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.

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.

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?

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.

Just let it be child-led for a while and see where it takes us?

right! you can always buy a new curriculum when you see what the kids are wanting.hth!

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.

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!

I was going to reccomend Unit Studies too. They sound like they might work for you guys!!

You know, one cheap and easy to do unit studies is Five in a Row. That might be a nice item for you to try.

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.

"...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

Excuse me!

Well, after hearing you guys i think I may have been going in the right direction after all. Up until Saturday when she told me that, I already was planning on doing something a little different since I felt like that weren't getting that much good out of it. Here's loosely what I had planned:

Doing either FIAR OR putting together unit studies myself. Maybe doing some literature based ones using books I think they'll enjoy, like peter pan, wizard of oz, charlots web, then at the end of the unit watching the movie. And in between doing units on whatever thay want to learn about.

Supplementing with Making Math Meaningful- I got the guide for $1.50 on ebay, now I just need the workbooks.
Continue with form drawing for both math and handwriting development
And I'm planning on getting Soul Development Through Handwriting and trying out the vimala alphabet.
Oh, and I'm on the lookout for some sort of reading program for DD2, who seems to have trouble processing sounds.

Ok here's what I've got so far. I'm going to try to keep things loose and fun this year, but plan for any eventuality. Maybe what I have will give me a few different options. I think I've hit all the major stuff (the 3 R's are my main concern) so maybe I can quit obsessing now. :OP

FIAR
Making Math Meaningful
Noble Knights of Knowledge
Soul Development Through handwriting, and form drawing
Click'N'Read Phonics
horrible science books and a subscription to Everything Homeschooling

I have been researching curriculum for a year now, and I am not enjoying any of them that fit with my values. And what Debra said is true of Cyan too... she is early 1st grade reading level, but easily second grade with math, and some of the things she knows in Science and World Studies could rival some middle schools. Any curriculum that would fit her in some things, doesn't fit her in others.

I put it all together myself all this year... and there is a 'crazy' factor in there I gotta tell you. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't doing near enough, and other times I felt so overwhelmed that I thought my brain would pop. But all in all, I feel like the year has been successful for what she needed/wanted to learn.

Just like with your kids though, she doesn't like work. At least not when I teach it. She and I are starting to get into a major battle of 'will mom give up on me being a brat before I am done with school today'? It drives me CRAZY... and she knows it. Sigh... But just like everything else this year, it will pass.

I made up a schedule, and then I follow it loosely with two very very light days. On Wed, we do nature stuff. All she has to do is her chapter in Explode the Code and one chapter in Singapore math, and then she is outside, drawing nature stuff, mapping the garden, taking photos with my camera, etc. Friday is 'field trip day'... if all it is is the children's museum (which she has been to 100 times) we get out of the house, doing something fun. We went to see the baby owls at the local water fowl reserve one time... we went to NW Trek another time to see the baby forest animals... we even went to pioneer farms where they do everything like they did back in 1906. It is our favorite day. Depending on what we are doing, we bring our nature notebooks, or sometimes I let her use my camera. She loves those days.

Next year, I am planning on only having two 'heavy' days if I can. And making as many things fun as possible... but this will require not using a curriculum... again. So I am sure I will be revisiting all of this a million times over.

Will you explain why you picked what you did? I haven't heard of a bunch of those and would love some sites and a bit of what is great about them. :)

Val

Ok here's what I've got so far. I'm going to try to keep things loose and fun this year, but plan for any eventuality. Maybe what I have will give me a few different options. I think I've hit all the major stuff (the 3 R's are my main concern) so maybe I can quit obsessing now. :OP

FIAR
Making Math Meaningful
Noble Knights of Knowledge
Soul Development Through handwriting, and form drawing
Click'N'Read Phonics
horrible science books and a subscription to Everything Homeschooling

Have you ordered Noble Knights yet? I ordered it almost two weeks ago and they haven't contacted me at all. I have emailed twice to ask the status of the order and have had no response. I am just wondering if my experience is typical.

