Veritas Press and Omnibus have been mentioned in this thread. If you would like to know more about the vision of Omnibus or Veritas Press Scholars Academy, I would suggest contacting Bruce Etter (Headmaster) at bruce@veritaspress.com. There has been much false information given, and I think it is best to go to the source.

If you would like to know more about the vision of Omnibus or Veritas Press Scholaras Academy, you can contact Bruce Etter at bruce@veritaspress.com. There has been a lot of false information thrown around lately. I think he could clear some things up for you.

Just FYI: Veritas Press is officially accredited as of a few weeks ago, and it does not matter which state you are in.

I am little late at weighing in on this. I have been busy and not spending as much time on forums. I hope it is okay. I aksed my husband for his response since he is very involved in writing, teaching, and overseeing things at Veritas Press Scholars Academy. Here is his response: I have had the privilege of writing chapters in every Omnibus text book and I am the Headmaster of Veritas Press Scholars Academy. The Omnibus curriculum is not a subversive attempt to inculcate your children with “Federal Vision†theology and we are trying to do no such thing in our online classes. The theology portions of Omnibus simply do not rise to that level of specificity. We are writing (and teaching) from a Reformed, evangelical perspective. We believe in creation, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Virgin birth, the deity of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, salvation by grace through faith and the Second Coming. These are the fundamentals we embrace and teach. When we come across issues that are controversial we defer to the parent and the pastor. I often tell my students that there are three keys to studying the fine points of theology, “Humility, humility, and humility.†If anyone has any questions about the curriculum or how we approach any issue in the online school, please feel free to email me. Bruce@Veritaspress.com. Thank you.

This is the first we have ever done this. So, my husband and I are writing the plans. Unfortunately, I do not see us being done with the whole year before the summer. However, if you PM me, I would be happy to give you some ideas.

It is actually not a summer class yet. It will be offered for next school year for students ages 11-14. Since we have never taught it, we are holding off on offering it over the summer until we can see if that is doable. I think it has been announced in the same announcements as the summer classes. Therefore, there has been a little confusion.

I like to print the history off at the office supply store. The history plans are full of so much information. With the subjects that are just scheduled without a lot of info, I just look at them onthe computer as i plan my week out.

Veritas Press does a Greek class.

The Veritas classes are live with student participation on microphones.

There are several ways to use Veritas Press materials. 1. You can puchase the materials, make your own lesson plans, tweak it in whatever way you want, and teach it yourself. 2. The Scholars lesson plans have the whole year planned out for you. These are a huge time saverand offer many ideas and thoughts which are not in the Teacher's Manual. 3. Sign-up for the live online classes, if your child in is 4th grade. They meet twice a week. The teachers teach the class, play review games, discuss the literature books, and give assignments. They give 4 projects throughout the year for the students to complete and turn in for a grade. The also have weekly assignments. They complete them and then they go over them in class. They do not typically have to turn in the weekly assignments. 4. For History, there are the self-paced classes. The student does them at their own pace. You have the option of doing the historical literature. Depending on whether you do the lit or not, there is very little if any work outside of their time on the computer. The worksheets and tests are given through multiple choice questions and activities on the computer. My son takes a couple of the live classes. He has loved the interaction he gets with the other homeschooling students. We have appreciated the feedback from the teachers. When I talked about dropping a class to fit something else into our schedule, he said he would rather drop the other thing. :001_smile: My daughter will start taking a few live classes next year. I plan to use some of the self-paced classes to supplement a couple of years in History. There was a year or two with an adoption that we were pretty weak, so I want to get the self-paced classes to review with them.

Thought there may be some who would be interested in this giveaway.

My daughter was one of the test students for the self-paced classes. It is my understanding that the lessons are locked and the students cannot go any further until they have gotten a percentage of the questions correct. I do understand the concern with children who quickly learn how to get the right answres to get through, but have not really retained anything. Those children keep us on our toes.:) It is very entertaining and fun. Like you said, that is not always a bad thing. As to if it is a classical approach or not, I think there are many ideas and thoughts to what a classical approach is. The Grammar years are for just that, Grammar. The general feedback has been that this course has been really great for memorizing the facts. If a child does this everyday of the week, then they are being drilled on the facts everyday.

While it is recommended that Omnibus be done in order, it is not a must. Many people in the the VP online program take it out of order for several different reasons. The classes are 1 1/2 hours twice a week. When the students were polled about reading time outside of class, the said they spent about 2 hours a day for primary and secondary combined. Remember that this counts as 3 subjects. I think it does sound overwhelming if you think of it as 1 subject. I know I am late coming on to this thread. I am sorry if you have already had these questions answered.

