OM is not a good fit for us. Help me tweak and save this year.

[sparrow]

After years of doing Sonlight and mixing AO with my own stuff, I thought we would try Oak Meadow. I was drawn in by the thought of the kids having a little more independence and I liked them having a choice for how to complete assignments.  In theory, this all sounded good. In execution, we are flailing.

 

Oh. my. goodness. So much writing.  I have both kids doing OM 7.  We are on week 8.  They are asking, "When will we read more books?" :( . They read Summer of the Monkeys *weeks* ago. Since the LA assignments are integrated with their reading, they are not scheduled to read another book until week 9!  They have been reading their dry, world history text book and writing (writing, writing, writing). I think I'm more un-schooly than I realized.  I'm actually having them do about a quarter of the writing assignments because *I* can't take it.  We are enjoying the science curriculum....minus the writing assignments because it just zaps the fun out of it.

 

So, I'm not scrapping this curriculum ($$$!), but I am going to tweak it to death, until it looks nothing like OM :) .  I want to remove the writing component and add more books. I still want them to work on writing skills, but not like this. Suggestions? I have WWS. I wanted to have a more organic approach, "Hey, you think this guy is interesting? Write a research paper", but I think we still need more hand-holding. Would you get rid of all the OM writing assignments and focus on WWS?

 

Has anyone else had this experience with OM? What did YOU do? I miss reading books and talking about them :( .

[mommymilkies]

We're in the same boat, but I think I'm going to scrap it.  And for how much I paid for it, I've been really unimpressed with the numerous typos and formatting issues.

[sparrow]

We're in the same boat, but I think I'm going to scrap it.  And for how much I paid for it, I've been really unimpressed with the numerous typos and formatting issues.

 

Yes, the formatting and typos were, um, surprising, given the price. Are your books falling apart, too? I can't even re-sell it because the pages are coming out of the binding. I'll need to pay more to have it comb-bound.

 

I really don't want to scrap it, but if anything, it's going to feel like a supplement to whatever I decide to do. *sigh* Maybe we should just hold hands and jump?

 

[mommymilkies]

Yes, the formatting and typos were, um, surprising, given the price. Are your books falling apart, too? I can't even re-sell it because the pages are coming out of the binding. I'll need to pay more to have it comb-bound.

 

I really don't want to scrap it, but if anything, it's going to feel like a supplement to whatever I decide to do. *sigh* Maybe we should just hold hands and jump?

 

We are supplementing heavily, too.  Mine does look rather ragged even though I am very careful with it and haven't used it long.  I think the younger grade ones are now spiral bound.  In the past, I've had so many OM books falling apart at the binding, they really should do something about that.

[Aurelia]

Can you add your own books and just have them do some of the writing assignments from the books already assigned by the curriculum? We won't be trying OM again until next year, but we did something similar when we tried one of the lower grades a couple of years ago. I am already planning, and I think we will use WWS if DD needs more instruction than OM6 gives. 

[EKS]

If the TMs for OM are the same as they were a few years ago, I totally agree about them having an unprofessional appearance.  For what they're charging, they should be producing a professional looking manual, not something that looks like it was thrown together in someone's garage. 

[Halcyon]

Well, we are using OM 6, tweaked, for my 11 yo. And we are tweaking it. In fact, before I even began i knew we'd be tweaking. Here's what we do:

-all the writing. Yes, it's a lot, but we decided to focus on writing this year with older.

-not the spelling. We use a vintage speller. 

-not the vocab. We use Caesar's English plus vocab from read-alouds.

-Science-I like it. We supplement with a coop class.

-History-he's already done Ancients, twice, but I am using htis first semester of Ancients to delve into topics more, and to focus on his writing. He is writing a four page report on mummies, complete with research and footnotes, something he has never done.

-math: we're using Tablet Class Pre-A and A. A very good fit for now.

-grammar-we are not doing grammar really this year. He is very good at it, and does Latin.

-adding spanish via duolingo

 

Re the reading--why not just give them more books? My younger is doing OM4 and he zips through the assigned books far faster than the curriculum guides suggest, but that's okay. I just give him another book.