I just ordered it Sunday, so I don't know yet. Back when I first posted that one thread about it, I requested the free CD they offer, but never got it. Hopefull they won't do that with the order too. Is there a number you can call and fuss at them?

I guess I will be checking that. :p Let me know if you get anything past the automated first email confirming the charge.

I finally got an email today (two weeks after I ordered it) saying that they were experiencing a delay in printing that should be resolved this weekend. Whew....I just wanted to hear from them. I am not really in a big hurry to get it.

I finally got an email today (two weeks after I ordered it) saying that they were experiencing a delay in printing that should be resolved this weekend. Whew....I just wanted to hear from them. I am not really in a big hurry to get it.


At least you can stop sweating now :jump:

I STILL haven't gotten it! Have you heard anything from them?

No, we haven't gotten our game yet. I got an email on May 1 saying that for some reason they didn't get our mailing address in with our paypal info. And they also said the same thing about a delay in printing the basics book. They said it was going to be resolved that weekend then they would start sending orders out.

Maybe they have a lot of back orders they have to fill? I'm going to give them another week or two before I panic.

If nothing else (as a last resort if they never send you your game) you might try contacting paypal or your credit card company and tell them you need help getting the game you paid for.

Bummer that it's taking so long, I had excellent customer service from them when I got mine a couple of years ago. Hopefully it will happen soon.

I just wanted to chime in and say that your new list looks VERY much like my own plan for next year for my 3rd and 1st graders. I'll post more about my plan when I've typed it in.

~jo

I'm so sorry, Somehow I missed your post! I jsut now saw it.


Just like with your kids though, she doesn't like work. At least not when I teach it. She and I are starting to get into a major battle of 'will mom give up on me being a brat before I am done with school today'? It drives me CRAZY... and she knows it. Sigh... But just like everything else this year, it will pass.

This is a lot like my kids. I swear if I had the nerve to I would let go and radically unschool for this very reason. Actually we've been doing a lot of "unschooling" here lately, and these seem to be the days that go the smoothest, and they learn a lot on these days too. It's just the 3 R's I get uptight about mostly.

Next year, I am planning on only having two 'heavy' days if I can. And making as many things fun as possible... but this will require not using a curriculum... again. So I am sure I will be revisiting all of this a million times over.

I wish we coul get out and do field trips and stuff. We're so isolated here and gas cost so much right now that we don't get out much. I'm thinking about talking to DH about schedualing quarterly field trips to... somewhere... I think that would help there feelings a lot.
We're going to do school thru the summer because we didn't really accomplish much this past year. Plus it's so hot here that we can't really get out and do much for the most part of the day anyhow. I think what our schedual will look like (although I'm not much of a schedual person so this will be very loose) is:

breakfast and cartoon time till 8:30
do chores before it gets hot in house.
Playtime till 10:00, if chores are done
10:00 start unit study/main lesson.
playtime while mommy exercises, then lunch.
After lunch do math, handwriting, form drawing or art, and phonics
play educational games on computer
free for rest of day.

This will keep them in from 10-2 when it;s the hottest and give them something to do during that time.

Will you explain why you picked what you did? I haven't heard of a bunch of those and would love some sites and a bit of what is great about them. :)

Val



OK, the reasons I picked what I did:

Mostly I need things that fit into my almost non existant bugdet :) Buying things in bits and pieces was easier than scraping up the money all at once for a box curriculum. I needed something I could teach on multiple grade levels easily, and would keep the kids interest. In other words, Be lots of FUN! I've been looking into unit studies for this. And it needed to be an easy transition from OM

FIAR (five in a row)
I was recommended this a couple years ago by a homeschooling mom who lived near me for a short time. Then when I started talking about our homeschooling situation several of the mamas on here told me to check out FIAR. Since the books can be bought used between $10 and $20 I thought well, I can afford one jsut to try out.......

We tried starting it last week. Here's what happened:
We picked up The Duchess Bakes a Cake and The Bee Tree at the library. I decided to start with duchess bakes a cake because I had found some cool medieval stuff to do. On the way home from the library DD1 starts reading the books. We get home with them and I try to start the lesson.

