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I'm bilingual and "superior" in Afrikaans and English. These are 2 of the 11 official languages of South Africa. Afrikaans was my first language and I was immersed in English from age 4 (pre-school). Intermediate in Dutch. I can read and understand everything, am understood when I speak, but I have a really hard time writing it - especially with the grammar. Novice in German.

Here's a very interesting article by Malcolm Gladwell writing in the The New Yorker magazineon this topic.

Abbey, What are you planning to use for the Logic Ancients?

Your son is probably a bit young for it still, but you can look at the 2nd grade workbooks from the free Kiss Grammar and play around with doing those verbally.

You can see ours and find templates and pictures for SOTW1 and SOTW2 at the files section of this Yahoo Group (I still haven't figured out how to post a picture in a post)

Do we need to do Pre-Level 1 chemistry before going into Level 1? Does the one build on the other?

Thanks for sharing! I love your blog.

Here's a thread with some great suggestions.

I'm Hannah from South Africa. I've been reading the boards since the old format started (around 2000? Dd was still a baby) and even got in first on the board flip race a few times. Due to the time difference it was early afternoon here. I don't post very often. Dh and I have been married for 10 years. I work mornings and we have an au pair who cares for and does a lot of the homeschooling with my 9yo dd. In the afternoons and evenings, I do math and history consistently and jump in as other subjects require it. My 4 ("I'm nearly five mom") yo dd attends a playgroup with a fantastic teacher four mornings a week. WTM was the very first homeschooling book I read, and I've never looked back. I still use my 1st edition 1999 copy regularly.

Is "Meet the Artists" the same as this download? http://www.getinvolvedineducation.com/pdfs/For-Program-Managers/Meet-the-Masters-Program-Manual.pdf

If you're interested in looking at something else, I have free timeline figures for SOTW1 and SOTW2 available at the files section of this Yahoo Group.

Can anyone tell me the difference between this set and Planet Earth: The Complete Series shown further down on the page - he latter is available locally.

Our library does not have ANY audiobooks. I've had a lot of success buying from Ebay.co.uk. I guess Ebay.com will also have a good selection.

South Africa On for the whole time.

Wow! That was educational. I don't think I've ever looked at a map of the USA that closely!

I'm a neat freak too and this is exactly what we do. My girls can pick up a completely tipped room in about 10 minutes because they don't have an excessive amount of stuff and everything has a container into which it goes or a specific place on a shelf or in the closet. Their friends are also trained to do the 10 minute cleanup before they go home!! It's not so bad looking at a big mess knowing that you're not the one who's going to be picking it up in the end. When you start training them, you need to spend the time to invest in storage, sort the stuff and to find a place for everything. Then you need to go alongside your children and and walk them throug the process of putting everything in its place. Eventually they learn what to do with a "tidy up your room" instruction. Mine still need training to pick things up as they go along, though. Like Dawn, we also have a play/craft table in the living room for ongoing projects, but it has to be tidied before the next thing gets done on it. We're fortunate to have a housekeeper, but the house is tidy before she comes to clean and do laundry three times a week. ETA: Sticky messes and spills are cleaned up by the girls as they make them.

I don't know any of the curriculum you're planning to use, but you seem to have covered all the subjects.

Double post. Sorry.

We start in January, but I thought I'd play anyway :) 5th grade plans History - Finishing off Story of the World 4 with supplemental reading and once a week "history club" with 2 other families for AG activities. Geography - "Planet Earth: Amazing facts about our world and the natural forces that shaped it" by John Farndon as our spine. I've ordered this and hope it meets my expectations for hands on geography. Science - "Usborne Internet-linked mysteries and marvels" books (beacuse we already own them) and the rabbit trails that this leads to. Dd writes a summary of what she's learned for every 2-page spread. "My pals are here" from Singapore. Language arts Reading - selections from Sonlight, Veritas and Great Books lists - whichever I can get from Bookmooch and 2nd hand bookshops before the end of the year! Grammar - Kiss Grammar Spelling - Our own home-made spelling program as well as Spelling Wisdom Writing - Finishing off Writing Tales 2 and a this stage I still don't know what we'll do after that. We might do some Writing Strands. Memorisation - various. I hope to have a friend bring over a copy of "Living Memory" later in the year. The postage was too outrageous to order directly. Copywork - various. Latin - Latina Christiana II Afrikaans - Afrikaans Ons Taal 5 and Afrikaans reading Math - Singapore Primary Maths 5A and 5B Composer study - Composer of the month with daily listening of the music, biographies and other resources. Artist study - Artist of the month with pictures on the wall and biographies to read. Religion - Study of various religions Music - violin lessons Physical development - horse-riding and seasonal swimming

How exciting! It sounds like a wonderful adventure. As far as the 5yo goes: On long-haul flights there will be the media screens on the back of the chairs as another poster has mentioned. On the airlines we've used there have always been appropriate kiddies movies and programs. This is the one time to let them watch as much as they like! We also pack a backpack of toys that the child carries herself. Drawing book, pencils, small toys that can be used on the fold-out table (Polypockets were a new treat the last time we flew), stickers, self-inking stamps, book for read-aloud, etc. I have found that a small zipped bag for like items works well to keep things from falling off the tray table. Even though you'll get food on the long-hauls, it's also nice to have small bags of snacks - and raisin sized bites take a while to get through! He'll also be sleeping some of the way :001_smile: It's harder to keep kids busy in the terminals as they (or mine anyway) want to get moving. Some airports have nice play areas. Try to find out ahead of time if the terminal that you are in has one. I don't know any of the airports you're flying through, but some may have these facilities - great if they do! If you don't mind dirty knees, then most adults will smile indulgently on a 5yo playing on the floor with cars. Long walks through the airport also take up time.

We're a bit too far for you too - sounds fantastic though! I'd love to meet WTMers and especially boardies in real life! But I guess if you're swapping, then you'd leave the key and not actually meet up??

I made a copywork book with the Aesop's fable and the morals for copywork that you can find at Lulu.com. ETA: We followed this with selections from the books we were reading at the time. The Ableside Online Copywork Yahoo Group has good copywork.

I don't know if it related, but yesterday I couldn't get into a group (that I created) at all, and now I can access the "join this group" button, but nothing else. I'm logged into Yahoo and it recognizes me. I hope it's just a glitch!

I'm not sure if you're interested in hearing about schools a developing country, but in South Africa the school system is most definitely up for critism and many people complain about what we call government schools. Many schools in rural areas still don't have basic amenities like running water, proper sanitation and electricity. Things like science laboratories, sports fields, etc are a luxury even though the government has had an extensive budget for amenitities in the last 15 years. Classes are big (30+). In rural schools there are up to 60 children in a class. In recent years, the department of Education has experimented with the implementation of outcomes based eduction (with two curriculums in 12 years) which has not been successfull across the board as few teachers know how to implement it effectively. Teacher training is very poor. Less than 20% of children achieve marks good enough to go onto tersiary education. Very pass maths and science. In the smaller towns there not many private schools, and where there are private schools, they are extremely expensive, so parents don't see themselves as having many alternatives.