Have you done Oak Meadow 5...???

[NanceXToo]

If so, would you mind sharing with me whether you used "Main Lesson Books" still, or was that the point at which you switched to regular binders/lined notebook paper or whatever....?

 

Thanks!

[Guest Cindie2dds]

Nance, Christy is doing it now. :)

[Guest Cindie2dds]

Here's a link to her 5th grade work. http://closeacademy.blogspot.com/search/label/Grade%205

[NanceXToo]

Thanks, Cindie! I can't tell for sure from her blog whether she is doing everything with MLB's or not! Maybe she'll chime in here! I think I'm leaning toward switching over to regular binders at this point, though.

[Closeacademy]

Just got back from the hot, hot park.

 

I've never really done MLBs. Instead, I have them doing their work on a white sheet of paper which I 3-hole punch and put in a binder.

 

Hope this helps.:001_smile:

[NanceXToo]

Hey, Christy!

 

So you're still just using blank, unlined white paper though, as opposed to lined notebook paper at this point? Like for writing assignments and everything?

[Lorax]

We're not doing the whole curriculum, but for history we're using a binder and for science we're using a nicely bound drawing book that I got at Michaels with a 40% of coupon so more of a main lesson book feel.

[Osmosis Mom]

I just bought an older edition of History/English for my girls and am excited to look it over further. Does anyone know of the difference between the 1998 edition and a newer one? Also, for crafts and handiwork for grade 5 what are you using?

 

Nadia

[NanceXToo]

Lorax,

Thanks for your feedback! I did ALL MLB's for 4th grade and I was trying to figure out what I should do now for 5th because it doesn't seem to tell you in the syllabus, and I was undecided. I like the idea of kind of combining and doing some in binders and some with more of a MLB feel. I'll have to think on it some more now! :)

 

Osmosis Mom,

I actually got this fantastic deal on a used curriculum that gave me all of OMK through OM8 all in one shot! Mine are older versions, too, so my OM5 is the same as yours- the 1998 edition. I couldn't tell you the exact specifics of the differences between what we have and the most recent version. But I can tell you that I had called OM right before purchasing and felt them out about whether there were significant changes in curriculum between then and now, and the impression I got from their response was that there weren't.

 

I did OM4 last year using this older version and I loved it. I didn't feel like it was really outdated or that I was missing out on anything. It's a great curriculum, even used. And the price was way too good to pass up. I have no regrets!

 

I've also looked through pretty much all of my used OMK and OM5 as we're moving on to those with my son and daughter this fall, and I'm totally happy with those, too.

 

As for crafts and handiwork, that kind of thing is integrated into the US History/English Syllabus. So we're just following along with that!

 

They're going to have you doing things like making your own compass, making a sailboat (as you read about Columbus and other explorers), when you read about Jamestown it's going to give you a choice of projects such as making a diorama, making a paper Pocahontas mask or puppet and so on. It'll give you occasional recipes, such as for "hard tack" and "Johnny Cakes," and it will give you "extra credit projects" which are optional for things such as making a flour and salt map and will include a recipe for flour and salt dough, or pressing leaves and flowers for a little booklet pertaining to home/folk remedies.

 

Other crafts and handiwork projects include cross stitch, clay bowls or cups, paper making, candle making, making your own ink, making a bead loom, bead weaving, herbal scents (making a naturally scented pillow), and so on.

 

So I'm not planning on anything extra outside of the curriculum, but of course we do have plenty of standard arts and crafts supplies wherein my daughter can do her own thing in her free time, and we usually do some sort of art camp over the summer, and she does some craft type projects in Girl Scouts, etc.

[Closeacademy]

For writing assignments we use lined paper. I actually type up the exercises for grammar out of the history books. I haven't had her actually do any of the writing assignments yet because she is behind in writing. We are working on writing paragraphs using another books and she is working on writing sentences within the OM grammar activities.

 

:001_smile:

[Osmosis Mom]

Thanks, Nance, for the feedback. Sounds very reassurring and exciting.

[NanceXToo]

I decided I'm going to get her a big binder, divided into subjects and I'm going to have her do all writing assignments on regular lined notebook paper. But I'll be able to holepunch blank white typing paper or cardstock to add it in if we want to add in typed sheets, or do illustrations or collages or anything else that would be better served by blank paper or a "MLB" page kind of feel.

 

So she'll start 5th grade with a more "big kid" feel, and my little one will start K with his very first MLB's :)

[Guest Cindie2dds]

I decided I'm going to get her a big binder, divided into subjects and I'm going to have her do all writing assignments on regular lined notebook paper. But I'll be able to holepunch blank white typing paper or cardstock to add it in if we want to add in typed sheets, or do illustrations or collages or anything else that would be better served by blank paper or a "MLB" page kind of feel.

 

So she'll start 5th grade with a more "big kid" feel, and my little one will start K with his very first MLB's :)

 

So fun! I can't wait to do MLBs with my wee one. She's the artsy one and will love it. She just turned 4 so we will have to wait a year for Oak Meadow K. :)

[NanceXToo]

So fun! I can't wait to do MLBs with my wee one. She's the artsy one and will love it. She just turned 4 so we will have to wait a year for Oak Meadow K. :)

 

Ben will still be 4 when we start- I'm hoping I'm making the right decision! If he were going to public school, he'd have had to wait another year to start K. I plan to start the week of Labor Day, and he'll turn 5 two months later, in early November.

 

I figured because of the nature of OMK it will be perfect for an about to turn 5 year old (my daughter started public school K about a month before she turned 5 back in the day after all, and that was way more academic, and she did okay- even though now I'd do things totally different with her if I could go back, of course)!

