NanceXToo
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Posts posted by NanceXToo
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...CONTINUED FROM ABOVE. With all that said...my feeling is that you can use this stuff as a guideline. But you can modify in a way that fits YOUR son. That's the beauty of homeschooling :) If he's a reluctant reader and stopping to take notes while reading is making reading even harder for him- skip that!! Just try to let him enjoy the story. When it comes time to do any sort of report- you don't have to do it exactly as they say. You can let him write pretty much any sort of 'book report' that demonstrates his understanding of the story.
Google "creative book report ideas" and you can find all sorts of things that you can let him choose from as to how he'd like to write his book report.
But I do think the books themselves and some of the ideas and questions they have are really good ones, and they suggest all sorts of extra reading for if you want to get further in depth on a topic, which is nice, too.
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Hi, I'm flipping through a bit, I see that some of them say to take notes as you go, but for specific purposes. Like with The Witch Of Blackbird Pond it says to take notes because later you'll be writing a description about the Puritan way of life, comparing it to your life in modern times.
And for Johnny Tremain it says take notes on the events that led to the Revolutionary War because later you'll need to write a report backing up your discussion with specific examples etc.
Then, yes, I see that when it gets to Children of the Wild West it just says "take notes" and doesn't give a specific purpose.... I guess they figure that by now the kid will know the types of 'important events' to take notes on.... (CONTINUED BELOW)....
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That's a good point! Especially considering she's only been homeschooling just over a year too, prior to that, she was in public school and she's always done writing on lined paper up until this past September. And she doesn't love doing much handwriting anyway.
My husband thought right from the beginning that it was silly to do the writing on unlined paper and thought we should just used lined, and I said no, no, let's give it a try, this is what they say to do... so far I can't really tell if it will ever be truly effective though lol. (If the goal is to be able to write these perfectly straight, neat lines even without lined paper to go by). Well, we'll see what happens over the rest of this year and the course of next year, I guess!
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I bought all mine used for a great price, older versions of the curriculum. No regrets here after doing nearly all of fourth grade with an older version. Like someone else said, they might slightly change what you do for a project, or they might have you do this book instead of that book, but there isn't going to be anything major that they'd be learning "wrong" or something because you used an older or newer version. I wouldn't stress over it :)
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So you guys know how OM suggests doing all writing on unlined paper, saying that it will give them better control without the constraints of lines and that they'd end up with beautiful handwriting with or without lines and so on and so forth...
(they still do that, right? I know I'm using an older version of the curric).
Anyway, I'm just curious about how that is working out for you guys and your kids! My 9 y/o daughter did OM 4 this year. We're nearing the end of the curric so we've been at it for like 7 months now. And I have to be honest, there may have been some improvement when it comes to writing straight lines on unlined paper but she still tends to veer off and start writing these crooked lines that start drooping down the page! Even after doing nearly the whole year's curriculum. What have your experiences been?
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MLB
in Oak Meadow
We just used artist's sketchpads with medium weight unlined paper, which we buy at Walmart. They are spiral bound books that say "Mead Academie" on them. They have worked out great for us.
I use a different one for every subject.
And the only time she uses "scratch paper" is when she's writing a rough draft for like a book report or a social studies report, then she copies the final draft into the MLB, but other than that, she does her work right in the MLB.
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Try this maybe?
http://www.oakmeadow.com/curriculum/k-8.php#p
Not sure if that's what you meant, but it gives an overview of what they do in each grade and books they use etc.
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OM 4
in Oak Meadow
Martha, I have "Native American World Myths And Legends"- is that the one you mean? We haven't used it yet; it's one of the last books we'll be doing this year, but it's got a bunch of tales in it under various headings such as "In The Beginning," "How Things Got This Way," "Trickster Tales," and "Earth, Animals And People." There are like 22 stories overall with some black and white illustrations.
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OM 4
in Oak Meadow
I do have The Search For Delicious; it was kind of a weird book, to be honest I can't think of another book that would be similar to it lol. If you don't want to buy it, can you just borrow it from your library when the time comes?? And if your library doesn't actually physically have it, maybe they can get it through their interlibrary loan program?
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I have an older version of OM5 which I will be starting with my daughter in the fall. Its copyright date is 1998.
In my version it doesn't tell you to just take notes for future assignments so I'm surprised if it says that now! The first book they have us read is "Where Do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus," and then it gives 9 interesting questions of which we are supposed to choose two to write "at least a full page in response", and they pose some interesting questions/choices to choose from!
I actually find it to be a good curriculum in that way; maybe you can skip the "take notes just in case" type of thing and modify a bit?
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I honestly don't know why you couldn't!
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I thought I would bump this to see if anyone else had any input but also to update! I got a letter in the mail and it provided some additional information about the program and it gave me the name and number of my local representative.
I called and talked to her on the phone and she will be coming to our house this weekend for the interview and to see the house and everything. I'm excited! :)
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I'm going to be using TT starting in the fall (we're starting with TT5, we've been using Oak Meadow up through this year).
My daughter and I (who are by no means math whizzes either) are both very excited about and looking forward to using TT. I love everything about it from what I've previewed so far.
I know some people say it seems like it might be too easy. It seems grade-appropriate to me and it seems like they are making it "easy" because they demonstrate it so well! I love how clearly everything is explained, how they will tell you AND show you step by step exactly how to do each problem and get answers if necessary, there's no way that any textbook would ever be able to make things so clear to us- and there's no way that I'd ever be able to make things so clear to her by trying to decipher FROM a math text book...
hence, the decision to go with TT. I don't feel like math has to be hard to be effective math, not if it's explained and demonstrated so well, and I will not be supplementing with other math curricula on top of TT... and I have to say my daughter is actually excited to start this program- and I have never seen her excited about math before lol.
