TOG vs. Biblioplan

[FlyingMOm]

I'm a pretty die-hard lover of Tapestry of Grace- we are about to start our 3rd year of Tapestry. I've been intrigued by Biblioplan though & saw it at convention.

 

If anyone has used them, how would you compare them?

 

If you looked at both, why did you choose one over the other?

[Ali in OR]

I'm on my second cycle of Biblioplan. About a year ago I seriously looked at TOG for our second cycle, but there wasn't an advantage that would justify the price. I can use the price difference to buy a lot of books for us to read. A few more reasons besides price: 1) My dd was very ready for dialectic level reading in TOG, but the assignments (or discussion questions, can't really remember what exactly) was too difficult. I thought the UG books were too simple compared to what we had been doing in Biblioplan. I would have to tweak to make it work, and frankly for that kind of money I don't really want to tweak. 2) I was very familiar with Biblioplan's booklist and was expecting to find a lot of my favorites on TOG's list. There was not really much overlap, and many of my favorites that I was looking forward to using were not used by TOG. Again, can't remember exactly, but I'm thinking the Famous Men books, Victor Journey Through the Bible, and Cultural Atlases for Young People weren't used by TOG. Some that were used weren't familiar. 3) Ease of use--very easy to to implement Biblioplan. And while I should do the reading ahead of dd, it actually still works pretty well when I don't have time to do advanced planning. TOG would take a lot more teacher prep time.

 

I don't use all of the Biblioplan extras (they weren't around when we started). I just really like the books they use and the schedule. I know you said you saw it at convention, but you can also find some samples of the schedule pages and maybe the ToCs at their website: http://www.biblioplan.net/

(whoa--that website looks a lot cooler than it used to!)

[boscopup]

I used Biblioplan Ancients earlier this year. I have not used TOG (and finally decided to just keep things simple and just use SOTW, which is going GREAT).

 

Why I chose SOTW over Biblioplan (not totally answering your question here, but maybe it will help anyway):

 

- Biblioplan usually had ONE choice for a K-2 reader, and most of the time my library didn't have it. I didn't want to buy a lot of books for history for a first grader, so we ended up not using the readers much. Instead, we were basically doing SOTW and the Bible. On the other hand, SOTW AG has lots of choices for lower elementary readers, and my library often has 2-3 of them. So now we're actually doing readers.

- The history/Bible integration wasn't really there for me. I tried reading the parent companion, but it was choppy and not really a summary like TOG teacher notes are (I would MUCH prefer the TOG notes, judging by the samples). Biblioplan schedules SOTW and the Bible readings, and there are tons of Bible readings, which got to be too much for us. Neither one of us was making any connections between SOTW and the Bible. This is when I decided to just go ahead and do the two separately - NOW we're starting to make connections, even though we're not reading the same time period in both (we're waaaaaay behind in the Bible). I've decided to not worry about officially trying to make those connections until logic stage, though really my first grader has made connections, and I didn't expect that.

- The mapwork is really good in Biblioplan, BUT... my first grader couldn't do it himself. He needed me to do all the writing. It'd be great for an older child. I mention this since your kids are similar ages to mine. SOTW AG maps are done independently by my son. There is no writing. It's circle this city or color this sea, etc. He learned from both sets of maps pretty much equally, as far as I can tell. The SOTW maps have just been easier for us to get done because I can hand him the map and the directions and let him have at it. :)

 

I think Biblioplan might be more useful for an older child, much like TOG is. After using it though, I didn't see much in it that SOTW AG didn't have, and there were things that the AG had that Biblioplan didn't have (like narration leading questions, outlining in the later SOTW years, etc.). I think looking at the Paula's Archive (redshift site) table that coordinates SOTW and Egermeier's Bible Story Book would have gotten me basically the same thing, but really, there are just soooooo many Bible stories to mix in. I'm learning toward something like MOH later on, because I have a hard time with just skipping certain stories. :tongue_smilie:

 

Oh, and the timeline in Biblioplan was confusing. I tried it and abandoned it. It kind of hopped around a bit in some places, and if I'm having a hard time seeing the timeline, I'm sure my first grader doesn't get it. We'll try a different timeline in the logic stage - probably just print out a blank one and fill things in ourselves. I thought the Biblioplan one would be cool, but it had this weird time shift in it that made it confusing.

 

Hope that helps! Biblioplan is a good product. I just decided that it wasn't what we really need or want. I don't see myself using it next go around either, unless I maybe use the maps from Ancients (since I have them) for my then 5th grader to do on his own.

[Grateful for Grace]

I refuse to read this because I've already bought my TOG year 3 and half my books. BUT... I will read it next April. ;)

[SnMomof7]

Well, I've totally been scoping out TOG for the future as well, but I'm curious to know how Biblioplan compares to TOG in the areas of: critical thinking, biblical worldview development in the D and R stages.

[Susan in TN]

I refuse to read this because I've already bought my TOG year 3 and half my books. BUT... I will read it next April. ;)

 

A tower of strength!

[mom@shiloh]

Listening in on this one!! I haven't used either one, but did quite a bit of research on both this spring and chose...... (drumroll)..... TOG!! To me Biblioplan is more of a 'skeleton' program that can be fleshed out and TOG is a full body program that can be dissected. The past schoolyear for us was a floundering one, so I was drawn to TOG's depth. In the end it came down to price. Would I make use of Tapestry's depth to the extent that it would justify the price? I knew that I should and that if I did, both myself and my kiddos would benefit. That is not to say that Biblioplan cannot be an indepth program, but it would require more of me to pull it together. TOG has pulled it together for me and at this point I think I need that.

[FlyingMOm]

bumping for the afternoon crowd!

[MyLittleBears]

I have not used TOG but I have to say when I was making a decision between the two, TOG blew me away. That said, I chose Biblioplan for a couple of reasons:

 

1. I wanted to use SOTW as I will have a 5th, 2nd, and K-er. SOTW for my youngers and the older doing extra reading in Kingfisher or Usborne internet-linked. I know that TOG schedules it if you want it but I wanted to have a base spine, something to fall back on in case I could not get to the library or find the books. Others can correct me if I'm wrong but TOG is more living books without a spine but simply wonderful teacher's notes. Kind of like a tool box where you can pick and choose what you need or want to use.

 

2. I only wanted to tackle history 3x per week vs. 4-5.

 

 

Once my children are all in middle to hs, I will probably pounce on TOG!!!