 

And it seems too young of a program to wait another year til he's almost 6. Hopefully a few years down the road I don't end up feeling like I started too early or anything though!! What do you think, Cindie?

 

My plan so far has been to try him out in September and see if he seems willing and able and eager to go for it, and if so, to carry on. If not, I'd put it off at least a few more months and then try again. (If I told him today to draw a haystack or whatever like for "A" he'd probably look at me like I was nuts. It's very hard to get him to even want to try to draw anything beyond scribbles still. Not sure how much that is going to change in the next couple of months! I guess I just have to see how this goes!)

[Guest Cindie2dds]

Nance ~ this is a hard decision! I would try him out and see how it goes. You can always put it aside for another year. My youngest just turn four and is in no way ready, so we are doing something else until we can do K. Oak Meadow K was so much fun. Let us know how it goes. :)

 

ETA: I originally bought OM 1 for Rella's K year because she could already read and had done math. I realized she wasn't ready yet and got OM K. She was 5 turning 6 and it was a great fit. The stories and projects are geared for a child of at least five, if not even 6. It looks deceptively easy, but after looking through OM 1 again, I am so glad we waited.

Edited July 25, 2010 by Cindie2dds
Additional thoughts

[lovemykids]

I decided I'm going to get her a big binder, divided into subjects and I'm going to have her do all writing assignments on regular lined notebook paper. But I'll be able to holepunch blank white typing paper or cardstock to add it in if we want to add in typed sheets, or do illustrations or collages or anything else that would be better served by blank paper or a "MLB" page kind of feel.

 

So she'll start 5th grade with a more "big kid" feel, and my little one will start K with his very first MLB's :)

 

This is what we do. Sometimes my girls make other little books, but most of the work goes into a binder.

 

My oldest dd did some of OM 5 because she wanted to, she really enjoyed it, but then got distracted by other things. It was actually just a review of everything we had already covered in SL 3+4. But I just love the writing assignments in OM. She will start OM 6 sometime soon. (Possibly after advanced swimming lessons.)

 

I really like keeping everything in binders. I hope you have a great year with OM 5 and K.

[NanceXToo]

For anyone curious, I emailed OM to get their "official" stance on it. Their response pretty much fit in with what I said I plan to do anyway, I think! They said:

 

"Dear Nancy,

This is a great question! Thanks for asking. Fifth grade is a time of transition and it is a great year to switch out of the main lesson books into other notebooks. It is a wonderful opportunity to have the student make a decision as to how she/he would like to organize the work. Some students still like to put their work into a main lesson book. Reports that are written on lined paper in ink or that are typed can still be glued onto a main lesson book page if you want to keep the work all together.

Hope that answers your question!"

[Osmosis Mom]

OK, so now my question is about planning. I understand how OM has things in one week increments. How do you plan your week in general? What about those of you who give the kids a weekly plan (or daily plan)? How do you do that? Obviously I could go through every week and schedule things out like that, but am looking for a much easier way....

[NanceXToo]

OK, so now my question is about planning. I understand how OM has things in one week increments. How do you plan your week in general? What about those of you who give the kids a weekly plan (or daily plan)? How do you do that? Obviously I could go through every week and schedule things out like that, but am looking for a much easier way....

 

LOL Let me know if you find one. I went through every week and then broke it down day by day in a Wordpad document on my computer, because I like to make lists and be organized like that.

 

It WAS on the time-consuming side- I did it here and there as I had free time over the summer. Then, over the school year, I could open up that Wordpad document each week, copy and print that week's schedule, and use it as a guideline, and it was nice being able to do that every week for the whole school year last year.

 

I have been doing it this summer, too, though to be honest I probably didn't have to. Now that I have an idea of how things go with my daughter and OM, I probably could have just looked ahead a week at a time to see what supplies i needed, and then just opened the syllabus each week and said "okay do this and this and this today" "and we'll do this, this and that tomorrow" and just sort of saw how it went, time wise.

[Osmosis Mom]

Well, Nance, you are not helping me here, LOL! The program looks great, but I don't have a *virtual* box to assign to my kids!! I certainly don't have time ot go through each week; as it is now with a new baby and a busy toddler I am happy to be able to even look at the curriculum for next school-year!

[NanceXToo]

Well, Nance, you are not helping me here, LOL! The program looks great, but I don't have a *virtual* box to assign to my kids!! I certainly don't have time ot go through each week; as it is now with a new baby and a busy toddler I am happy to be able to even look at the curriculum for next school-year!

 

Ha. Sorry!

 

Really, though, it will just kind of fall into place as you go. Just make sure you look ahead a week to see what supplies you might need for that week.

 

Then just open your syllabus on a Monday and start doing some of the things listed in it until you feel you've spent a reasonable amount of time on school stuff, then stop, and do more the next day.

 

Even if it takes a few weeks for everything to get ironed out in regard to how much you can/should do on a given day to balance out a week, no biggie, it'll fall into place and you'll figure it out!

 

Hey... in fact, if you want, PM me your regular email addy (because there are limitations to how much text you can send in a PM box here) and I can even try emailing you an attachment of my schedule (with each week broken down by day), since we're doing the same program. You might end up making changes of course, and I may be doing some things you're not (like I'm probably using a different math curriculum or whatever) but at least you can get an idea of how I'm breaking down my week using the same basic curriculum and grade you are. I've completed 30 weeks out of 36 so far, so I still need to get those last 6 done lol... but most of it is done already. So if you think it'll help feel free to let me know :)

 

Nance