Homeschooling in a different language?

[Christine&men]

Has anyone experience in homeschooling in a language other than English? DH is French and I am German and the International School is rather expensive (and not even close to us). The main problem I see is that books really aren't available since homeschooling is unheard of in France or Germany (I'd have to go with regular/main stream school books...)...

Any suggestions? Thank you.

[wonderactivist]

Hi Christine

I don't know if it will help, but I recently put together some links to Waldorf curricula and books in other languages in response to a request on my site:

Curricula in Other Languages
http://mysite.verizon.net/res2216j/wonder/id160.html

Both of these sources have children's books as well, and might be able to refer you further.

Best wishes,

Lucie

[muttix2]

Well first of all, I think that there is a law that in the US you have to homeschool in English. I don't know how they go about proving this or anything so I don't know what would happen if a person was challenged by the school district or something.

That said, I plan to do my hsing in English instead of German b/c of the law and b/c English is my first language. But maybe, you could do a more "living books" (Charlotte Mason, I think) kind of thing? For example for science you could have your dc read biographies on scientists and things like that. I haven't really researched Charlotte Mason a lot though so I'm not sure if biographies qualify as living books.

[cloudswinger]

I don't think there is any federal law about what language you have to teach in. There may be a state law, but they'd be hard pressed to prove it.

I'm debating the issue too, and I think for me some topics will have to be taught in english, since I haven't found enough books/materials for the younger age in my own language. If you're proficient enough in a topic, you can probably use an older age text and reinterprete for a younger age, but it'd be a lot more work.

I think for science I'm definitely doing English, math maybe, probably the higher levels of math will end up in english although I did find a math resource in many languages. History/social studies probably half and half. Reading/writing will of course be half and half. Art/music will be in Vietnamese until she starts taking classes from other people, unless I can find Vietnamese instructors. That's my tentative plen.

[muttix2]

Hmm, when cloudswinger posted that it wasn't a federal law I went back to where I'd thought I'd read it (hslda.org under state laws) and it's not there. I'm going to research it more but if it isn't a law I'm thinking of changing my teaching style a little. It would really help our bilingual family if I could do at least part of the schooling in German. Maybe someone told me that and I thought it was a law b/c they said it was? Doesn't seem like me but I'm going to research anyway to see if I'm wrong (hope I am! )

[Christine&men]

Thank you all for your responses! I'll definitely will look further into homeschooling (DS is hardly two years old yet...).

[homeschoolmommyof1]

Hey Christine,

Ich bin auch Deutsche

We homeschool mostly in english since this is my sons primary language but we also do some stuff in german....I think that you could find a lot of stuff online. Try google and put in things like " Hausaufgabenhilfe" and stuff like that.
When we went home last yr I purchased a bunch of little workbooks in german and he seems to enjoy them- do you ever fly home?

[Girl Named Sandoz]

Hi from a fellow German!

We live in England and so most of our materials are in English. As you know, home education is illegal in Germany so there are not many home ed resources in German (that I have found).

When my ds is older I am going to get historical novels, poems and literature in German for him. I will try to find German books that deal with historical, political, environmental etc. topics and whatever else he shows an interest in.

I am also going to introduce other foreign languages.

I know it's not completely what you are asking, since we are home educating in two languages (one being English). Good luck!