Friday, May 23, 2008

Oak Meadow Sixth Grade


Assalm Alykom:
The sixth grade is the best of all of the grades I taught this year. It is very organized and the material is interesting to my son. It starts out by having them make an outline map of the area of time that covers the Ancient Times up to the Renaissance. We are adding countries until the end of all the lessons. I love this integration of geography. The curriculum basically integrates the history with the grammar, vocabulary and spelling. I did not get the reading books because it was Greek Myths and another book about the middle Ages and the Renaissance. I really do not like those books for reading. So we just substituted reading other books from the library. There are definitely things that I needed to skip and substitute. However, overall the projects and papers had many choices. This way, we picked things that suited us from an Islamic view. There is a great deal of written Islamic History during this time. Therefore ,many of the written reports my son did was related to our history. The Science is good too. It is studying animal and plants. Each weekly lesson has many questions to answer and a project or two. In the end, they take a five question test that usually requires a little bit of writing. I really love the way the math is taught. Most traditional school text books teach a math concept, and then there is a test after a few concepts. They may never return to that concept the rest of the year. This math teaches a new concept each week. Every other week there is a "review" of all the concepts. Also every other week there is a test and this test has many old concepts from before. Therefore, every week there is either a review or a test. Overall, I like the sixth grade. There is a great deal of writing and research. My son does complain about this, but after all the whining, he is able to do it. He says that he cannot do it because it is to hard. My motto these days is "It may be hard, but it is not impossible, and you can do it". He does do it and does a great job!

3 comments:

A Muslimah - Another Stranger said...

Assalamu alaykum sis,
great review! I was looking to read some more about Oak Meadow. I am thinking ahead for next year as this year we are using Calvert. I love it and my son is finding so easy to study. But it's a bit pricey!
BTW I tagged sis. Hope you don't mind! :)

Anonymous said...

As salaamu alaikum Sis,

Thanks for writing these reviews. We just started homeschooling this year in KSA and I am trying to decide between Calvert and OM. I am leaning towards OM and I will have a son doing the sixth grade so I am wondering if you could suggest some of the books that you used this year instead of the OM books. Inshallah we will be in the states this summer and I would like to pick them up there, because they will probably not be available or easy to find here. JazakumAllahu khairun!

Umm Mahmoud

Sam said...

As Salaamu alaikum-
My name is Samirah. I have 3 children that I homeschool also. This year I used calvert for my daughter in 4th grade. For my son, 2nd grade, I used random books and edhelper. I was wondering if you could give me anymore information on OM. Calvert was good, it just seemed like alot of work everyday and to traditional. I think my daughter would do better with something different. Any information would be great. Inshallah you can email me, poohnym01@yahoo.com.
JakakumAllahu
Ma Salaams

-Umm Muhammed-Shafee