[MicheleinMN]

I would alter or cut down or reduce the number of assignments in OM rather than dump the whole writing component.  You might be able to use it with the outlining and summarizing assignments in WWS.  Look through the Sonlight and Ambleside reading lists to find more books to read.  My dd had an OM assignment and always had to read from another book as well.  I usually let her pick what writing assignments she wanted to do each week, but we also had WWS 1 going last year also.  (She was using OM 6th grade as a 7th grader, and while I would not have liked it as our only school work, it did have interesting assignments that I would never have thought to have her do.)

 

HTH

[mommymilkies]

The writing requirements up substantially between OM 6 and OM 7.  I think there's something like 10+ for each week's lesson.

[sparrow]

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts.  I do intend to add more books and we will continue to pick and choose writing assignments. Doing them all is just way too much for us.

 

I was reminded today of The History Shelf (Thanks for all your hard work, Jenn!!). I'm going to supplement with some of those suggestions and stop getting hung up by box-checking!

[jnaj]

This is our first year homeschooling, so take this for what's it's worth..I thought we would *love* OM5. I was excited to get started after we received it. Unfortunately, it just hasn't been a good fit for my son. I found I was doing way too much supplementing and tweaking to make it worth even using. I think we've kind of settled into something else now, but I wish I hadn't spent so much $$ on OM. I like the idea in theory, but implementing it here just didn't work out. What I have is brand new, but I can see that the books are not put together well at all.  It can definitely be tweaked enough to make it work, but we decided to go another route altogether. 

[Mom22ns]

If you're doing world history, check the SL G & H cores for a great list of books to supplement with. We really loved the books in G, H didn't have a lot of favorites for us.

[sparrow]

If you're doing world history, check the SL G & H cores for a great list of books to supplement with. We really loved the books in G, H didn't have a lot of favorites for us.

 

That's interesting because Core G was the last core we did. Looking ahead to Core H is what made me decide to give OM a chance. We also really loved the books in G!

[saja1029]

There are book lists at the end of every lesson (or almost) for OM7 World History.  Have you tried those? 

[sparrow]

There are book lists at the end of every lesson (or almost) for OM7 World History.  Have you tried those? 

 

Not yet, but it's part of my plan now that we're ditching most of the writing ;) . 

[saja1029]

My boys have a hard time with writing, so we either just discuss the questions or pick one writing assignment to work on that week (this was with OM5 & 6, we are starting OM7 history shortly).  That seemed to help some of the stress....LOL. Otherwise, nothing would have been done.  We also added in a lot of the additional reading suggestions.

[Upward Journey]

After years of doing Sonlight and mixing AO with my own stuff, I thought we would try Oak Meadow. I was drawn in by the thought of the kids having a little more independence and I liked them having a choice for how to complete assignments.  In theory, this all sounded good. In execution, we are flailing.

 

Oh. my. goodness. So much writing.  I have both kids doing OM 7.  We are on week 8.  They are asking, "When will we read more books?" :( . They read Summer of the Monkeys *weeks* ago. Since the LA assignments are integrated with their reading, they are not scheduled to read another book until week 9!  They have been reading their dry, world history text book and writing (writing, writing, writing). I think I'm more un-schooly than I realized.  I'm actually having them do about a quarter of the writing assignments because *I* can't take it.  We are enjoying the science curriculum....minus the writing assignments because it just zaps the fun out of it.

 

So, I'm not scrapping this curriculum ($$$!), but I am going to tweak it to death, until it looks nothing like OM :) .  I want to remove the writing component and add more books. I still want them to work on writing skills, but not like this. Suggestions? I have WWS. I wanted to have a more organic approach, "Hey, you think this guy is interesting? Write a research paper", but I think we still need more hand-holding. Would you get rid of all the OM writing assignments and focus on WWS?

 

Has anyone else had this experience with OM? What did YOU do? I miss reading books and talking about them :( .

 

I've already thought about scrapping it and we're only on week 3 :o  I won't because I paid an arm and a leg for it, esp. since I had to have it shipped across the border.  I'm hoping that we'll feel a bit more settled in a few weeks.

 

Yes, the formatting and typos were, um, surprising, given the price. Are your books falling apart, too? I can't even re-sell it because the pages are coming out of the binding. I'll need to pay more to have it comb-bound.

 

I really don't want to scrap it, but if anything, it's going to feel like a supplement to whatever I decide to do. *sigh* Maybe we should just hold hands and jump?

