstores, and music stores. I tend to buy a small local instrument when I go abroad and practicing that also gives some entertainment value. The curriculum I use at home really doesn't tend to get used much on the road. There's just so much culture and travel stuff that can be learned that I don't feel the need to focus on American curriculum. America is one of the younger countries, most other places have a lot more history. Math is used everyday, and for places like Vietnam, where everything is priced in the 10,000s, there's a lot of practice with big numbers. Even the kids know how to bargain and do basic math. Of course this is predicated on where and for how long we go. Generally we do carry ons on the way out, and end up with more stuff for the way back which I've learned to pack in cardboard boxes.

I got a Kobo for my 8yo daughter. It's e-ink, has wi-fi, but I mainly download books from the library to my computer to transfer to it. It was on clearance at Target for $20, and she adores it. Our library has a decent selection, she's working through all the Beverly Cleary books right now, but there seems to be plenty more to read through.

I remember crwth from academic games, a word with all consonants.Obviously from wales too!

They are taking college credit classes. Florida has a dual enrollment program with the state universities, so the college credit is paid for by the state. That's a powerful incentive if your kids can handle it. Some kids end up with 2 years done. I'm assuming that the "high school level" classes are taken through the FL Virtual School, and are taught at the high school level and are recorded as such.

I have a nook touch, and recently Target had a Kobo on clearance for $20, so I bought it for my dd. Both of these are e-inks, and they are awesome for the ebooks from the library. I also have a color android reader and a 10in tablet, they get used for my instructor manuals and I found a pdf annotating app that is great for actually filling out worksheets and whatnot.

I'm converting to a digital library, but most of the books I am keeping don't have barcodes. It would be nice to know what books I do have though. There does seem to be a bunch of them though. More than the two you listed.

I didn't do any grammar at all in 1st grade. We only really started some grammar at the end of 2nd.

Most languages have curriculum for their own languages, but in that language. I found that searching in that language online would bring up much more material than trying to do English language searches. Some countries have standardized curricula, so once you figure out what to search for, it's pretty easy to get the same thing that's being taught to all the kids of that country.

It's easier as a new homeschooler to start with some curriculum, especially considering you have a toddler. It could be just as simple as going to Barnes and Nobles and buying some math workbooks. Then you can see what works and what doesn't. Most of the various curricula have some resale value, so you're not really losing much money. Even if you are comfortable with a particular subject like Math, it's very time consuming to organize your own lessons. And then you're probably rehashing work that other people spent a lot of time on. Curriculum IS the short cut. You're doing it the hard way, and you'd probably burn out on homeschooling and give up sooner than you would have to. Consider how much time you're spending researching vs teaching. I'm all about doing it frugally, but you have to consider the cost of your time too. I started with Rightstart Math when I was new,and that was the only curriculum I considered and jumped wholeheartedly into it. It's not as cheap as some others, but not really that expensive either. Then I found MEP and started using it as a supplement, and now I'm debating continuing with RS. It's all a process of learning for both you and your kids. As you get comfortable and see how they learn, you will be better able to tell if something is working or not. For us, RS is fine, but I feel it's actually too easy for my daughter. The MEP does challenge her more, but I like the geometry in RS, and she much prefers RS(but I think that is because it's easy) LA on the other hand is much more free form at our house. I have the hardback Writing with Ease and pull my own narration passages from whatever books we're reading. We have a LA 3 book from my sister-in-law that looks like one you'd buy from B&N. We did Grammarland, and I just bought a bunch of grammar related stuff from Scholastic Dollar Days. Spelling seems to come pretty easily, so we work on it pretty irregularly. Which kind of comes from not really liking the curriculum I bought. I liked it in theory, but not so much in practice, which you can only find out when you use it. And lastly, state standards are so minimal, you're not going to challenge any truly gifted child teaching to the standards.

I know why they contradict each other- No one currently alive knows what really happened back then! Plus timekeeping was rather loose. And you can't believe what people wrote about when things happened, since they had no idea what date it was anyway. Anyway YE is consistent because it's all created by one man's ideas or at least one consortium.

I'm late to this discussion, since the OP seems to have left. But regarding early college in the medical field, we know of one kid who is in an early college program at a local university, and the medical school(at the same university, no less!) refused to accept him on his age. They felt that he would be too young when he finished and would not be able to legally perform certain tasks required of doctors. So he needs to do something for a year or two before they will accept him. Academically he's very well prepared.