How time-consuming is Omnibus?

[Kathie in VA]

I'm toying with the idea of using Omnibus III with my two kids going into 7th and 8th next year. We do not have a good track record with getting to history/lit so far, but hopefully Omni can help us change that problem. It seems to be pretty straight forward to use... yes? What does a typical daily or weekly schedule for Omni look like? About how many hours would you plan?

TIA

[Chris in VA]

Haven't used Omni with kids that young, and only used Omni 1 and 2, but here's my $.02--

Since it's 3 credits, typically you can plan on 5 hours a week for each credit, plus extra for writing papers, reading assignments, etc (what would be called homework in public school).

The readings in Omni 1 were harder for my son than in Omni 2, which we ended up scrapping toward the end of the year. We didn't do any of the secondary reading, adding in our own extra books, and skipped a few of the progym assignments, too--I'd say ds probably spent about an hour nearly everyday, reading the assignments, then maybe .5 hours answering the questions--sometimes more, sometimes less. I made him prepare for our discussions by at least "jotting down" his answers beforehand. It would usually take us about .5 hour to discuss, more if it involved the Biblical aspect, because I'd have him read the scripture as we talked.
That's clear as mud, isn't it? lol
I don't know what is assigned in Omni 3, off the top of my head, but I don't think it's quite as dense as the previous books--but there is still a lot of reading. You really can pare it down, and, I think, still give credit. I combined the theology readings from Omni with the Bible and other theology books we read to make a pretty healthy Bible credit.