The board game "The Way Things Work" is loads of fun. http://www.amazon.com/IPlay-Way-Things-Work-Game/dp/B0007PGJXA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1323901490&sr=8-2 My son also loved k'nex kits like the roller coaster set. http://knex.com/building_toys/roller_coaster_physics.php Zoobs were one of his favorite building tools when he was really little. Now that shifted to Lego Technic. Even though he is older now, he still plays with Snapcircuits. ;) (whenever he encounters the box...)

The Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium, accepts exchange students. They also provide English courses, starting at the masters levels. I know that if you'd like to attend the bachelor's courses, you will have to take a proficiency exam in Dutch, show a diploma from your country (and maybe even take a test). We have been looking into this for our children, who still have the Belgian citizenship, which makes it easier.

My 11yo is using CPO Life Science and Earth Science concurrently. My daughter already went through these books. Some of the experiments are indeed too hard to do at home, or simply to expensive. But I have found that many can be done or adjusted to do independently at home. I love the way the books aren't cluttered. We also have physical science at home and the labs in this boo are fairly impossible to do unless you want to spend a fortune. Hope this helps.

We did because we were combining it with epgy math. That was too much so we choose to continue with epgy and drop sm.

We did and still do. Ds has been enrolled in EPGY math for several years. Along side we used Singapore Math. Dd enrolled in EPGY math 2 years ago. She is now finishing up Algebra 1 and so far we have used Liall as a textbook.

When I was a teacher in Belgium, kids learned cursive in the 1st grade. That was also the time they learned to read. Print was never formally introduced. And yes, fountain pens work, unless your kid is left handed. Even though there are left handed pens out there, they really are not as efficient as the regular ones. (Ds is left handed sow e have plenty of experience) My kiddos were schooled in the U.S. Dd learned to print in kindergarten and I thought her cursive in 1st grade. I did the same with ds. Neither like cursive and the use of computers doesn't exactly help either.

I was born and raised in Belgium and lived there for 16 years before moving to the U.S., where I still live up to this day.

Not Christian and expensive if you enroll individually is EPGY provided by Stanford University. Some courses are self-paced while others are not. Kids then 'meet' in a virtual classroom. My kids take math and recently dd also started writing.

Depending on what you mean by accelerated, dd is 1 year ahead in coursework that is rigorous in science and math. She is 13. She accomplishes this through hard and diligent work. Ds on the contrary, is very gifted. He is 2 years ahead in math and reads science books like a novel. But he is lazy and takes too much for granted. I am sure he will hit a wall soon. There is no way he can complete course by counting on 'raw intelligence' only.

Ds, age 11, has the same problem. His work is extremely sloppy and makes careless mistakes because of it. Even though he would be able to work through algebra, we kept him in pre-lagebra. He participates in the epgy program which is challenging. On top of that he works through another program so he learns how to carefully write out all steps. I agree with the previous posters that it's better to make mistakes and learn in middle school than having to deal with it in high school. I believe we already made the mistake of letting him get away with too sloppy writing which continuously comes back to bite him in the butt.

Charlotte, dd's name ;) Hannah Helena (pronounced he lay na) Evelien (pronounced eve leen) or Evelyn Lies (pronounced lees)

I live in CA and experienced several smaller quakes. Never did I hear a sound. As someone else mentioned it has to do with the type of waves, but also with the amount of fault lines present. Waves travel super fast in the Bay Area because of the many fault lines, hence feeling the unexpected quake before you hear it. Many years ago, when still lived in Europe, I felt 2 small earthquakes. Both produced a rumbling sound, kind of like a heavy truck driving by.

Thank you so very much for all the information! It is much appreciated! We, too, devoted a full year on world geography, studying different cultures and religions.;) I already know (unless dd, and ds too for that matter, has a serious 'makeover') now that both my kids will go into the science field. Your opinion gives me a lot of food for thought. Thanks! I never looked at it that way, but it makes total sense to focus more on what they are planning to study. Thank you!

We have been homeschooling for many years and now that dd will be in the 8th grade, we've been thinking a lot about high school. Because we didn't start the classical cycle in the first grade, dd will be studying 'modern' history in 9th grade. After reading through TWM (again!) I learned that she should read the great books associated with that time. That leaves her with ancients, Middle Ages, and Late Renaissance for the other 3 years. For some reason that sounds strange to me. Do you recommend starting with the Ancients again in 9th or stick with TWM suggestion. Has anyone done it this way? Thanks!

My kids are not in highs school yet, but since dd just completed 7th grade, we've been experimenting with how to implement all the sciences. So far we've used CPO Earth, Physical and Life Science. We started out dividing the books in 3 so we kind of knew what to cover each year. I give dd a weekly schedule and she completes her work whenever she wants but it has to be finished by 3pm on Friday. In my mind she would complete each science subject on a different day, but she told me she prefers to finish a full chapter for each science. So that's what we've been doing. After finishing a chapter of Life Science, she goes on with Earth Science etc. In European schools (not sure everywhere though. I know they still do it in the ones dh and I went. I have a niece and a nephew attending there now) all sciences are covered every week. It depends on the track you are on. Because I chose heavy math and science my roster looked different from my siblings, who chose to emphasize languages. As of 9th grade on I had 2 periods of biology, 2 of physics, 2 of chemistry, and 2 of geography, each week, throughout the school year. On top of that for each of these subjects (minus geography) I had a 1 period lab. So you can say I had 3 periods for each. I also took 6 hours of math. Obviously other subjects had to give. I never had art (just had 1 semester, each year of esthetics), psychology, music or sports (just 2 hr PE) and less languages. (although still every week 4 hr Dutch, 6hr Latin, 3 French and 3 English, but never German or Spanish) Dh and I are still trying to figure out how to to it this way in high school. I still think that dividing a textbook into x parts works. Or you can also cover different disciplines of biology in year x and the rest in year y. Unfortunately I cannot recommend any resources that show you how to work this way. I have only heard from some high school students that they wished subjects would be taught this way in the U.S.. What is better? I don't know. I only know that for me (and also for dd) it would be to monotonous to study 1 science the whole year. Hope this help!