I am always hesitant to answer these, as I teach one of the classes. But, I have a 5th grader taking 4 classes this year and my 3rd grader will start next year. My son has enjoyed them and my daughter cannot wait. It took us a bit to get a routine down. Now that we have it, we love it. In the grammar years, you have to find a balance between not taking it with your kids and not sticking them in front of the computer to do it on their own. As a teacher, I can tell which students are doing it with no oversight. They tend to struggle a little. The routine we have found works nicely. I do not sit with him while he takes them, but I peek my head in the room often to hear what is going on and make sure he is participating and paying attention. The teachers give their homework for the week at the beginning of the week. I copy and paste that all on to one document and print it off to use as a check list through the week. We have enjoyed: 1. That he has someone else giving him deadlines and there are real consequences for not meeting them. 2. The interaction with other students. Most people have to see it to believe it, but there are real friendships built through this environment. We have spent weekends and vacations with many of the families. 3. The insight he gets from teachers who have spent more than one year preparing and studying the topic. I know I can teach them all of these things, and do a decent job. But, I do see that they can go deeper than I have time to do. This is simply due to every year being my first year of teaching something to them. I hope this helps.

I try to have a 30 min time before bed each night when everyone (including mom, and sometimes dad if he has time) finds a nice spot in the living room to read. The little ones look at picture books and the rest of us work on chapter books. Then each of them who can read are allowed to read in bed. I do not limit the time unless it gets out of hand and we are dealing with grumpy kids the next day. I have to say my oldest never chooses to read. He reads his historical fiction and lit. books with no complaints, but it is not something he chooses to do for fun. My daughter is another story. I actually have to restrict her reading time sometimes because she will do it over chores and such.

Omnibus is not meant to be a writing curriculum. I know a lot of homeschoolers use it for that, but I am assuming they have already covered a lot of the writing basics or are taking/teaching composition along with Omni.

I agree with OE. I would go into 6 and then on to 7.

I had one child who did very well with it and another who would make a 100% within 2 or 3 days of every lesson, but it did not transfer to his other work. So, we had to change to something else.

I have a "quality vs. quantity" mentality. I try to make sure everything we do "counts." But, sometimes there is a place for "busy work." I just try not to make it the norm. I agree with those who have said this is hard and it is tiring. I think we all go through burn out phases at some point or another. It is remembering why we do what we do that gets us going again. I think you all may enjoy this article. http://theclassicalexperience.blogspot.com/search/label/Exhaustion

I am having the same issue with my 9 year old. She is doing a full VP load and done by 11:00 everyday. She is in violin, orchestra, and choir. We also are doing a VP co-op. My goal over Christmas break is to find something productive to do to fill her time. I do not want to move her ahead because she is already young for her grade. One of the reasons we are home-schooling her is because my husband would find her in the back of the classroom playing while waiting on her classmates to finish their work on a regular basis.(HE taught at the school and would go in to say hi frequently.) I never thought I would have the same problem at home!:confused: She is asking to learn how to knit and sew. But, that means I have to learn. I am not opposed to learning, but I do not have the same problem she has with filling my time.:001_smile:

My son is Issac. We are doing 4 classes as well. He loves them and my daughter cannot wait to start them next year. We were a little overwhelmed with working on someone else's schedule. But now that the teachers post the homework for the whole week, I have been able to make him a schedule for the whole week and spread the work out over the 5 days. We are finding it very doable now with time to spare somedays.

My son takes a few classes. The Literature class is his favorite. He loves Mrs. Lange and already wants to take her History class next year. She assigns about 3 chapters of reading between each class. We tend to get a couple of weeks head start in the summer and then he can stay a class or two ahead on the reading. Then if he gets sicck or something, he has a buffer. She does a great job of covering facts, comprehension, and application. You do not have to buy the guides. Only the books. The teachers send out the worksheet questions they want the kids to answer. They do not have them do all of them. The pattern seems to be one or two a week and the rest she either discusses them orally or makes a game or something out of them. We have not found the work load for this class to be over-whelming. I hope this helps.

:001_smile: Faithe, you in no way have to explain anything. We have had similar regrets with one of our children in particular. Like I said to another poster, I debate ever posting anything because I do not want to seem defensive. I hope I did not. I really was just trying to encourage everyone to not think you had to do anything just because someone else is. By the way, our kids would debate your "one of the best teachers ever" thing about their dad. The older two are often on the computer looking at the list of teachers trying to fugure out how they can get through school without ever having to have their dad!!:001_smile:

I always debate on posting anything. That is why you will notice my posts are almost always towards the end of a thread.:001_smile: I am in this weird place of being a home-school mom and needing encouragement and then being married to someone who is in the middle of it all. I am glad your daughter is enjoying the class. Those summer classes can be brutal! As for the reading, his view and one that he asks his teachers to respect is, that the parents are the ultimate earthly authority and if you tell him you do not want your child reading it, it is fine with him. At the end of each quarter the students have to turn in the percentage of what they read. He does ask that they take it off it they did not read it, but it is a very minimal part of their grade and very seldom does it even cause the final grade to go down. He is always availableto talk these matters through. I am considering starting a yahoo group for VP Scholars. There are so many parents with these questons.