This giveaway has ended–thanks for entering.
Welcome to Day 2 of Back to School Week here on Simple Homeschool!
Today I’m absolutely thrilled to introduce you to one of Simple Living Media’s sponsors, Oak Meadow Curriculum and School.
Oak Meadow offers two excellent choices for homeschooling families: PreK – Grade 12 curriculum packages you can purchase and use with your children, or the ability to actually enroll in their accredited school via distance learning, thereby receiving full academic credit and transcripts for your child’s work at home–as well as the support of an experienced teacher.
Oak Meadow has been in business for over 35 years, and their materials offer that wealth of educational experience to their customers. Their approach is simple: give children a safe, nurturing environment; provide creative activities for head, hands, and heart; offer each student respect and time to unfold naturally.
The staff at Oak Meadow are not just employees showing up to get a paycheck. Instead they are individuals who really embody the creative philosophy and passion for education that Oak Meadow stands for. This post, written by Heather at Beauty That Moves, describes her inspiring visit to the Oak Meadow offices in Vermont. Reading it gives a lovely glimpse into the ethos and values of this company.
Oak Meadow generously sent me an entire first grade package to review, and I’ve spent many happy hours exploring it!
The Heart of Learning, one of the foundational books in the K-3 curricula, is an inspiring read–and gives a fabulous, insightful overview into the heart of Oak Meadow’s philosophy. It covers setting up a learning environment in the home, mindful parenting, and creating an appropriate homeschooling schedule for the young child.
The first grade syllabus I received is divided into 36 weeks of lessons. The layout is professional, beautiful, and easy to follow. Each week contains information for circle time, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, music, and crafts.
If the idea of imaginative, holistic home education appeals to you, but you don’t have time to piece it all together yourself, Oak Meadow may be the perfect solution for your family.
Today Oak Meadow is offering one lucky winner a complete grade level package of your choice, including all curriculum materials and readers (excluding the craft kit). This prize is valued at over $300!
How to Win
Everyone has three chances to win. Choose one or all three!
1. Comment on this post, and answer this question: Do you enjoy putting together your own homeschool plans or do you prefer a curriculum that simplifies that part of the process for you?
2. Follow @simpleschool on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway. Be sure to come back and leave a separate comment with the link to your tweet.
3. Subscribe to Simple Homeschool by email or in your feed reader. Leave a separate comment letting me know you’re subscribed.
This giveaway will end at noon EST on Saturday, August 21st and is open to commenters 18 years or older. The winner will be announced on Sunday–good luck!
Just subscribed!
Well, this will be our first year doing homes chool so I can’t say for sure, but as a former early childhood educator I really really enjoyed coming up with ideas myself.
This is my second year and last year I put together my own curriculum but would am looking for one already put together for me this year. I’m intrigued with what Oak Meadows has to offer.
So, it all started when I landed a job as an assistant teacher, I loved it, so I decided to go to school and learn how to do all that amazing stuff the head teacher in my class was doing. I worked at a headstart, I did practice teaching at a daycare, I went to school full time, really immersed myself in it. Great! you would think… well, at home was my beautiful, intellegent, always looking for a way to get your attention two year old daughter. At first she loved seeing my classroom, she loved all the funny little games that I was able to come up with that she didn’t know she was learning from. As time went on though, All these activities slowly demanded more and more from me. It took my getting pregnant with my son though, to see what a toll it was taking on my daughter to have mommy always learning about how to interact with children and never getting to interact with my very own. It also took all the planning and paperwork that goes into making a good curriculum that may or may not be approved by my boss for me to begin to wonder if I was making the right decision. I wanted to help children, to be a teacher, but I forgot I already had someone who was needing my guidance and she was getting left out. So I quit school, quit work and focused on my children, which was the best thing I’ve ever done.
