New here & thoughts on Oak Meadow?

[SchoolhouseLife]

So, we've used Oak Meadow for Kindergarten & I'm feeling like it's time to move on, both to 1st grade, and perhaps to a different curriculum. I'm leaning towards just mixing & matching, but i did love the convenience of one big fat book full of ideas/projects...

anyone have thoughts on this?

My daughter is 6.5 & really starting to want to read, which I've been insistent not to push, all along. However, i don't want to keep her from it...so, as of now we're going through Dick & Jane and it's obviously not matching real well with the OM curriculum anymore...

[milkybean]

I didn't OM for Kindergarten, I just found things that looked interesting and DS did them.  He asked strongly for a curriculum for 1st grade, a thing of books that would come in the mail and that would be his learning work for the year.  After much agonizing I chose OM.

At first I was a bit iffy about it!

But now I really like it, and so does he.  I will mention that we are WAY behind because I kept getting sick, I mean over and over, from Fall through Winter and right up into Spring.  It's been awful. 

Reading...they don't want to force kids into reading, they have a very nice soft touch with reading.  And that works VERY well with my particular son.  I myself taught myself to read way too early, but DH didn't learn until he was 8.  DS is just about 7 and is really getting into it now, really making some progress.  We do the Word Families from OM, and we do lots of reading for more learning about subjects (right now we have books about the north and south poles, astronomy, and Greek archaeology) and of course being read to helps.  In addition we are slowly using the BOB books, and he was gifted some phonics early readers. 

My sister in law's sister (also in NC like you) got the K program for a steal at a convention, even though her DD is only 3, and just looking through it she isn't liking it, and is now moving away from OM.  So there might be something about the K curriculum that's different from the higher grades? 

I do find that I have to sit and read the lessons through, then write it down in my OWN words and my OWN order in a notebook.  That way I know what's coming up, I know if it's a long week or a week where I can do two or even three weeks' worth!  That's important as we try to catch up.

I'm not sure if any of that was helpful.  Just know that there's one OM 1st grader who is learning a ton, progressing to being a reader, asking to get more more and more books...and his mom has no problem supplementing with other readers to meet that wish. 

[onyxravnos]

we like OM, we like the relaxed (but similar to PS) way they approach it. we also use the secular sonlight books and are using hooked on phonics to learn to read even though of course OM isn't introducing that yet. 

we are going to repeat OM kindy this year and even though DS1 knows all his letters and is beginning to read it will still benefit him. I want to add more 'Beauty' and art to the letters rather then focusing on what the letter is and what sound it makes. when we do OM first grade we will probably be well into reading level 1 books but we will do the same artist approach to the lower case letters (and review the difference of b,d,p) and then focus on making word books to reinforce his reading.

I keep trying to remind myself that as homeschoolers not everything has to be PS grades... next year we will be buying both 1st grade and kindy materials to mix and match with DS1s ability. You can introduce reading and still use OM you just need to tweek your own thinking about how you are presenting materials.

[SchoolhouseLife]

thanks ladies--exactly what I needed to 'hear'. Now just to decide what materials we are going to buy. I am honestly not interested in rushing any of it, but just don't want to stifle anything either. She has really pushed in the reading department recently, so I'll just continue to follow her lead and not worry if the curriculum matches perfectly...

[Shantimama]

 We used Oak Meadow for kindergarten but it didn't seem like a good fit for my children after that. We switched to Sonlight and jusut used the non-religious books and that was a fantastic choice for my family. My kids loved the books and their science curriculum. I loved the idea of Oak Meadow but it just didn't meet my kids where they were at.