I am trying to cobble together an Oak Meadow 1st grade curriculum. The syllabus is one the way, I have The Heart of Learning and The Home Teacher's Process Manual already, and I ordered Growing, Growing, Strong from Amazon this morning. I still need the fairy tales book and a couple of the readers.

My questions are about the music and crafts. DH thinks it would be redundant to use the recorder to teach music when DS#1 is going to start piano as soon as he turns 6. Did anyone do the recorder as well as another instrument? Also, do I need the music book and tape if we aren't going to teach music as part of the OM curriculum (ie. does it have other rhymes, etc. on it?)?

Also, I have most of the items in the craft package, with the exception of the main lesson books (which I plan to get from Paper Scissors Stone) and the knitting needles and yarn. What size are the needles? Also, is the yarn just worsted weight or is is "chunky"? Will a 6YO really be ready to learn to knit? We haven't done finger knitting yet.

TIA,

Kimberly

I havent used the OM 1st grade in 7 yrs so I will refrain from answering your other questions - but I do recommend doing the recorder. :)

Hi momma, we just tried OM First with Corbin...the recorder is the one thing that I did *keep* to use now, because it's fun for him, and he really enjoyed and retained it!! I would personally reccomend it!! :D

The knitting he did well with too, and still does even though it's not in his "lesson plan" so to speak...finger knitting he began with, and now uses needles! (size 10) with regular, 'thin' yarn...the chunky stuff *I* even have more trouble with LOL.

The music book and tape, let's see...there's the recorder book and then a song/lyrics book, I *believe* maybe I'm wrong though, the tape is of songs and lyrics...and they are independent of the recorder.

I hope this helps :D I haven't used it in months, since we switched to a mish mash of more structured approaches, but I think I recall alot of it LOL.