So yes I kind of AM hoping that this makes things "easy"- for both of us- this coming year! :)
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Yes. :)
I homeschool myself when it comes to any curriculum or formal things I do.
But I also belong to a homeschool group. We do a lot of craft days and social get togethers and field trips and outings, and sometimes we have some sort of co-op "class" on some random subject or other (like a tinkering class, a puppeteering class, a planting class, etc) or we have people come and speak to our group about this or that. But not to the point where we are getting together to teach core subjects to a group of kids or anything like that.
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This is interesting since we have a live egg case now; we're waiting for them to hatch. It will probably be a few weeks though for us. We've only had it for a few days (maybe 4 or 5 days) and it said that they should hatch in 3-6 weeks after we got it.
We put the egg case into a mesh thing similar to a butterfly habitat, as someone else said.
I read that you can feed them something like "pinhead crickets" from a bait or pet store if you can't catch anything small enough to feed them when they are very little.
I'll have to see how it goes when our time comes!
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I am happy with the fairy tales from what I saw just flipping through it (I haven't actually used it yet; I'll be doing K with my son this year so we haven't done first yet!) But yes it is on the expensive side! I suppose you could use any fairy tale book that you wanted, the only thing that would be "missing" is the fact that they have those pictures for each letter of the alphabet in the stories and then will tell you to have the child draw that picture, but I don't see why you couldn't come up with other ways if you wanted to!
You might also want to look on ebay, amazon, and the sale boards here and see if you can get the book used if you wanted the OM one without spending that much?
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I read something somewhere by OM that mentioned how it may be easy to do more than one lesson a week and get through the curric faster etc, but that childhood isn't something to be rushed. It really made me think! Even if a kid CAN do more advanced stuff- it doesn't mean they need to. I'd rather utilize these more gentle early currics as they are meant to be without feeling like I have to add many things on or do higher levels. Because once you do that, you can't really go back. As they get older, you're not going to say "Let's do the Kindergarten stuff now." There's only one time in your child's life when you're going to do that. :)
You could say well do that plus math worksheets etc but then it's just busywork...I'd hesitate to lay that stuff on them at a young age unless it was something they were really eager for. I'd certainly continue reading good books with them etc. But I love the OM philosophy of not rushing and pushing heavy academics in the early years!
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I wouldn't buy the pre-K curric (though I adore OM) as there's not much to it. It's not really a "curriculum."
That said, I don't feel preschoolers NEED a curric, which is why I haven't started one of any sort with my 4 y/o. I'll be starting OM K w/him in Sept. (he'll turn 5 in Nov.).
For now we do our own thing. He has free play time, we read, listen to music and play with his musical instruments, we do nature walks and gather things for a 'nature tank,' we paint & color and do arts & crafts, we play board and computer games, watch preschool shows, he has legos and blocks and books and dress up clothes, he plays outside and practices cutting and gluing. Nothing formal which works for me!
If you are looking for preschool crafts to do it's easy to find simple crafts to do online, just by looking up "preschool crafts" or whatever :) And just as easy to get wee-sing CD's to do music with them- so for the cost of OM I just don't see it being worthwhile to buy their pre-k "curriculum".
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MY 9 year old would enjoy them :) So perhaps yours would too!
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I will be starting OM 5 with my daughter in the fall, but we will be using Teaching Textbooks for math instead of OM math or Saxon Math.
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I have First Grade Fairy Tales, copyright 2005. The stories in it are:
The Magic Spindle, The Bear's Child, Dick Whittington and His Cat, Jordan and Maria, The Golden Key, The Fisherman's Son, The Three Dwarfs, Mother Holle, Prince Ivan, Jack and the Beanstalk, Prince Darling, Stone Soup, The Princess on the Glass Mountain, The Nail, Mr. Who, The Enchanted Pig, The Magic Locket, Rumpelstiltskin, The Snake King, The Twelve Brothers, The Goose Girl, The Valley Of The Weavers, The Wreath of Birds, The Extraordinary Crossroads, The Y in the Road, and The Six Sillies.
Each one is used to represent a letter of the alphabet via an illustration in the story, something shaped like that letter.
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OM 4
in Oak Meadow
Stephanie,
I don't see why you couldn't do London for the social studies portion of things. It may be a meaty subject but you may only learn about specific aspects of it for now.
Some of the things my daughter has had to learn about our state were: who were the first settlers? What animals were native to the area? And different specific questions like that. So reading those you may be able to translate it to something relevant to London. And times you can't- just pick something of interest and run with it :) You'll get plenty out of the OM curriculum regardless, I think!
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OM 4
in Oak Meadow
Meanestmominmidwest,
Yeah I've found that sometimes (rarely) we will skip something that OM suggests altogether. Other times we will add things on of our own accord to extend a project. Sometimes we spend longer on something, sometimes we spend less time on something. I am sure teachers do this too and don't go through ENTIRE textbooks at school! We still get plenty out of the curriculum, like you said and do plenty of educational things outside of the curriculum. So I refuse to stress over it...we're learning, we're having fun, it's all good! :)
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OM 4
in Oak Meadow
Shari,
I'm awful at art, too! I can't draw for my life. Still, we talked about what the book said to do and she would practice doing it. Sometimes I practiced it with her. She usually did better than me. As long as I could UNDERSTAND what they wanted her to do, even if I couldn't actually DO it well myself, we were good to go :)
OK, my post from the K-8 curriculum Board...
in Oak Meadow
Posted
Ah no problem, I didn't realize you were enrolled and had to send things to the OM school/teacher! Well, I do hope you find what you are looking for, I'm sure it will all work out :)