I'd strongly recommend the yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SingaporeMath/ They can help you out with problems. I've learnt heaps from there so when we got to doing those types of questions I remembered the methods that people had posted. :001_smile:

Yep, this is us too if you substitute plastic frogs for glass gems :D

Definitely yes!

I live in Perth, Western Australia too and I do find it somewhat isolated. There I said it :leaving: I spent the first half of my life in England before moving to Aus, so I vaguely remember just how easy it was to go from country to another; one culture to another. having said that,five years in Australia will easily be filled up with travelling around in the continent as everything will be so new and different. There is so much to see and do that I doubt you'd be able to fit it all in :D Flights from Perth to anywhere on the East Coast are relatively expensive and take a minimum of 4 hours (our last Perth - Sydney took 4hrs). It's often cheaper for us to fly to Asia, Indonesia, Vietnam. However, you will be living on the east coast in Sydney, there are often specials on where you can fly from Sydney to Brisbane or Melbourne for $30. Flights to New Zealand are generally not much more than flying over to Perth. I don't think you'll feel at all isolated once you're here and see all sight-seeing opportunities. :001_smile:

That made me LOL because it reminded of when my eldest DD was about 5 and my Scout-Leader-extraordinaire/ God-believing brother-in-law showed my daughter the scout badge for believing in God. He then asked her if she believed in God; her answer, "Yes! Of course, Thor the thunder god". :D I don't think that was really the answer he was looking for :svengo: Oh, count me in as secular too :001_smile:

:bigear: I'd be interested in this too. and does anyone have the link for the Abbey's SOTW2 list?

Yup, I've got the 1st edition of this one http://www.tolkienbooks.net/html/lotr-1-sc_7.htm It was a present from my husband about 3 months after we started dating (he obviously knew we were definitely staying together :lol: ) I have NEVER read this edition, it's just too beautiful and too delicate. I read beat up old cheapy paperbacks :001_smile:

My Dh is a chronic hoarder too but he does confine it all to the 6mx9m shed out the back. I really lost all right to complain when one day I mentioned that I was thinking of taking the kids geocaching but really needed a handheld GPS. I casually/jokingly asked "Don't suppose you've got one in that shed have you?" and his response .... "back in a minute". :lol: Sure enough he had an old, non y2k compliant but perfectly functional GPS! I've never complained about his hoarding since then, as long as he confines it to his shed ;)

I'm so glad it's not just me that this happens to :lol: Washing is pretty much always on the line overnight here. Far too often it is on the line for quite a few nights! No real problem unless my black pants were hung right-way-out and they fade a bit. :D

I explain like this : A pot of soup is on the stove and at the moment its temperature is (eg) 15 degrees. I want that soup hotter so I add a +2deg hot cube. 15 + 2 = 17. Now I want to cool that soup down again so I'm going to put in a -3deg cold cube which will make the temperature go down by 3deg. 17 + -3 = 14. I'm a confused cook and I could do with making it hotter again so I'm going to take away the -3deg cold cube ie 14 - -3 =17. If I take away a negative temp cube the temperature is going to go up. If I add a neg temp cube the temp goes down etc... It made sense to me and my cooking-loving daughter :D

:lurk5: I'm a "me three" for this thread. Just turned 36, 28 day cycles after last baby (4.5 years ago) then 26 days for the last 4 months. Thankfully I haven't dropped to a 23 day cycle .... yet!

Do you need to start with Spelling Workout A or can you put an older child in a higher level book and not miss out on all the previous rules :lurk5:

One of those weeks where we just had plain old fun and it turned out that we achieved a heck of a lot considering nothing was really planned! I love these kind of weeks :) Link in sig

You should be able to see the link to "albums" on the right-hand side of the page. It's an awesome idea and the pictures make it even better :D

Definitely worth a visit. I first went there in the 1980s as a kid and loved it; I finally re-visited last year when I was in the UK on holiday and I still loved and so did my kids :D

