Would it be worth it for us to get OMK?

[Mergath]

I've been drooling over the Oak Meadow catalogs for, oh, well over a year now, and I would love to do their Kindergarten program with dd next year. (I wouldn't be using it beyond that.) However, she has some special needs and her development has been rather... uneven, and I'm not sure if it would be a good fit for us to use OMK.

 

I know that their first few years move a little more slowly, which I personally like. However, dd knows her upper and lowercase letters, letter sounds through G, and numerals one through nine. She can write quite a few letters, also, and knows a handful of sight words. She also has gross motor delays and her speech is extremely hard to understand. Some things she picks up on right away, like countries on the world map (she can identify forty different countries now) and some things just seem to be beyond her. She has a lot of trouble grasping abstract concepts like time, though she has an amazing imagination. Also, the poor child couldn't carry a tune with a forklift. Her singing scares the cat. :tongue_smilie:

 

So my question is, would it be worth it for us to use OMK? We tried the Brightly Beaming Letter of the Week thing earlier this year, and dd was bored out of her poor little gourd. I know I'm asking quite a ways in advance, but if I want to use it, I'll have to save for a long time first, and I don't want to spend that much money on something if we won't be able to use much of it.

 

Thanks!

[Aurelia]

With an asynchronous child, I'd say no, don't get it. I tried OM1 and quickly sold it and bought OM2 to try. I still had to adapt the snot out of it to make it useful at all - more/different LA, separate math, science, etc. Ariel likes the stories in the syllabus, and we use it for history, what little it has. I think you'd be better off looking at ALGF or some Waldorf books and making your own plan.

 

If you really want it, OM Seconds through Amazon sells used copies for half price or sometimes cheaper.

[NanceXToo]

OMK teaches all the uppercase letters and so on. If your daughter already knows all of them and was bored with a different program where she already knew all of them, maybe you should consider maybe OM1 instead (which I haven't seen firsthand/used yet myself).

 

If you only plan to use OM for your K year anyway, then whatever other "regular" curriculum you move on to in 1st grade will prob be more advanced than OM1 (since OM is more gentle especially in K-2) so it will be like progressing on anyway.

 

You could always call OM and explain your situation and see what they say, they've got great customer service!

[Mergath]

If you only plan to use OM for your K year anyway, then whatever other "regular" curriculum you move on to in 1st grade will prob be more advanced than OM1 (since OM is more gentle especially in K-2) so it will be like progressing on anyway.

 

 

Hmm, that might work. I'll have to go take a look at their first grade curriculum. Gives me another chance to ogle my OM catalog. :D Thanks!

[Mergath]

With an asynchronous child, I'd say no, don't get it. I tried OM1 and quickly sold it and bought OM2 to try. I still had to adapt the snot out of it to make it useful at all - more/different LA, separate math, science, etc. Ariel likes the stories in the syllabus, and we use it for history, what little it has. I think you'd be better off looking at ALGF or some Waldorf books and making your own plan.

 

If you really want it, OM Seconds through Amazon sells used copies for half price or sometimes cheaper.

 

I'm planning to cobble together my own curriculum for first grade and beyond, but I guess I was hoping to use a boxed one for kindergarten. Ease myself in gently. :tongue_smilie: Thanks for the tip about Amazon, I didn't know you could get OM used through them.