Oak Meadow?

Question

I was wondering if anyone else has used Oak Meadow, particularly for 1st grade. I am looking for a curriculum for next year, the one we picked for this year is boring and I want to be sure that this curriculum will be interesting. Any helpful info would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

We are currently using OM 1 and 4. I've also used Kindergarten, 2nd and 3rd.

Pros:

* Main Lesson Books ~ All work is kept in a separate MLB. (L.A, Science, Math, Social Studies.) This is really a good idea, because all work is kept in one notebook, and you can look back at it and see your work. My kids love their MLBs.

* It is very hands on. Lots of stories. Very gentle.

*They upgraded, and the science is a little more in depth and interesting. It is very nature based, which my kids LOVE. This is my favorite part of the curriculum. We spend a lot of time outdoors, exploring.  The kids LOVE entering info into their science MLBs so much, that they are always bringing them outside to "draw something cool".

* We are using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons... Each week, OM wants you to relearn 2 sounds. (Which is what my daughter is averaging with 100 Lessons.) So, we are sort of jumping from week to week for the phonics reinforcement, and entering the letters in her ABC MLB... very cute. We are also reinforcing with the further lessons where you teach them word families ("__at", "__an" words) and enter them in a word families MLB. This is more interesting than worksheets for the kids.. yet, we supplement with phonics workbooks on word families or sounds she struggles with.

* Cool ideas for handicrafts ~ 4th grade has an awesome Social Studies section where you spend most of the year learning about local Native Americans and making a diorama... my kids are loving this.

CONS~

* For 1st G, the fairy tales are either very short, or too long and do not hold my child's attention. I find myself paraphrasing every paragraph, as it is written for an older audience.

* I do NOT like the 2nd grade package. The readers are dull. The work is tedious. My daughter cried a lot while doing it. She semi-enjoyed 3rd grade, and really likes 4th grade.

* In 1st grade, we are on lesson 8. For social studies, we are supposed to "Read Fairy Tales". That's it. For some, that is okay, but this is not history... I find it ridiculous. She is not learning anything that cannot be learned with bedtime stories.

* The math is a little too loosely written. "Practice the four processes three times this week ~ Write numbers 1-10 in your MLB ~ etc" It just seems too "free" for me... (This, and the social studies is what ruins OM for us.)

Honestly, next year, I am going on my own & doing more Nature Study, Main Lesson Book-ish... My kids loved homeschooling a lot more when we got lots of books from the library and read a lot. We got the book list off of SonLight and plan on using that for science and social studies, along with phonics workbooks. We like Math U See for math... but, it isn't computing with my 1st grader...

Every kid is different. I would check out http://www.homeschoolreviews.com/reviews... to check and see what might be a good fit for you.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

i was wondering the same thing as well, i am very interested in oak meadow the demos look interesting. Im looking for hands on kind of experience if your really interested in that you should try out some montessori curriculum as well thats all about hands on really good you can try all other methods if you try it let me know to see how it went pls!