I have 2 boys doing physics. Can I get by with one K'nex kit or should I just invest in 2. Money's tight, but I want to enjoy our learning time too. :bigear:

Can you tell us what level of WWE you are using? That may help in getting an answer to the why?

Blessings on you TOG journey! Feel free to PM me about how I use it with my LG/UG. Also, I encourage you to join the TOG yahoo groups (i.e. Loose Threads or by the year your using). Many of the ladies there are extremely helpful with TOG and any questions you may have.

I really love TOG. I know there are many varying opinions as to what you should buy. But I would keep it simple with littles. There is plenty of time for extras later. Before buying the whole kit and caboodle, I'd recommend buying one unit. Try it...see how it actually works for you. My other recommendation is to really think about what your kiddo is interested in. I have one that can't get enough history and one that really isn't all that interested in learning at all (but he's young). For my history buff, I assign all the reading and he devours it. For my other, I read to him the STOW, and the LG core books, geography, and that is it. I don't expect anything else out him really b/c he's 6 and just not all that into it yet. For him, its exposure. He'll have plenty of time to dive in deep later. We try to do one hands-on activity a week which involves everyone.

I think, yes, the CDs are more helpful. We use them multiple times a week for chanting in the car. It really helps for getting the chants and vocabulary stuck in the head. I dream them sometimes....but that's another topic. FWIW, I'm teaching LFC at our co-op and I just ordered a group of chant CDs from Classical Academic Press for my students. I'd say with the text, it's the other essential for the program.

We do! I'm up early...b/c I should be up getting ready for school, preparing breakfast, getting dressed, etc. But I'm here....this is not a good sign.:glare:

:bigear: Listening

Today in the grocery store I was helping my kids do some comparison shopping. Then some skip counting with ds2 as we counted cans. This lady says to me, "You must be a teacher." Um...well, yeah...but I'm his mom and I'd really like to teach my kids how to be responsible shoppers. Thinking to myself: Shouldn't all parents be doing this...not just teachers?

p. 6 at the bottom in the 3rd edition

:iagree:

Thanks for the pictures. I love to see how others organize and pick up little tricks along the way. I've done most of my filing for the year. I've set up subject notebooks to put finished work in, but I'm yet to get student planners worked out. This helped a lot. Great job, BTW!:D

:lol:

This was excellent! Thank you so much for taking time to post!:D

I'm in the midst of planning right now. We've only done 1 unit so far, so please take that into consideration as I post. I'm still fairly new to TOG. The block schedule is a huge help in getting started, but the thing that has helped me is to plan one thing out for one kiddo for the whole unit. Then plan the next thing. Here's what I've done: Last weekend, I planned writing for my LG on an excel sheet and printed out all the WA materials to complete those assignments and filed them. This week I planned out Geography for the whole year (you could do it by the unit though) and printed out all his maps and the teacher's maps. I also planned out all the read alouds and how much to read each day. Then I planned out all which arts/activities we will do. I pick one or two a week and that is it. It's all we have time for. When I finish all that planning for him, I move to my UG student and do the same thing taking one thing at at time. It really helped me see the bigger picture of where we are headed and the progression for the year.

I spent this past weekend looking in depth at the writing assignments on level 1 and 4 for my kids for the entire year. If you start at the beginning of the year with WA, it builds on skills each week for the year. It offers lots of practice in level one in sentence writing and writing a very simple paragraph. I don't think it is asking too much on the 2 levels that I look at. In fact, I was rather impressed with it. :D Now, we'll see how I feel about it after putting it into practice this year.

I think it depends on your kid. But I didn't know this until I actually put TOG into practice. For my UG, he will devour every book I put out for him. My LG is good with just the core reading. He's young and really doesn't need or want that much in-depth. My time is better spent reading aloud good books to him.

Looks great!;)

This is fantasitc! I would love to see something like that for year 3!!! OMG!!!!:drool5:

Feels good to hold in your hand, doesn't it??? ;) I spent the weekend doing some planning, and I just loved seing the big picture of the whole year and flipping through the whole year. I hope to have a little more time to plan Unit 2 today.

I had the opposite experience. But I have an ink jet printer. I printed out U1 of Y3. I used 2 ink cartridges to do it. Plus my printer died. So, that one unit also included the cost of a new printer.:glare: To print the next 3 units, I figured it would have cost me $200 to print based on the amount of ink my printer uses. To have Staples print it for me, $1.17 a sheet. :eek: TOG to print my DE version out for those 3 units was only 5 cents a sheet. Much less expensive!!!! Maybe I need to invest in a laser printer. Sound like I'd come out better. Are you printing in color or B/W?

Hope you find something that works. We switched from SL b/c I just couldn't keep up with 2 cores. :glare:

We used SL for 4 years, and my kids learned a lot. However, as our family grew, our needs changed. We aren't using SL any longer, but we have fond memories of the years we did. They do have the 18 week love-to-learn guarantee that is unique. Might be something to think about.

I ordered print version of my DE, and it took about 2 weeks to get them. I was told over the phone when I ordered that it would take at least 2 weeks to print and then they would be shipped from Georgia. They arrived by UPS exactly 2 weeks after I ordered. I considered that fast. TOG sent me no notice of tracking numbers or anything, but when I spoke to them on the phone, I was told they'd ship by UPS. I agree they could up the communication on their shipping. I loathe being in the dark about when to expect my curriculum. I have found their customer service to be helpful though.

Ds1 hit a wall in the same place. It was the place values that keep him from getting it. Graphing paper helped him tremendously in putting each number in its own box. Only then could he could line up the numbers properly. We also did problems out on our back porch in sidewalk chalk. Something about being in the problem helped him finally get it. But it.took.forever. FWIW, we hit another wall with multiplication in Delta when upside-down multiplication was introduced. But that one was much easier to work through--just a few days. I also went back and retaught ds how to do multiplication the traditional way that I learned it. He now prefers Mr. Demme's method. It just makes sense in the way his brain sees math. I'd take a while off and just come back to it. Play some games and have some fun for a while..

Anyone??? :bigear: