Scheduling questions for Oak Meadow

[beck]

I'm going to be using OM with my 8th & 10th graders next year. I'm wondering if any of you who have used OM for middle or high school can help me out with some scheduling questions.

 

The 4 OM courses that we'll be using all follow the same general format in most of the weekly lessons: some reading, some vocab. and/or short answer questions, then longer essays/projects/activities. I'm worried that if I have them start on Monday & spend the week working through the lessons doing some work in all subjects each day that they'll spend all day on Monday reading & then be really crammed on Thursday & Friday doing papers & projects. Am I thinking about this right? How does this work for your kids?

 

I'm considering having them delve deep into one subject per day, working through an entire week's lesson in that subject in one day. While that does put them working on one subject for a long block of time, I think it will actually provide more variety in the kinds of work (input & output) that they'll be doing that day. Has anyone tried this? Am I crazy to consider it?

 

Math & foreign language will be done every day regardless of what I decide. We're not using OM for those courses. The OM courses are for English, Science, History, & Health.

 

Any input is appreciated!

[homeschoolchic]

Not to hijack your thread...but same questions here...I will be doing 7,9, and 10th.

[beck]

Well, hopefully some of these wise women can help us out! I've googled this question every way I can think of and I'm not having any luck finding answers. Even if someone has tried this general approach (going deep in 1 subject/day) with another curriculum I'd love to know how it worked.

[SkateLeft]

I've used some of OM's middle school and high school courses, and that approach would work for some courses (like OM English 8), but less well for other OM courses, particularly science.

 

Some of the projects are meant to be done over multiple sessions. Things need to grow, or compost, or dry, or settle, or rot... :lol: OM science is very hands-on! You *could* conceivably complete that stuff in a day, but it would probably take more intensive planning ahead.

 

My younger dd used OM 8 in 7th grade, and I let her figure out how to get everything done each week. It was rough at first, but her time management skills improved a lot. Some of the courses, like OM English 8, were actually really easy to get done in a day, but the research assignments in Civics and the projects in Physical Science were more time consuming. She usually ended up getting English done within the first couple of days each week, and would read over the assignments in physical science and civics, then spend the rest of the week working on those.

 

Anyway, hope that helps a little!

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

Edited November 23, 2012 by Shari

[beck]

Thanks, folks! This is all helpful. I still have no idea what I'm going to decide to do, but having more info has to help me make a better decision. I'm guessing that it's going to take some trial & error to figure out what works best for us.

[Ruth in NC]

My youngest did OM civics a couple of years ago. On Monday, he skimmed the assignments for the week, choosing which ones he would do, because there are always choices. Then he planned the week for himself. Not being particularly organized and prone to being overly optimistic about the time assignments would take meant that he was often overloaded on Friday, at least at first. He got better over the year.

 

Ruth in NC