A language learners’ forum

Elsa Maria wrote:Hello, fellow homeschoolers. I am checking in after an absence on the forum. I have a lot of moving experience, but our move back to the USA was really extraordinarily stressful and time-consuming. More than anything, the homeschool student and I are hoping for stability in 2017.

We are over-the-moon happy with his Russian tutor, and he is progressing quickly. And I have succumbed to the temptation to join him. I am a handwriting geek, and once I found out that Russians usually write in cursive...well, that was the moment that clinched it, lol.

I also love Russian writing. When my kids complain about (English) cursive writing, I think of this meme about Russian:

Is that really how Russian cursive feels? I am a complete newbie to Russian but the book I just picked to learn from teaches the cursive with the Cyrillic alphabet right from day 1 and I super love it

I want to teach my kids ALL the languages. We can learn them together.

Ani wrote:Is that really how Russian cursive feels? I am a complete newbie to Russian but the book I just picked to learn from teaches the cursive with the Cyrillic alphabet right from day 1 and I super love it

I want to teach my kids ALL the languages. We can learn them together.

Ani, what book are you using? I took the free trial of Russianpod101 to learn the alphabet, and it taught the cursive with the letters. I loved that!

My child's tutor assigned this cursive book, and I want to get one for myself.
http://russia-on-line.com/index.php?id_ ... &id_lang=2

When I first started oh so many years ago, yes, that's how Russian cursive felt. But now not so much! And thankfully I rarely read anyone's cursive as most all I read is in books, billboards, online.

Which Russian book did you pick up?

How is homeschooling going? Are you all on summer break? (Do y'all stick to the idea of term-times and 'school holidays'?)

It's going very well. We school year round because we travel so much during the fall. We do half time school during the summer and half time during our long vacations.

We're enjoying the summer. Since we have one (dau, rising 9th) in school and the other (dau, rising 12th) homeschooled, we stick to the schedule so they can both have the same days/vacations.

We're in NYC for a week and my wife found Strands bookstore, and now our daughter has her history and philosophy texts! She's feeling a little anxious as the history books (Europe by Norman Davies and The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin) are both about 1000 pages.

IronMike wrote:
We're in NYC for a week and my wife found Strands bookstore, and now our daughter has her history and philosophy texts! She's feeling a little anxious as the history books (Europe by Norman Davies and The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin) are both about 1000 pages.

Oh my gosh I miss Strand! It used to be a couple block detour from the restaurant DH and I had our first date at and we visited both all the time up until the restaurant closed. Back then I actually had some sort of restraint and decent sense of reasonable book ownership. If I were still that close I think my floors would be in danger of collapse

Here's a question from a prospective HSer. Although prospective in the sense of many many years away if I ever go down the line of spawning.

How do you deal with the practical side of STEM subjects? Physics, biology and chemistry all very rightly require hands-on approaches pretty regularly and sometimes they involve controlled substances. Even some tech subjects or graphic design for example, are less book based and I certainly wouldn't be capable of teaching those especially well.

Also, I'm aware some home-schoolers are part of a wider HS community that meet up every so often. Are any of you part of such a thing & how important do you think that is? I mean specifically close-knit groups or groups where you meet rather than a looser community where you just go online to look at ideas etc.

Rhian wrote:Here's a question from a prospective HSer. Although prospective in the sense of many many years away if I ever go down the line of spawning.

How do you deal with the practical side of STEM subjects? Physics, biology and chemistry all very rightly require hands-on approaches pretty regularly and sometimes they involve controlled substances. Even some tech subjects or graphic design for example, are less book based and I certainly wouldn't be capable of teaching those especially well.

Also, I'm aware some home-schoolers are part of a wider HS community that meet up every so often. Are any of you part of such a thing & how important do you think that is? I mean specifically close-knit groups or groups where you meet rather than a looser community where you just go online to look at ideas etc.

Worrying about junior and senior year high school science before you've even had kids is putting the cart before the horse, yeah? There are plenty of options by the time you get there that can be taylored to the individual kid. You could set up a lab in your house, you could find someone who teaches lab sciences to homeschool kids, you could get involved at a local maker studio. There are incredible resources for home science lab (see Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments by Thompson). There are also full dissection kits with everything from frogs to fetal pigs. Also home school cash be a year to year decision. It might be the right thing for K-5 and then you suddenly decide your local school has better options for your child/family and that is fine.

Internet homeschool communities can be a lot more close knit and supportive than you assume. I think I am the only one here homeschooling small kids which is when most people have access to local homeschooling groups. I'm not part of one, although I might accidentally be joining one that is forming this year. Some people find them really important. I don't, so much, because I am too busy actually doing school with my kids to go out and talk about doing school with other moms.