Week 1 of Oak Meadow

Well we completed our first week of Oak Meadow and I am very happy. It will take some time to get the feel for how days/weeks should go but I know it will be more relaxing than the classical pace.
Big Mac began IEW writing this week as well and I am hoping that will give her guidance and confidence in her writing. She likes the history element of OM and I am only picking and choosing which grammar we do since some of it is review of what she already knows. She continued with 5 lessons and some corrections in Horizons math and I look forward to her switching over to Teaching Textbooks next year. We already have Mr. Q' science and she enjoys the style of writing so she continued her study of biomes and did some work with food chains that we will continue next week.

Chickie is a total writer/creator/independent thinker. She has a poem, from the OM syllabus that I copied for her, and is turning it into a booklet by researching and drawing or printing pics of the flowers mentioned. She even discovered that the earliest blooming flower we have out front is a windflower! We made grapefruit bird feeders and have been patiently waiting for visitors with little luck. I think perhaps our backyard might be a better place.

Wildman has been a bit under the weather and did not do much this week. He is ahead by OM standards since K and 1st are a slower pace than what I had been doing. He has a knack for math and we are continuing with Singapore since he likes it. He also love any Burgess animal story and asks for those to be read. He addressed an envelope to his friend by himself and spelled out "Dilin" for Dylan yesterday and I was impressed. He can sound out words but has never tried in writing by himself.
I ditched Caesar's English for Big Mac and have listed it for sale. Instead I ordered Sadlier Vocab Workshop to give her a boost since she is a reluctant reader and lacks extensive vocabulary. Looking ahead to Phonics Road 3 I can see that we may be crunched to do IEW, PR, and Sadlier all at once. It is MUCH more involved than PR 2. I really like what I see and the writing picks up BIG TIME at this level.
With any luck I will be posting more about our OM days and feeling the release of stress!

Back to blogging and ditching it all!

After a long break and some chaos in my train of thought I am back in full force. I came to the realization that a "rigorous" classical education is not what 2 of my kids can handle. I also learned that I was doing more stressing, more planning, and more yelling. Where is the love of homeschooling when the days are long and frustrating?? I was trying to piece together so many different things I was just not able to keep my sanity or focus. Solution? Oak Meadow.
Oak Meadow is  more relaxed curriculum that is all laid out for me and will get the job done while not sucking the life out of us. I am adding in Phonics Road(for now) for the grammar/writing tweak and we will continue with Meet the Masters and our current math/science. I also have Big Mac starting on IEW History based lessons to get her into more writing. I will see where OM takes us drop the writing from one of them if it gets to be too much.
Anyway, having spent last week in Disney and then coming home to order new curriculum...well we did little this week other than math and reading. I am all set for next week!