Hi, We are a military family who moved a lot since 2000. Our kids always loved to go to school (in english), until we move back to the province of Quebec. After 2 months of nightmares, we start homeschooling our kids. My dd10 and ds8 didn't want to switch to french - would have been soooooo much easier for me, and cheaper too - so I do my best, and I'm looking everywhere to find the best books and workbooks for them. We work with Saxon math and its easy and complete enough for me to help my children. (kind of self education - my kids really enjoy that) We are still trying and looking and spending lots of money to find the best curriculum for the rest...didn't fall in love yet. And there is no english book at the public library...Chapters online making BIG money with us!! Its hard for me to do everything in englsih, but I love my kids enough to do that sacrifice. I tried french groups, but cannot have any help regarding the curriculums. They even told me they would not invite us for an educational activity because my kids don't read enough french yet. (but would have been a great way to learn french reading...with a bunch of new friends...oh well! So be it!) I don't know if my english is good enough to be understand by all...sorry, just learn the language a few years ago. I feel like I am sitting on a fence...too english for Quebec, but too french for the rest of the world.
Welcome, I am rather new here myself, however I am a long time home schooler. We also use the Saxon math books and have really been pleased with them. In just the couple of weeks that I have been a member, I have found the ladies here to be a great group of friendly people who care about each other and about homeschooling. They also have some good advice when it comes to homeschooling. So, please stick around and get to know everyone. Lucy P.S. Your English is lovely and I had no trouble understanding you.
Your English is great! Especially considering you've just tackled it. I'm jealous actually, I'm a fellow Canadian (I'm in Nova Scotia), and I haven't had the courage to actually use the bit of French I learned in high school with anyone who speaks french. As for your feelings about not being french/english enough, I know a lot of us here can relate! I think it's pretty common for some of us to feel there's no where we really fit in our different homeschooling communities because of religon or our style of homeschooling or our parenting. So it's wonderful to have a place like this where all us misfits can feel comfortable! Welcome!
Welcome! We're an American military family and have been homeschooling just over 2 years. If you check the websites section of this forum, you'll find lots of great websites for many different subjects and I'd venture to guess they're all in English. Another website you might check out is www.rainbowresource.com. They have a HUGE (think metropolitan telephone thinkness) catalog. I don't know if they charge to send it to Canada (probably) but all their resources are on their website too. Some of our favorite curriculum providers are: www.sonlight.com (we use this for history/reading) www.aop.com (we just use Horizons Math from this publisher) We use Rod & Staff for English grammar. They're a conservative Mennonite publisher. They don't have a website themselves but you can google and find bookstores that have samples. It's not a fancy curriculum but it's very thorough in it's English grammar instruction. www.christianbook.com (also has alot of homeschool books) Welcome again!! Rhonda
Hi all, Thanks Lucy! My children think my english is kind of ''cute''...and I'm happy to see that I'm not so bad after all. dawninns : I was in Greenwood NS for 10 months, until June 2007. I really enjoyed your province. And its true that even if we were pure francophone, we would not fit in...we decided to take the dirt road to see new things, to take our time and smell the roses...they're too many crazy people all stressed up on the highway!!!:lol: rmcx5 - Rhonda : Thanks for the lists. The problem is...if I dont want any problems with the education department, I need to stick to non-Christian curriculums. Quebec if really far behind about homeschooling, it can be hard to pleased them so they will leave us alone. I need to...kind of...play dead...make no noise...and peace will come. It took me almost a year before I find the perfect math curriculum...hopefully someone here will be able to help me find the perfect Language Arts curriculum...with something more than ''answer will vary'' in the teacher correction book I am probably looking for the impossible... Heln
Bonjour et bienvenu!!! I think being "naturally bilingual" would be SO wonderful!!! I am trying to teach my children French, but have so far failed miserably at it, though my oldest really has a fair base. We've tried Power Glide, and I HATED it. We had an Usbourne book I picked up at Half-Price Books really cheap, and it went OK, but it was more vocabulary than anything else. Now we have Rosetta Stone, which my oldest is working on. I also have a workbook I got at a library sale for $1, and we are going to go through that VERY systematically next year. I'm also hoping our co-op will offer French (it didn't this year!). I speak very good "survival" French, but that's about it.
For Language Arts you might try Easy Grammar and Daily Grams. They are not christian based and are very easy to use. The Answers are not usually going to be "answers will vary". I know how frustrating that is. You will also need a spelling program but at your kids ages, that should be enough for LA I hope that helps
Jackie : Bonjour et merci! My secret : immersion. We moved out of Quebec, send the kids to english school and volunteer in the community...had no choice but to learn the language. You should watch french cartoon with your kids...it will help a lot. My children learned their first english words with Dora. Our next stop : Spanish!!! it will be cool to learn a new language together. homebody2k : Thanks. I'll make sure to look those two LA books.
Dawn, for some reason I thought you were more toward the central/western part of Canada. I didn't realize you were in Nova Scotia. Visited there once, and REALLY enjoyed it. I went busking along the pier in Halifax! And I have two tapes of the Ranking Family from Cape Breton. ANYWAY, Heln, I think Easy Grammar would be a good choice! Easy to do, and gives a really good English grammar base. I learned so much myself doing it with my older girls! It might help you with your English!
I was in Nova Scotia for only 10 months, and I also lived in Saskatchewan and Ontario too. Now I am back to Quebec, and really don't like it. But oh well! So be it! We will do our time here and hope for a posting soon.
