Oak Meadow:
Are the lessons set up on a weekly basis?

Is it a "no pressure" approach?

I d/l the sample lesson and overview so I got the basic feel for it, but I couldn't tell if they give you things to cover on a weekly basis?

What your.....needs to know:
Has anyone used this as the basis for planning their own curriculum? Is it as daunting as it seems?

Would it be feasible to plan a week at a time on my own?

I'd need seperate curriculums for Math and Reading at least, right?

*sigh*
I don't know if we're going to stay with Calvert, but I'm only going to switch if I find a method that really seems like it would fit with our family. Calvert is a lot of work for JJ and he gets mad every time he sees the cut and paste pages.

Plus Janae is ready for a loose Kindergarten plan and I don't know where to start with that. She's ready, but I'm not going to overwhelm her with Calvert K, she's only 4!

I use Oak Meadow as our curriculum base (Kindergarten) and add tons to it. There are weekly lessons. What I do each week is take the activities from OM and put them into my "lesson plans" and then add other activities that dd is interested in that are related and/or seasonal. I supplement with a MSB science club that we get monthly, with seasonal activities from Circle Round and Celebrating the GReat Mother, with tons of fairy tales and other books, especially seasonal and nature books, lots of art activities, etc. In my "past life" I was a Kindergarten teacher and also a freelance curriculum writer, so it's easy for me. But I don't think it's too daunting a task. I don't set anything up on a daily basis, as far as lesson plans go, just a weekly outline of things we can do. Sometimes we get to them all and sometimes we barely do any because we were going too many places or because dd's interestes lead us in other directions.

Dd is also 4. The OM K activities are very baisc, there are no "academics" at all. The activities are for numbers and recognizing and writing the alphabet, as well as seasonal science and crafts. I think it is definitely approproite for a 4yo, possibly with some adjustments, depending on the 4 yo.