She says, I don't want to read this book, I already read it on the way home.

I Know, but we're going to do our lesson today from this book so sit down and listen then we'll talk about it afterwards.

This is boring! Then she read Horton Hears a Who while I read Duchess bakes a cake to DD2

This week we tried the Bee Tree. The first thing she said was I've already read this book! But I did manage to get one lesson out of it. So I don't know yet if we will stick with this program or not. If we do I really doubt we will do it all 5 days. I'm not going to give up on it entirely till we've really given it a chance.

covering the 3 R's
This area is influenced by my love of waldorfy stuff (at least in theory- for some reason the reality doesn't always mesh.) and trying to transition easily from OM to other stuff.

The first time I had heard of the Vimala alphabet was on this board. It really interested me. THen I saw Soul Development Through Handwriting which is the waldorf aproach to teaching the vimala alphabet. Both my kids are wanting to learn to write in cursive. I thought this would be a neat alternative.

In OM the kids started form drawing, and it's supposed to help with developing control over your pencil, improve handwriting, and then eventually leads into geometry. It's sort of handwriting/art/math and mixed together into something that produces beautiful results. I had already decided a year ago that I wanted to take this further than OM's suggestion int the syllibus so I ordered Form Drawing for First Through Forth Grade (at least I think that's the name).

I've also added Draw Write Now book 5 to my stash. It looks like it's going to be lots of fun. Found it really cheap on half.com

One of the mama's here suggested Making Math Meaningful when I was looking for a math program that would be a good switch from OM math. None of the math programs I've seen mentioned on here, Like MUS or Singapore, would have worked for us. MMM has been great so far! It is very different from anything I've ever seen, be forewarned, but it's definitly working for us! My kids are not only "getting it" they really like it and actually ask me if we can do math. We decided to start at Level 1, which is the K-1st level, jsut because it's so different from what we've been doing I wanted to make sure we didnt' miss out on something important. We're zipping thru the equals and greater/ less than stuff jsut for review. Next is addition. But even tho it's addition it actually gets into some algebra like stuff. The goal of MMM is to teach you to think mathmatically instead of jsut teaching you how to do math equations.
(If you are interested let me know. I have an extra level1 teachers book I can send you next time we send Cyan a penpal letter.)

Noble Knights of Knowledge, Lively Lessons Home Page (http://www.livelylessons.com) as you can see we haven't gotten it yet, but I'm hoping it will be really good.

As far as reading goes, DD1 reads well. As long as she keeps getting books from the library reading them, I'm happy. DD2 has had a really rough time in the reading and writing dept. She's schedualed for testing this summer for dyslexia, LD,. Until then I got her a subscription to clicknread ClickN READ Phonics® - World's Most Advanced Learn To Read Program! (http://www.clicknkids.com) This is another one I'm not real sure about. Sometimes she likes it sometimes not. Right now it's starting to get confusing for her. She thinks everything is starting to look and sound alike.

The Horrible Science books are really cool. We like all the ones we've gotten so far. Found them cheap on amazon.

Everything Homeschooling Everything Homeschooling - All You Need to Succeed (http://www.everythinghomeschooling.com)
This I found when I was looking for hands on activities. It is a subscription sight that cost $16/year, so it's really affordable. IT has lots of lesson plans and activities. There's tons of links ot stiff to do on the internet. This is where I found the medieval stuff to go with the Duchess Bakes a Cake. We built catapults, took virtual tours of castles and all sorts of stuff.
I thinks we will really get a lot of use out of this site.

Once you figure out what your doing would you post it here so I can see?

FIAR (five in a row)
I was recommended this a couple years ago by a homeschooling mom who lived near me for a short time. Then when I started talking about our homeschooling situation several of the mamas on here told me to check out FIAR. Since the books can be bought used between $10 and $20 I thought well, I can afford one jsut to try out.......

