asmall Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 I have been reading about classical education, (The Core, and TWTM) and I like a lot of the information, but my mom just heard about this curriculum called Oak Meadow and I was wondering if anyone knows anything about it? I would like to look at all my options. I am not looking for curriculum for this school year, we will finish up with what we have, but maybe for next year. I sometimes feel like I need something new to break up the same old, same old.:001_smile: Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoveBaby Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 What ages are your children? Oak Meadow has a very different philosophy, especially in the younger years than either the Core or TWTM. The order and way they teach things in the older years is a different scope than TWTM as well. I am using OM 5th with my older DD and we both really enjoy it. (Actually, it's taken a backseat to some other things we've been doing lately, but we'll get back to it eventually!) I have the K,1st and 4th grades sitting on my shelf as well. I really love the gentle approach in the younger years, although I prefer a different method than what they have laid out to teach reading, but that's just my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asmall Posted April 22, 2011 Author Share Posted April 22, 2011 My youngest is eight and working on first grade. She is just starting to read this year. We waited to start reading with her because she has hearing loss in both ears, and was still working hard on her speech. My oldest daughter is 10. She is working on fourth grade. I'm not sure what I find interesting about oak meadow, but I would most likely keep going with what we already have for reading. I would just like to find out about it. I feel like we need a change in our homeschool. Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asmall Posted April 22, 2011 Author Share Posted April 22, 2011 I guess the main reason I am interested in Oak Meadow is because I would like my girls to enjoy school more. We have lost that love to learn feeling, and I want to get it back. From what I've heard about Oak Meadow it sounds like it may do this. Anyone else know about this? Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Robyn Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 (edited) I have been using OM K this year with my youngest and love it. I do feel that at least at the K level it is a great program to make learning enjoyable. It feels very organic to me. I plan to use OM 1 and 5 next year. I'm not much help, but if you keep on bumping up the post, someone with more experience with OM will answer eventually. :) ETA: Blogs have been a great resource for me when researching OM. Choose the "blog" option when searching with google and try searching different levels of OM that you're interested in and you'll likely find a few people who are using it. Edited April 22, 2011 by crstarlette Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurelia Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 Oak Meadow is considered Waldorf-inspired. It's more academic than straight Waldorf philosophy, but much more laid back in the younger years than classical education. We're using 2nd grade this year, but also supplementing because, although Ariel loves the history and science lessons, it's a little TOO laid back for me. They only have one science and one history/geography or social studies lesson a week, and 2-3 math and LA lessons each week. From what I have read, OM starts to ramp up the challenge beginning in 4th grade. I really like the looks of the 5th-8th grade curricula, and although I won't be using 3rd grade, we may go back to it for 4th or 5th grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoveBaby Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 If the reading portion is working, then it would be easy enough to keep going with that along with OM. They have excellent samples on the OM website with lessons, so you can see exactly what is happening in each weeks lessons. It is not set up in daily lesson plans in the younger years, but weekly, so you can determine what is done when. The math portion is particularly interesting to me. It approaches math from a totally different perspective than is often seen. Here is the link to the samples: http://www.oakmeadow.com/curriculum/curriculum-samples.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NanceXToo Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 I am a HUGE fan of Oak Meadow. My daughter was in public school from K through most of third grade. I didn't pull her out of school til toward the end of the third grade year, so we didn't use a curriculum to wrap up the school year, we just did our own thing. I heard about Oak Meadow during that time period, read about it, had a chance to see the Kindergarten curriculum in person and some of the second grade curriculum in person (friends were using it) and I fell in love. I was lucky enough to find an older, used version of Oak Meadow K-8 all from one seller and bought the lot. I then used Oak Meadow 4 with my daughter last year- and we both loved it. It's not dry or textbookish, it's creative, hands on and fun. We just wrapped up Week 29 of Oak Meadow 5 for this year, and are continuing to love it. I am looking forward to moving on to Oak Meadow 6 with her in the fall and (re)starting Oak Meadow Kindergarten with my 5 year old son at the same time. I don't know how old your kids are- Oak Meadow is MUCH less academic, more gentle, Waldorf-ish and so on in the earliest years. In later elementary (say 4th on) it really is more caught up to age level and becomes heavier and heavier on reading and writing, with interesting writing assignments to choose from and so on, but still manages to not become dry, textbookish, full of "busywork" and so on. I have lots of info on Oak Meadow on my blog if you want to take a look. You can start here: Oak Meadow Review http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/124071.html Oak Meadow Kindergarten Sample Week w/schedule and pics http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/125979.html Oak Meadow 4th Grade Sample Week w/schedule and pics http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126472.html Oak Meadow 5th Grade Sample Week w/schedule and pics http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/126296.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 What are their arts, crafts, cooking, music books like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NanceXToo Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 (edited) What are their arts, crafts, cooking, music books like? For which grades? Oak Meadow uses weesing songs and fingerplays in K, uses the recorder in the earlier years as a musical instrument and provides some recorder books (not sure which grade that starts at), although personally I've decided not to bother with that. We just do our own informal thing for music earlier on, and my daughter will start guitar lessons next year in 6th grade. For 4th and 5th we used a free site called makingmusicfun.net to learn more about various composers and orchestra instruments, we've got a bin full of simple musical instruments they can play with, we attend live performances here and there and so on. Art in K is a lot of nature type crafts. In 4th there was a built in art curriculum learning about laws of perspective and so on. In 5th and 6th there's no formal art instruction/curriculum but instead various "handicrafts" that tie into the English and Social Studies lessons (which are always integrated). We're going to be adding "Meet The Masters" next year for 6th grade. I think in 2nd or 3rd grade they start with a cookbook of some sort but I haven't had to use it as I've only used OM4, OM5 and part of OMK so far. ETA: You can get an overview here: http://www.oakmeadow.com/curriculum/kindergarten.php (That's Kindergarten but you'll see links on the left with all the grades, and as you click each one, it will give you an overview of the curriculum for that grade including what they do for the subjects you are interested in). Edited April 23, 2011 by NanceXToo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 I really like OM for high school. I tried it this year for my 7th grader as well, but I don't like it at that level, so I ended up abandoning it for her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Robyn Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 What are their arts, crafts, cooking, music books like? I'll add that at the K level the crafts and activities that we really enjoyed were found in the syllabus itself. The separate craft book was not as good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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