My dd10 is 5th grade, dd7 is 2nd grade and ds4.5 is K-ish. DD7 suffers anxiety if working on the same thing at the same time with DD10 so can't really retain the info. LA and maths are separate obviously because of their ages, but they can work on math at the same time and I just sit between them so I can help where necessary. With the history rotation I have them both on Ancients - DD10 is using HO2 and DD7 is using SOTW. Having them both on the same rotation means that extra read-alouds, projects, activities etc can be done together. Science is the one subject where I have them both doing the same thing at the same time. Youngest sits on my lap as I read-aloud to them both then eldest works through the worksheets whilst I help the younger with the same thing. They both then do the experiment together. I'm hoping that this arrangement will help DD7 realise that it's OK to not know everything and to see that her sister doesn't know everything either (despite what she may think :lol: ) I think your plan is fine and do-able as long as you can assign independent work to free up your time to work with the littlies. It will be a juggling act, but it's not impossible. Maybe pick one subject where they are required to work together to try and get them used to it. :grouphug:

I'd say English Pointer. http://puppydogweb.com/gallery/pointers/pointer_detterich.jpg

I don't know that it will make any difference to the Swedish government but I assumed it was a Swedish homeschool organization that was asking for the signatures. :confused: I suppose it's the same logic as when there were petitions about homeschooling in Germany - not sure that they achieved anything but it can't hurt to try.

I went through a phase like that too. Even though I was down to a really good weight I couldn't see myself as slim when I looked in the mirror. What worked for me was when an always slim friend passed some of her unwanted clothes on to me. I held up the jeans and looked at how small the waist was and didn't believe for a minute that they'd fit. I put them on and sure enough they did fit! That was enough of a reality jolt for my mind that I could then really see my size when I looked in the mirror. I think we get so used to seeing ourselves one way that it's hard for our brain to accept what our eyes are seeing so our brain adjusts what you're seeing to fit your expectation. If you can find something irrefutably logical that your brain can't deny then you've got a better chance of your brain telling you the truth ;)

The Swedish government is proposing a new school law that will effectively make homeschooling illegal. Please sign the petition to try and protect the rights of these families. http://rohus.nu/?English_information:Petition

Now that's a smart child :D Why can't my 4yr old be logical? His favourite colour is apparently "gurple" - a blend of gold and purple :confused: I've never seen gurple chocolate, what is he thinking?? :lol:

I think this is what I'd do too. I really couldn't see me putting them in school after homeschooling just because the law had changed. I'd be more inclined to keep homeschooling and move from Australia (where I live now and am a citizen) to the UK (where I was born and am a citizen) and just keep going back and forth so that none of the authorities could really figure out where I was at any given time :tongue_smilie:

:grouphug: Poor little girl :( I hope the doc can see her soon and get to the bottom of whatever is triggering such a strong anxiety response.

You've got my daughter! Seriously, my middle child turns 7 next week and suffers the exact same anxiety that your daughter does. It was so bad, that when she was younger and she felt panicked, she couldn't even tell me what her name was. She'd totally shut down. She's improved massively over the last few years but she still can't be enrolled in most classes because she just can't take it :( I haven't read the advice here yet, but I'm definitely going to. Just wanted you to know that you are not alone :001_smile:

This is the first year I've used HO and I've started off with the try-before-you-buy for HO2 Ancients. I love it. I love the ease of use - yes I suppose you could just say it is a list of readings and assignments but having those assignments makes it so much more of a program from my point of view. My eldest is a big lover of history so I wanted to be able to use history as a base with which to cover a lot of language arts too; reading and writing mainly. I add in a lot of extra library books as required reading on whichever topic we are covering. I also pull a hands-on project of some sort from either SOTW or 'The Science and History Project Book'. For the language arts side of things HO fits the bill nicely for us. For example, this is an assignment from lesson 5: "In TSOM the author gives a brief overview of the groups of people who moved in and out of the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia). Look at Map 1 and the map in chapter 7 of TSOM. Today the Fertile Crescent is part of an area we call the Middle East. If you were a leader of a tribe, why might you want to move into the Fertile Crescent? Why was this such a desirable area to control? Write out your answer to these questions in paragraph form (at least five sentences) in the Summaries section of your binder. Title this entry “Mesopotamia (The Middle East) - Prized Real Estate.” Leave about half the page blank aft er your paragraph.You will be adding more to this entry in Lesson 25." This really isn't something I'd be able to pull together myself so I'm happy to pay a small amount of money to have these kind of things laid out for me. Another bonus is that I can start to moce my 5th grader towards more independent work. The way the lessons are set out means that she can work through the tasks, ticking them off as she goes, without needing me to tell her what to do next. I do the Kingfisher and TSOM readings to her so that we can discuss and then she goes off to complete the rest of the lesson whilst I focus on my 6yr old. IMO HO has a lot going for it.