We tried starting it last week. Here's what happened:
We picked up The Duchess Bakes a Cake and The Bee Tree at the library. I decided to start with duchess bakes a cake because I had found some cool medieval stuff to do. On the way home from the library DD1 starts reading the books. We get home with them and I try to start the lesson.

She says, I don't want to read this book, I already read it on the way home.

I Know, but we're going to do our lesson today from this book so sit down and listen then we'll talk about it afterwards.

This is boring! Then she read Horton Hears a Who while I read Duchess bakes a cake to DD2

This week we tried the Bee Tree. The first thing she said was I've already read this book! But I did manage to get one lesson out of it. So I don't know yet if we will stick with this program or not. If we do I really doubt we will do it all 5 days. I'm not going to give up on it entirely till we've really given it a chance.


We use FIAR too, and my ds isn't always into reading the book all 5 days. What has worked great for us is getting the book on cd or tape and listening to it in the car on long rides, and then just talking about it conversationally. Many times my ds will listen to it over and over in the car. I try to remember to look over the section in the fiar manual for that story, and I'll bring up topics that deal with that book while I'm driving. Like for The Story of Ping (it's about a duck) we talked about preening and that that is why ducks don't get wet. Then we went to the lake and watched some ducks preening themselves. When he was there he found a feather and we did an oil and water type experiment with it when we got home. Other topics, he couldn't care less about, so I just let them pass.

Your dd sounds a lot like my ds. He is pretty strong willed and if he isn't into something, he's just not going to cooperate. We are very relaxed for this reason. Lots of times I just follow his interests and find books, experiments, websites that deal with whatever topic he's into. Some of our best hs'ing days have been when we just go to the library and sit at a table with a bunch of books that ds has picked out and he reads them and points out whatever cool new thing he found out.

Once you figure out what your doing would you post it here so I can see?

Thanks for your responce. :) Of course I will. We have done a lot like Read Write Draw this year. It is my dd's favorite part of the day. She loves the little stories and she loves learning to draw. So this is how we learn a lot in this house. (My son is similar, so I bet we will do even more of this next year).

Right now this is what I have for next year:

Cyan:
English/Reading: Explode the Code books 2 and 3 (and if we get to it 4)
Math: Singapore Math books 2a and b
Art: Read Write Draw (as many as I can get my hands on... she LOVES stuff like this!) and Drawing with Children

Basic history studies, I am going to follow the time line for MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures (http://www.mfwbooks.com/ecc.htm) while using the Beautiful Feet Books Acient History Intermediate Pack (http://www.bfbooks.com/s.nl/it.A/id.519/.f?sc=2&category=2). So basically, we are going to be studying acient history, continent by continent.

Alex is going to use Life of Fred (http://www.stanleyschmidt.com/FredGauss/index2.html) math application studies for his math curriculum. I wrote the man who wrote this series (his name is Stan, not Fred) and he told me that it was a 'do it himself' study. And that if Alex had trouble with it, to have Alex CALL HIM, and gave his honest to god phone number. lol! So I think this will work out fine for us. If it doesn't... the books are $19 a peice, so we are going to try it out and see if it works. It seems brilliant to me.

I still haven't found a core curriculum for Alex for Language arts, Spelling and so forth. He will be in 7th grade. Ic an get lists from the internet about what he is 'supposed' to be learning, and I can get the book 'what the 7th graders are really supposed to know' etc... but I really would like a bit more than that on this subject. I really dont' know where to turn with that. He will be doing the history and art with Cyan for the most part, and that should be a blast... of course, the things he is expected to do and the things she is expected to do will be very different... considering she is going into 2nd. lol...

Anyway... that is what I have so far. I have huge holes in what I want to do, and I am so terribly tired right now I just can't seem to fill them in... but I want to thank you for all the great ideas you just gave me. :) Those are some wonderful resources!

Val

subbing to get ideas.

My kids had the same reaction to FIAR. I used it when Joseph was K age, so they were much younger but they had no interest in hearing the same book every day for a week.
They will listen to a chapter a day of one book, so we moved on to more involved stories.