Alternative LearningAre you a homeschooling mama? or maybe you unschool... or maybe you are interested in another alternative learning style? or maybe you don't have any idea what i am referring to?? this forum might just be for you! share your thoughts and ideas
We've been using OM for the last 2 years. When I bought it I thought it just sounded so cool, and so fun. I thought the kids would enjoy the stories, painting, crafts, music, clay... I had pictures in my head of this deamy fairy school here at home.
The reality has been different. They kids do not enjoy the activities. Which blew my mind since I thought they were going to love every moment of it. I've been able to tell for a while now that they were not enjoying it, and felt like they were not getting anything out of it. In fact my oldest one thinks most of the activitites are absolutly pointless and refuses to do them. So I was planning on trying some different material this year and had been looking around for something I thought they would like.
The yeasterday my other dd told me homeschool is no fun. I told her if she doesn't like the things we are doing here it's OK to tell me so and we would try to find something that they enjoy doing more. So she flat out told me she hates OM and wants something more fun.
It broke my heart a little. Now I'm afraid to pick anything else out. I know so little about what's out there. I would hate to spend hours and hours looking at stuff, find something I think is really cool, scrape up the money for it, then them absolutely hate it. Again. I want them to enjoy homeschool and to enjoy learning.
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do you do school at home, like sit at a table and "do" school? maybe you could just focus on field trips - even if its to the backyard to find bugs or birdwatching with audubonish books to identify them. dvds of historical places and people, or videos of whatever, etc? some trips to the library and have them read whatever they likes. some baking in the kitchen? some free form art with canvas and markers? basically just freeforming it to see where she is in her life and what interests she has that you can help expound on.
that should have read : freeforming it to see where THEY are in their lives and what interested THEY have...
We had a similar experience with OM.
I thought it would be a 'gentle' way to approach education, especially for my six year old who seems to have some learning disablities. SHE is the one who liked it the least.
I knew that school at home would not work for two of my three. Textbooks and worksheets just do not go over well here.
They have really loved Moving Beyond the Page though, which has neither textbooks or worksheets.
I would say if your daughter is expressing specific dislike with it, to ask her what she is looking for. What does she think school should look like? My kids love project based, unit/concept studies.
And what is important to you? For me, it had to be a completely secular approach (which narrows the field considerably ).
We had a similar experience with OM.
I thought it would be a 'gentle' way to approach education, especially for my six year old who seems to have some learning disablities. SHE is the one who liked it the least.
This is exactly what I thought too. My dd2 seems to have some processing problems and I thought that this would be great for her, and I picked it out especially for her even though I knew it was a little slow for DD1. But I thought hey, with all the neat arts and crafts she'd enjoy it anyhow. Wrong.
Quote:
I knew that school at home would not work for two of my three. Textbooks and worksheets just do not go over well here.
They have really loved Moving Beyond the Page though, which has neither textbooks or worksheets.
I had looked at MBTP a while back and thought it looked great, but the price! Is it possible to get it used? Or is it all consumables?
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I would say if your daughter is expressing specific dislike with it, to ask her what she is looking for. What does she think school should look like? My kids love project based, unit/concept studies.
And what is important to you? For me, it had to be a completely secular approach (which narrows the field considerably ).
They say they don't want textbooks or workbooks. DD1 wants to learn about animals, bugs, gardening, outdoorsy stuff. DD2 doesn't know, she just wants it to be fun. LOL I do want something secular, somewhat unstructured, and price is a factor. I want it to not be like school, where you have to learn certain things. I want them to be able to learn what they want to learn, but still get in the 3 R's.
do you do school at home, like sit at a table and "do" school? maybe you could just focus on field trips - even if its to the backyard to find bugs or birdwatching with audubonish books to identify them. dvds of historical places and people, or videos of whatever, etc? some trips to the library and have them read whatever they likes. some baking in the kitchen? some free form art with canvas and markers? basically just freeforming it to see where she is in her life and what interests she has that you can help expound on.
that should have read : freeforming it to see where THEY are in their lives and what interested THEY have...
Just let it be child-led for a while and see where it takes us?
It is still a pretty new curriculum, so it is not readily available for purchase used. You could try buying ONE concept (there are four per year) and see if it is even something you would like.
You could also try joining the yahoo group for the MBTP...sometimes people post stuff for sale as they finish it up.
They are doing a huge sweep of the U.S. right now with all of the curriculum fairs...maybe you could go look at it and talk to her?
How old are your kids?
It's interesting that OM does NOT appeal to kids with learning differences. Libby would just get up and walk away. I couldn't figure out WHY. Maybe the stories were just TOO fairytale-ish or something.
I absolutely agree with Branwyn. They sound like they are very self-motivated learners. I think I might go with that.
My 7 year old tends to get stuck on things for a REALLY long time, so we use MBTP to help introduce new topics and getting going.
They say they don't want textbooks or workbooks. DD1 wants to learn about animals, bugs, gardening, outdoorsy stuff. DD2 doesn't know, she just wants it to be fun. LOL I do want something secular, somewhat unstructured, and price is a factor. I want it to not be like school, where you have to learn certain things. I want them to be able to learn what they want to learn, but still get in the 3 R's.
Last year we did Animal Worlds from Winterpromise and they boys all loved it. What amazed me is what they loved about it was the more technical books more than the read alouds. They still get the Animal Encyclopedia out and look at it daily and they love reading the One Small Square books.
You might try checking some of the books out from the library and then just doing reading/phonics and math with them. Kind of take a break while you see what you want to do.
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Robin wife to one awesome guy for 18 years,
mama to four beautiful boys
I am trying to make a shift to unit studies and lapbooks. There are lots of good free and/or inexpensive guides online. Maybe you could try a few and see how it goes?
See these:
homeschoolhelperonline.com
homeschoolshare.com
currclick.com
Good luck!
__________________ Jody
Mama to two boys (5-10-98 and 6-01-01), and two girls (11-18-03 and 1-11-07)
We used OM 2nd grade and I felt like it just really dragged things out to the point of boredom and my ds really got tired of the focus on animals after a while.
Our best hs'ing times have been just following his interests and also leading him in new ideas through Five in a Row. I use the homeschoolshare and currclick sites that were posted above for great lapbook activities. Pretty much all of our unit study books come from the library.
__________________ ~Karen
Mom to Evan so happy to be 8
and Gabriel Alexander 12-15-08
Many people have an image of homeschooling in their minds
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMJoiner
"...I had pictures in my head of this deamy fairy school here at home...
At work my DH's colleagues think we say the pledge and sit at little desks! LOL!
I told my husband to just tell them we do hippy homeschooling since what we do probably fits that description best for them to understand we're not doing school-at-home!
All children need a certain amount of direction at least mine do (two if my children have Autism) but by no means do I force them to do things. My oldest likes math workbooks but the rest do not. My 8yo likes clapping games for math and tossing a bean bag around as well as hopscotch boards numbered with different times tables (you know instead of 1, 2, and 3 you might do 4, 8, and 12 for the 4's times tables).
Never buy a full curriculum set because your chlidren will be ahead in some areas and behind or bored with others ime! I like curriculum guides and unit study guides which make suggestions but don't have a script you follow.
We don't watercolor in teh Waldorf style. I am just not effective at teaching wet-on-wet watercoloring. I've even bought several books on the subject. Now I just let them paint however they want (but still reminding them to care for their brushes and not scrub the paper and things like that).
Best wishes!
Sincerely,
Debra, homescooling mom of 4 ages 11, 10, 8, and 4
).
Jody
so happy to be 8
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