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LadyAberlin

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    Oak Meadow Preschool

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    With a child as young as yours rhythm is the key to a happy day. This is the foundation for all the early waldorf curricula (on which Oak Meadow is loosely based). There is very little academic material introduced in the early years. A lot of the success with rhythm lies not so much in creating new ones but rather in looking at the rhythms you've already got in place with a fresh lens and renewed intention.

     

    Instead of spending a lot of money on a curriculum you may find it more feasible to look at some of the good waldorf books that are out there that discuss how best to work with the early years. Here are two that come to mind, both very popular in waldorf circles. This one is chock full of ideas for re-shaping your family rhythms into a rich and living learning environment for your little ones. And this one contains concrete ideas for moving fluidly through the whole day with lots of songs, verses and folk and fairy tales. HTH.

     

    Thanks for the suggestions, I'll take a look!

    Oak Meadow Preschool

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Wow, great questions.

     

    I'll give you a little background about my kids and why we chose OM K. My girls are 5 (will be 6 in January) and 3 (will be 4 in July). Last year, when my oldest was 4.5, we started SL P4/5 with LA K and Readers, Singapore Earlybird math, handwriting, etc., basically full blown Kindergarten. My oldest is a very focused, patient and intelligent child. I can easily push her, but I realized about two-thirds the way through the school year that she wasn't having any fun, there was no wonder and exploration. We were all over the map with our day, there was no routine at all.

     

    I spent this last summer trying to find something to do together with them for the fall. I chose something I though would work -- it didn't, kept looking. Then we found Oak Meadow. I bought OM 1 thinking she would be easily ready for it since she can read, is almost finished with Miquon Orange math, and can write. I got OM 1 in, read the Heart of Learning, the Home Process Manual and the Syllabus. I soon realized that the style of learning is all about developmental stages, not necessarily academic when they are this young (under grade 3). There is knitting, a recorder, and other more fine motor skill tasks in OM 1 that she's just not ready for.

     

    I ended up ordering OM K and reading through the Syllabus and realized that developmentally this was spot on for her. Now even though they only introduce uppercase letters and numbers, the time spent on them is wonderful. For instance, we have gone round and round about to always start at the top for letters. There are exercises outside where you "walk" a huge "A, B, C, etc." drawn in the dirt like you were a pencil. This really helped her to *get* it. There's also a lot of fine motor skill development with coloring, beeswax modeling, clay, etc.

     

    We actually do everything together now. My youngest one loves it because when letters are introduced, she gets out her main lesson book and draws her picture of the story we read (mostly scribbles) this is her school! Art is used for everything drawing, watercolor, clay, beeswax modeling, to describe the Literature, Science projects, Numbers, Letters. There is a Kindergarten book of Fairy Tales which is just Beatrix Potter's complete works, but the Syllabus has at least two stories per lesson in them.

     

    We have a rhythm to the day for the first time and both my girls love doing school together. All of this is part of the curriculum. We do additional math for my oldest because she is a math girl, but she still loves the stories and art involved with the number introduction.

     

    HTH! Feel free to ask any more questions.

     

    ETA: You could use the OM K as PreK, sure.

     

    Your kids are exactly the same ages as mine. My youngest was 3 in Sept and my oldest is 6 in Dec. My oldest used Little Hearts for his glory last yr. He really enjoyed it and school went well. I tried sonlight this yr and he just hasn't been loving school like he did last yr. I finally had him say yesterday that he loves his Abeka 1st grade math. He loves science. I think that he would benefit from OM k as well. He isn't in tune with his surroundings so I think that might help him out. He can join in with my pre k when he feels like it. It just seems so expensive for 3 books.

    When does school end and homework begin?

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    I would say don't stop doing school til it is finished. I was homeschooled and there wasn't a difference between school work and homework. If you finish teaching by lunch then after lunch could be a trigger. Maybe she could exercise or have a snack after you finish teaching if it is later in the day and she can know to finish up the homework when she finishes one of those things?

    Oak Meadow Preschool

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    Would the K work as a prek? I like the idea of establishing a rhythm to our day. We don't really have one. I tend to need plans that tell me when to do things. So I kind of like structure for that, but then I'm not structured in life. I kind of feel I need something to help me along to find a rhythm. My youngest will turn 4 in Sept next yr. He likes to do school like big brother. I don't feel the normal pre k stuff fits him well. He isn't as ready for it like older ds was, but he desparately wants to have his school time and joining in with brother doesn't count. They have arguments over who's school is storytime. They don't get that it is for both of them. It has to be one or the other LOL. So I would like something special. He knows all his letters and sounds, but he doesn't have very good phonemic awareness so I can't progress into reading he can recognize numbers but has no one to one correspondence. He has speech issues and is really hard to understand so it make dicussion difficult. But I want to find him something. Also he is more in tune with cycles it seems. He is always commenting that the sun has gone down and so it is time for bed and in the morning he tells me wake up mommy the sun has come up. He came up with this on his own. My older one has always been very academic and not in tune with any kind of cycle at all, so it is really interesting. I'm thinking we could all benefit from having more of a rhythm. Do you think the K would work for a prek and what would a day look like in the K program?

     

    Thanks!

    Unschooling? Neglect? I don't know...

    in K-8 Curriculum Board

    Posted

    It's been a while since I've read A Thomas Jefferson education. It is more child lead, but I think around 13 it starts to get pretty rigorous in that the child is supposed to be self educating the majority of the day and writing summaries over research that has been done and reading great books and then they meet with the parent once a week to go over all they have studied. I don't think video games and TV come into the picture. They really wouldn't have much time for it. The parent is supposed to be self educating as well and organizing all sorts of clubs and lit discussion groups and debate team type stuff and exposing the children to all sorts of things. In the book they had some classical musician friends come over and give a little concert for their kids and then talk about the instruments. There was a lot going on. When I read it, I really felt that it sounded great in theory, but unless you just have kids that are really driven then it isn't going to work and you also have to have the money to really stock your shelves with all different kinds of books in various subjects so the kids can find different things to study. I don't know your sister, so I don't know what all is going on, but she might want to look into a video school or something if she doesn't want to teach. TJE does tend to be delayed on the start of math and reading because it starts when the kids are interested. When they start reading late, they usually pick it up quickly, My sister was 8 when she started reading and she was reading Sir Thomas More's Utopia by 6th grade for the fun of it.

    Birds and the bees and 6 yr old boys

    in General Education Discussion Board

    Posted

    My 4yo regaled our guests with an anecdote about how Barry (our rooster) jumped on Mei Ling (one of our hens) because he wants her to hatch out babies. :lol:

     

    When I was 9 or 10 we were at the duck pond with some friends and I ran to get my mom yelling that the one duck was trying to drown the other duck LOL. My mother had to have a little talk with me :blush:

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