How do you use the Teaching Co. videos?

[Emma]

Reading through the other thread made me curious... Do you just assign these to your dc and they watch them at school time? Do they just pop them in and watch them on their own? Also, how do you know which videos are appealing to your young teens? I'm looking at the art ones..

[AngieW in Texas]

I'm using two Teaching Company series right now.

 

My 14yo is working through Philosophy of Mind. She absolutely loves it. It is a set of 24 half-hour videos and booklet. The booklet has an outline of each lecture, a few discussion questions (which I'm having my dd work through in a journal), and recommended readings. I've been able to find about 2/3 of the readings online for free. There are enough listed that the lecture plus the readings I've been able to find work out to 3-4 hours/lesson.

 

We watched our first Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies lecture today. I thought it was fabulous. My 17yo thought it was okay. My 14yo thought it was very boring. We're not going to work straight through this one. We're going to do a few plays each year and the lectures that go with those plays. This year we are just doing Twelth Night and Taming of the Shrew. We started off by listening to Twelfth Night on audio while reading along in a No-Fear Shakespeare version of the play (very helpful). We'll finish that tomorrow. We watched the first lecture today, which was about Shakespeare and the world he lived in. Tomorrow we'll finish listening to the play and watch the lecture that's about the nature of Shakespeare's Plays. Next week, we'll watch a movie-version of the play and watch the two lectures about Twelfth Night.

 

The week after that, we'll start working through Taming of the Shrew, watch a movie-version, and watch the two lectures about the play.

 

We'll do Henry V and Romeo&Juliet next year.

 

The year after that we'll do Hamlet and Macbeth.

 

The Tempest isn't covered in the lectures. We may watch a movie version of it over the summer.

[PollyOR]

First, I sneak into daughter's room and tell her quietly that I have a coupon for TTC. I ask her to look through the catalog and tell me what she wants. We agree on a course then secretly order it. Shh! Don't tell Dad. ;)

 

Honestly, that's kind of how it works. DD watches them for fun. If I made it into an assignment she would balk.

[johnandtinagilbert]

First, I sneak into daughter's room and tell her quietly that I have a coupon for TTC. I ask her to look through the catalog and tell me what she wants. We agree on a course then secretly order it. Shh! Don't tell Dad. ;)

 

Honestly, that's kind of how it works. DD watches them for fun. If I made it into an assignment she would balk.

These DVDs must be awesome cuz I'm seein' an awful lot of creativity in attaining them:lol: ya'll are killin' me over here!:lol:

[MIch elle]

We watch them for our own educational enjoyment. They help me discuss history & literature in a deeper way with my dc during school, while listening to the radio in the car (npr), and when discussing the news.

 

On occasion my dc watch select lectures. I would probably use them more with my dc if we homeschooled high school but we don't.

[creekland]

We've used two so far - Economics and Chemistry. Economics we used as a stand alone course - oldest watched the videos and wrote answers to the questions that came along in the little book with it. It was very good IMO and my younger two often wanted to listen to the lectures with the oldest - just for fun for them.

 

Chemistry is not stand alone. Instead, it goes along with (and sometimes in different order than) the book. My son watches the lectures that correspond to what he's learning and really likes the extra info. It's not the type that my other two want to listen along with though - possibly due to "interest" differences.

 

I recommend both of them and will probably look into more courses as we have the money.

[TravelingChris]

It really depends on the course. I'll describe what we are doing currently with How the Earth Works. We watch the lectures, sometimes havind a globe or atlas by us. We stop at points and I make sure they understood a point or we point to an example of a place we were at where X is true. After the lecture, I ask the questions in the booklet. WE supplement with field trips that have a book and the ultimate trip will be this summer with lots of geology thrown in.

[dirty ethel rackham]

We have use lit and history ones in an informal co op setting - 3 families. For Lit, we pick the books that we want to study at the beginning of the year. We discuss the previous book, share essays completed and watch the next couple classes. For history, we came up with some books we wanted to have the boys read, we watch the videos and did some reading and essays on the side.

[Murphy101]

Bumping bc I want to know how everyone are using these.

 

I have been surprised shocked thrilled and giddy to have introduction to astronomy cross my path. :)