 

 

This has bothered me as well.  We had our first page fall out today, and we only just started week 3.

 

Well, we are using OM 6, tweaked, for my 11 yo. And we are tweaking it. In fact, before I even began i knew we'd be tweaking. Here's what we do:

-all the writing. Yes, it's a lot, but we decided to focus on writing this year with older.

-not the spelling. We use a vintage speller. 

-not the vocab. We use Caesar's English plus vocab from read-alouds.

-Science-I like it. We supplement with a coop class.

-History-he's already done Ancients, twice, but I am using htis first semester of Ancients to delve into topics more, and to focus on his writing. He is writing a four page report on mummies, complete with research and footnotes, something he has never done.

-math: we're using Tablet Class Pre-A and A. A very good fit for now.

-grammar-we are not doing grammar really this year. He is very good at it, and does Latin.

-adding spanish via duolingo

 

Re the reading--why not just give them more books? My younger is doing OM4 and he zips through the assigned books far faster than the curriculum guides suggest, but that's okay. I just give him another book.

 

 

The amount of writing in OM 7 has been a bit overwhelming for my 8th grader, a lot of complaining and gnashing of teeth.  I do think that she will get used to it, there's just a steep learning curve.

 

OM6 is taking my 6th grader most of the day, and I have cut some assignments for him.  This is mostly because I want to keep moving, and the fact that he's covered the material before. I am excited to see what he can do with the report on Egypt.  He really hates the map work, which has suprised me and I've added Oxford Ancient History, which he likes. 

 

All of my kids are using  R&S Grammar & Spelling w/o the writing component as well as alternate maths.

 

I haven't decided how I feel about the science yet.

[fraidycat]

We've only just started today, but my plan is to use OM as the spine, scrapping some of the assignments, allowing DD to choose others, and doing some mind mapping, general outlining, or oral discussion instead of actual writing on some of the writing assignments. She will also have to pick books from the library that tie in with each week's lessons.

 

I do like how the syllabus is written to the student, as one of my goals this year for DD is to learn to read and follow instructions, no matter which curriculum we use.

 

*I* needed the structure of OM to keep me on track, as a lesson planning/ daily scheduling failure (when pulling all materials together myself from separate curricula) but I won't be using it directly as written. It is not in my nature. ;)

[Mom22ns]

That's interesting because Core G was the last core we did. Looking ahead to Core H is what made me decide to give OM a chance. We also really loved the books in G!

 

We still enjoyed H, it just didn't quite live up to G. The two made a great pair in middle school for us with no regrets.

[freeindeed]

I've added in books from Sonlight's booklists for my dd12, who is using OM 6.

[Momx3]

I am using OM5 this year.  It is a lot of writing...that's for sure.  Especially as my son has dysgraphia.  I liked it because it is SACS accredited and I would like to possibly register for middle school.  If you register.....not ALL of that writing is to be passed in.....I believe just the longer assignments.  So for now we focus on those.

 

Soooo....this year I focus on those larger writing assignments, use as many of the supplemental books I can find at the library (I am able to find most) as well as others found at the library.  I've put kind of a CM spin on this curriculum.  I really like their book choices.

 

Interestingly my DS is writing pretty well now because of OM.  Their approach to the writing is wonderful.  He loves the assignments....we just need to be careful about the workload.

 

I will say that OM is $$$$ and then the books are written to the child, which I don't like at all.  I took them over from my child by week 3.  I think to save money, I will have the pdf version delivered next year ($200) and you can keep it for the year and it is readable on an i-pad.  This will put ME in charge.  Another way to save is to get also the required books at the library or used book store.  I'm already doing that and I have gotten every single required book at the library.  Just be organized and reserve the books ahead of when you need them.

 

All in all I like it.  I may register next year as I hate record keeping.  This way I can have nice records, but still have all the flexibility of homeschool.  I believe OM is pretty hands off except that there are things that need to be passed in.  A friend of mine had a good experience with them.  Her high schooler was failing miserably in PS especially math.  Pulled HIMSELF out, did OM for the last 2 years of high school and is now a MATH MAJOR in college....just did a better job of teaching himself I guess.

 

I'm committed to them for the remainder of this school year anyway.