Oak Meadow

Assalm alykom:

Well, we have been using Oak Meadow for a month now. We really like it so far. The grades that I am teaching is 6th, 4th and kindergarten. The 6th and 4th grade are designed to have the children explore and research the subject areas on their own. This exploration has a great deal of hands on work such as creating maps and creating models of things. There is also a great deal of writing and reading involved in these upper grades. The children expressed to me that they like it because it is not just sitting down an memorizing definitions and concepts. While they were attending the Islamic school last year, they told me that the curriculum and the studies were so boring. Through the projects, they are having fun while they learn. They give the children several projects to choose from each time. Therefore, they are also involved in their own decision making process. They do not have the children reading short stories in a reading book. They are reading classic novels and most of them I like. I sent some of them back because I did not approve of the content. I intend to have them substitute with something more approving. This way they still get the quality reading that is needed. This curriculum is great if you also have multiple children. There is only a couple of books that you work from and no workbooks. All their work is done in notebooks. Therefore, if you maintain the books you can just pass it down to the next child. It is also very affordable. After checking with other curriculum's, this was the least expensive. The kindergarten is very laid back. My daughter already knows how to write the alphabet and can even read a few sight words. The kindergarten has them just learning the alphabet. I am using this repetition as a review for her and trying to spend more time on her Arabic letters. The stories they have them reading are the Beatrice Potter stories with Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny. I like these classical stories because they are not full of the sorcery like most fairy tales that they are exposed to at this age. There are many great crafts that are included, and I am excited about doing them all. If anyone would like more information or questions about my experiences, please feel free to email me in the box of my side bar.