Birgit
Member
Hello,
I'm an Austrian mom and wonder if anybody can help with living books or even a whole curriculum in German (which would also consider German writers and focus on the history of the German speaking world). There is so much advice out there for a curriculum in English. If anybody can help me I'd be very grateful. I would also love to get in touch with people who homeschool over here using CM.
Blessings,
Birgit
Wonderful question! I'll bump this up and hope someone has some answers. We live in Germany, but we are Americans, so all our books are in English. I'd also love to know more living books about this area and history.
Joy
P.S. If this helps, check out the blog Buntblume (http://buntblume.wordpress.com) and she has links to blogs & websites in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy (where she is), etc. Perhaps you can find some help through one of those.
missingtheshire
Member
Birgit are you living in Austria or here in the USA? Welcome to the group and I wish I could help, but not much knowledge on that. I lived in Germany many years (my mother was German and I had an aunt who lived in Lienz who died a year ago - we have had wonderful vacations in Austria, it is a favorite place of ours - our next trip in a few years will be to Vienna all being well. Have you tried Project Gutenberg and sites like that, they often have free German language books to download. How old are your children? I wish you luck and all the best. Linda
thehauserfamily
Member
I will e-mail my cousins husband for you to see if she can point you to good ones. She is a teacher (German). I am not sure she would understand "living books" but I can explain it to her.
Homeschooling is illegal in Germany, so that is a big stumbling block for you. It is pratically impossible in Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. It is growing rapidly in Switzerland though. I know it is legal in Austria. Do many in Austria homeschool?
Sorry I just read about German speaking countries and homeschooling. I was interested as my husbands family thinks we are crazy (they are all German living in Germany) and it made no sense to me until I read about it.
Anyway I will send her an e-mail.
missingtheshire
Member
My German family including one who is an old school university professor of physics, have all been very supportive of homeschooling even though it is illegal there. I hope that maybe it will become more accepted in those countries that forbit it and Germany especially. It takes a long time to break down the rules and views in a country, but hopefully people will start to mellow. Linda
thehauserfamily
Member
What ages are you looking for?
Birgit
Member
I'm so sorry not to have answered to anyone. I'm really new to this forum-thing and had not firgured out anybody had answered me. Thank you all for your help though. I live in Austria, so it is legal to homeschool even though not many people do it. To be honest I'm a bit ahead of my time as my daughter is only 2 right now, but I figured that if I could get a lot of information now it would make the step to homeschool easier for me. And as I will be quite a lonely fighter over here, I need to know what I'm doing. How do any of you do it when you have state exams at the end of each school year and when they require you to homeschool according to their books (textbooks)? Can you still somehow do CM? Will the child then be able to pass a test which is not CM style?
Lots of questions in this mommy's head and again I'm really sorry to get back only 4 months later.
Blessings,
Birgit
Birgit,
Wonderful to hear from you again.
Do they require you to actually use the textbooks or just be able to pass the exam? If the latter, I would look at the topics covered in the textbook and, if possible, find living books to teach those topics. Any topics that aren't covered in a living book, you can use the textbook. It's okay to use a textbook sometimes; living books are just more engaging. Also, adding a good literature book to read aloud to your child will enhance the education. There's many good German books, like Heidi, and I'm sure you know about many more than I do.
I know you said there are not many families homeschooling in Austria, but if possible, find a homeschool group or even just one other family that homeschools. It will really help to see what books and resources the other families are using, even if they are not using a CM style.
I'm excited for you. It's wonderful to hear how homeschooling is growing around the world.
Best wishes,
Joy
Birgit
Member
Hello Joy :-)
I do have to use the textbooks as much as I know. I get so excited when I see all the great material available in English!!! Especially for history from a Christian perspective. I don't know of any material like that in the German language. I just wished there were more stuff like that in German. It just requires so much searching in the dark. I mean like right now I'm looking for a good anthology of poems in German and there is a lot out there, but I just don't know what's best. And it would be so great to have good recommendations as they exist in homepages and forums like these.
Thanks for all the great advice though! I do try to raise my daughter bilingual, so that might help. I just hope she won't mix up the languages ;-)
Birgit :-)
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