Omnibus questions (x-post)

[Cadam]

Does anyone really use Omni I for 7th grade? I know a lot of people use it for High School. Is it really enough for High School and if so, wouldn't it be way too much for 7th grade? Anyone spread the 3 Omni's over 4 years? It seems like an awful lot of books to cram into a short time.

[Karenciavo]

I did with my oldest. As long as you have a deep thinker who is willing (or able) to write essays it's fine as far as work load goes. As far as content goes, well, there are some aspects of Gilgamesh and Herodotus and maybe a few more (Kreeft) that you maybe want to make your own decisions on. I let my son read them, although we used a few A. Church books in place of Herodotus scheduled, it was due more to the fact we couldn't get into it.

[Michelle in AL]

I'm using it with a 7th grader. We don't do all the books though. So far I've cut out the Bible after she read Kings, because she does her own Bible study everyday. Her Bible study is slower but I prefer that. We only read books 1,2 & 7 of Herodotus, and will only do 2 sets of contrasting lives in Plutarch and I'm sure there will be more that we'll tweak. There is so much in this curriculum that you can truly pick and choose and give an excellent education.

She is a good writer and enjoys the writing. We only do about 1 writing assignment/week.

We have a 2hr co-op class each week on the secondary readings of C.S. Lewis that includes elements of literature (something Omnibus doesn't teach).

[Cedarmom]

I am doing it with my son in high school. We spread it out over four years. In high school, my son is getting a lot out of it. In 7th grade he would have just died. I guess it depends on your student. Is she capable of reading and staying focused on hard material for about an hour-hour and a half per day? Is he able to discuss what he read at a logic level? Is she able to write an essay about what she read?

[Caryl]

I'm doing Omnibus 1 with my 14yo daughter. Some of the themes are quite adult, and require some connective thinking. My 14yo matured early and could have done it last year in 8th grade. I have an 8th grader who is maturing late, and I don't think she would be able to do it now, and perhaps not even next year. It seems that their thinking changes biologically as their bodies do, and they become better able to make connections and leaps of logic as they mature. So judge by their maturity level rather than grade level.

[Michelle in MO]

just did a quick search to find a previous post:

it is a well laid-out, organized program. I loved the Teacher's CD, and the student books are beautiful.

The reading load is heavy. We never did all of Omnibus, and during the second year we progressed much better than the first year. I would definitely say Omnibus will prepare your child well for college, and even though there are answers on the Teacher's CD, you can obviously jump "off script" for your own thoughts and interpretations, which I did frequently. So, you have that crutch, but as you become more comfortable and familiar with the works, you can take your liberty.

I would say that if your student doesn't love to read that I would definitely recommend choosing only certain books to read, depending upon their reading strength (i.e., speed and comprehension). In that case, you could count it as a literature credit, depending upon how many hours you put into it. If you do all of Omnibus, it counts as three credits: one each for history, literature, and theology. Last year my girls did over 450 hours in English alone, but that was including vocabulary, grammar, writing, and Omnibus. I counted some of the Omnibus hours towards history, but included those hours with our reading in the Spielvogel book (World History, not Western Civ.). I counted the other hours of Omnibus as a separate literature credit, so I gave them two English credits: one just in English (vocab., grammar, and writing) and one in literature.

It is good to love reading and be a strong reader in order to do all of Omnibus, but it can certainly be done if you tweak the program. I also did not care for the writing assignments in Omnibus all the time, and I changed them around as well, as needed. My minor gripe about Omnibus is that, being classical, they try to introduce the progymnasmata in Omnibus. However, these writing exercises are not necessarily tackled in order as they would normally be in a course that tackles the progymnasmata orderly and methodically, as they should be. The progym. are designed to be sequential, logical writing exercises that build a student up to writing well. I didn't find that Omnibus did that. One caveat here: perhaps those who use Veritas Press's materials all the way through find their students well prepared to tackle Omnibus as is, including the writing exercises.

What I did for writing was to pick one or two of the Summa discussion/essay exercises and assign that to the girls. I would set certain requirements of my own for their papers, and have them submit their papers to Cindy Marsch for an evaluation. That helped tremendously.

If you have any other questions, please ask.

I would agree that, especially with Omnibus I, there are some aspects to the Epic of Gilgamesh that are questionable, and I personally would recommend skipping much (or all) of Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars.

[Beth in SW WA]

Does anyone really use Omni I for 7th grade? I know a lot of people use it for High School. Is it really enough for High School and if so, wouldn't it be way too much for 7th grade? Anyone spread the 3 Omni's over 4 years? It seems like an awful lot of books to cram into a short time.

Hi,
It would have been too much for my 7th grader. We will do Omni 1 for 9th next year with A LOT of tweaking. I'm going for the LCC approach: slower/deeper

[Cadam]

Hi,
It would have been too much for my 7th grader. We will do Omni 1 for 9th next year with A LOT of tweaking. I'm going for the LCC approach: slower/deeper

I am much more of a LCC person too and the pace of Omni is one of the things making me hesitate. Also, if you are doing Omni then it will be a totally different time period and everything from what your younger kids are doing. How can you give enough time and attention to the big ones and the small ones?

[Beth in SW WA]

Christina,
This thread (http://67.202.21.157/forums/showthread.php?t=73034&highlight=lcc) might be helpful.

Even if we don't use all of Omni 1, it is still a beautiful reference/study guide, and worth the price tag, imho.

Next year dd will be 7th, ds 9th. We'll do Ancients together, but dd won't do all the readings. She will read and watch the Vandiver lectures on The Iliad & The Odyssey.

[Michelle in MO]

I would agree with Beth and the others: Omnibus would be a lot for many 7th graders to handle. We didn't do all of Omnibus I, when my oldest was in 9th grade and my middle was in 7th grade. We did quite a bit from Omnibus II and read the four or five Shakespeare plays it recommended. However, I really felt that they rushed through the Shakespeare. This didn't give us enough time to dig into the plays as I'd wanted to. I think it's good to have an overview of quite a bit of literature, which Omnibus provides, but the LCC approach appeals to me also. Highlands Latin School (http://www.thelatinschool.org/summer-reading.html)(which is Cheryl Lowe's school; Memoria Press published LCC, you know) has the students read quite a lot during the summers, but takes a more focused literature approach in high school.

However, Omnibus is a beautiful reference book, and I've toyed with the idea of buying Omnibus III (and perhaps the rest of the series) because it is such a beautiful reference book.