When it came time for their formal schooling I pulled out all my books, all my planning papers, all the stops! By the mid mark of the first year though, I was so frazzled and so behind and had only used about a third of all those plans I stayed up late working on for weeks at a time that I really didn’t spend that quality time just enjoying the learning process with my kids. More than anything in the world I want to just enjoy this time that I wont get back. The joy of watching their curiosity take over and seeing all their loves and talents take flight and lead them down countless roads. I plan to use Oakmeadow homeschool because out of all the curriculums I have searched, theirs was simple and still packed full of ways to make learning fun and interesting at each grade level. Until next year I am stuck doing the formal planning myself because I don’t have the money it takes to buy the curriculum yet, so If I was able to get this package, Not only would I be so exstatic, I would also be eternally grateful for the time it will give me to enjoy my three beautiful kids in all their learning glory.
Pauline
I would prefer to have a complete curriculum already laid out for me. Who wants to spend all their free time planning for homeschool? I’d rather spend that time enjoying life with my children.
we are kinda winging it this year! but i would like to establish a nice “spine” to help keep us grounded.
i’m a subscriber, too.
We are new to homeschooling and I have been trying out some project-theme-lessons this summer. I enjoy the process of putting together a curriculum, but it is time consuming for me. (My children are very young and can’t help much at present.) I read Heather’s wonderfully inspiring post and I know what she means by just having that “feeling” about your child’s education. We selected our nursery school very carefully, and I am vigilant about supporting each child’s learning style. I feel the public school system isn’t the best choice for our family and I can’t wait to delve into homeschooling my oldest as he enters Kindergarten. Many thanks for this fabulous giveaway!
I’m a subscriber too!
I use curriculum pieced together but am looking into a boxed curriculum to make things easier for me. I am in the UK and it’s hard as all the great curriculum seems to be US based! No conventions here i’m afraid. I’d really like to try Oak Meadow 5 for my dd who is 10 next year.
I subscribed via e-mail and keeping my fingers crossed.
Subscribed by email too!
We are have been homeschooling for a year already, and we love it but we are hoping that the Oak Meadow curriculum will make it a little less stressful so that we can focus even more on learning, and not worrying so much that we are covering the areas that we need to to meet state requirements as well as the educational needs of our kids. Unfortunately, we are having a very hard time financially in this recession so we were excited for this chance for some help with purchasing the Oak Meadow programs. Hope to encourage other families to change to Oak Meadow (we have several other homeschooling families in our area) and maybe develop some study groups based on the curriculum to make the home school year even more fun!
We’ve been homeschooling since Oldest Son was born (13 years ago). We’ve tried everything — child-led, unschooling, unit study, and Calvert — along the way. It wasn’t until we found Oak Meadow in “5th grade,” that we found exactly what we were looking for. Now, I wouldn’t use anything else.
For some families, I believe unschooling or putting together their own lesson plans is absolutely the best way. For us, using Oak Meadow’s weekly plans as a guide, and working within that at our own pace, is the best fit. I can’t see us ever using anything other than Oak Meadow. In fact, I may enroll Oldest Son in the OM school for high school. And when Littlest One (our 18-month old) is old enough, I’m fairly sure he’ll be an Oak Meadow kid as well. : )
First grade! What luck, I have a little lad about to enter into that year and what a great way to find out if this is the right kind of curriculum for him.
subscribed via email!
I just subscribed to simple homeschool. Thanks for the chance to win.
Great giveaway!!!
Since I’m new to homeschooling, I prefer to have a set package. I think this will work best until I get more comfortable with the available materials and our preferences!
I am a subscriber!
I usually like to plan my own curriculum, but after a hectic year last year, we are going a bit more structured this year, relying heavily on an online curriculum, with some minor tweaks.
we are just beginning our homeschooling adventure, and so i don’t really know which i will prefer! i lean toward doing an eclectic mix that we put together, but i wonder if *i* will need a bit more of the structure that a curriculum can give…
subscribed!
I like to do a blend of creating my own curriculum and using something planned out. I am finding that more and more I am using other’s plans. I enjoy the process of doing it myself, but I need the time back in my life!
Kim
Subscribed via email – thanks!