jananc
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Posts posted by jananc
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We've used TOG for 5 years now, with this past year being our first for high school. If this is your first year with TOG, I think you're wise to be prepared to mix D and R level work. You can work up to using the R level completely throughout the year or plan to begin that next year.
One thing we do at the beginning of the year is start TOG a couple of weeks before anything else. Also, we spread week 1 over 2 weeks. There is usually a ton of mapwork in that first week, covering world geography, and this just lets us ease into the school year.
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I've been looking very closely at TOG, thinking of doing something like this. I looked up many of the books they use at the rhetoric level on Amazon, and am not sure my son is ready for that amount of higher level reading, so now I'm not sure TOG will work for us at this point.
You know, if you assign all the work on the Dialectic level it's perfectly ok to count that as high school credit. In fact, if you were to assign *all* the rhetoric work, that would count as Honors history. Three-fourths of the rhetoric work is considered a regular high school credit. There's no need to force a 9th or 10th grader into doing all of the TOG assignments unless he's already used to the classical approach and you really want those honors credits! Also, you could start the year as dialectic and work your way up to the rhetoric level as your son gets a better footing with the work load.
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Lori's right, it really all depends on your child.
But I can tell you that my friend's son used TT for prealgebra in 7th grade, after using Saxon in his earlier years. For 8th grade, he wanted to go to a local charter school. They enrolled him in Algebra 1 there, but after just a short time they realized he wasn't ready and he had to re-take prealgebra. I know this is one student's experience, but just thought I'd throw it out there! :confused:
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If you have cable or satellite, you might like the yoga program that comes on at 6 am on the Oprah network. I think it's called Breathe. The reason I like it is that the teacher is funny, and they play good music. I can't do the whole hour -- it gets too intense for me. but I'll do the first 20 minutes, do some things in the middle 20 minutes, and then do the last 20.
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Did you take any medicine last week (or even the week before that) that you've never taken before? The last time I had hives, it was nearly a week after I had taken a prescription migraine med that my doctor wanted me to try out. Even though I hadn't taken the pills in several days, the hives showed up and lasted for over a week. My dr. recommended I take zyrtec or a generic version of it. It is a 24 antihistimine and doesn't make me as drowsy as benadryl. good luck!
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The second half of Year 2 TOG is almost all early US History. You could begin TOG with Year 2 Unit 3 & Unit 4, and count a 1/2 credit towards Early US History. Then, you could continue on and do all of Year 3 TOG, which according to the TOG website can count as 1/2 Western Civilizations and 1/2 US History. The preliminary info about Year 4 will be released in early May, so I'm not sure yet how those credits will play out, but I'd be willing to bet you could also do a 1/2 credit of Modern US History with it too.
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I have this problem majorly, too.
There are some empire waist tops that work and some that don't. You want to find ones that aren't just gathered below the bust, but actually have a type of band or flat seam around you just below the bust. If they're just a gathering of a bunch of material, the flowing material around your tummy does make you look pg. But if there's an actual band of some type, and not overflowy fabric, they do create a "waistline" around your smallest part. Sometimes, too, if there's just a seam but not a bunch of gathered fabric that works.
Wrap blouses are great, also. V-necks open your face and draw attention upwards.
Coldwater Creek has several that would probably be terrific --
http://www.coldwatercreek.com/tops-and-tees.aspx?ProductsPerPage=0
and structured jackets that nip in at the waist create that illusion, too. I've been trying to wear more jackets like this with jeans and I get compliments every time I do.
(Do I sound like I'm parroting What Not to Wear?? I watch it all the time to get ideas for hiding my tummy!)
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Is he thorough in completing homework assignments? If he is, that might help him get through the book faster, because certain chapters are assigned each week. We've just started the FPU seminar (2 weeks in) and DR's talks really are motivating and inspiring. He's a great public speaker, and you do get excited about following the program when you have him cheering you on.
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We live beside a lake, and pest control is a necessity for us. We have those fast-running, creepy looking long-haired centipedes in our finished basement. Our pest-guy comes once a quarter, and we'll see one or 2 right about the time he's due. That's how we know it's time for him to show up again :tongue_smilie: We pay $85 per quarter.
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My kids are involved in speech & debate -- ds for 3 years, dd had her first year this year. They absolutely love it, and it's one of the best things going in our homeschool.
We're involved in NCFCA (www.ncfca.org). I don't know if you're Christian, but this is a national, Christian homeschool speech & debate league. We're in the thick of tournament season, so maybe you can find a tournament to visit in your area. If you live near Atlanta, our Regional tournament will be held in Fayetteville GA, April 27 - 30. The NCFCA National tournament will be held in Greenville, SC, in June. You can get information about those and other tournaments from the NCFCA website.
As far as getting started goes, one thing you could do is find your Region contact (also on the NCFCA website) to find out about clubs that are already set up in your area. They would also be a terrific resource for starting your own club if you wish.
There is a list of books that are very helpful in teaching your students the art of speech and debate. See the Resources section of the website for those titles.
Have fun with it! It's quite a commitment for both you and your child, but one that is very worthwhile. The growth I've seen in my own kids is phenomenal and so worth the time.
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My dh has done this several times. The only drawbacks are: it takes a little longer, he sometimes feels woosy or quesy (a little bit) afterwards, and most of all, since they can do it more often, the Red Cross really bugs him a lot calling and asking him to come in. He finally had to ask them to stop calling him so often!
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My ds is using the Learnables for German this year. He really liked the introduction part, which was on the computer, but has slowed down with it since getting into the Basic Structures I. This first year is a lot of listening and learning to understand spoken German, then the following years get into more grammar, I think.
Not a perfect solution, but certainly less expensive than the online course!
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Well, I know that TOG isn't the right program for everyone, just as no one curriculum fits every family. I would encourage you to pray about it and see what God's leading is. I am confident that He led me to the program, and He is still leading me to use it. And what God requires of us, He enables us to do. But don't doubt your own abilities and what you do for your kids, either. I'm sure that you're giving them a fine education, and they'll be blessed by your efforts no matter what.
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Not wanting to make things more complicated for you, but I wanted to add...
We did TOG 2 years on our own, and the last 3 years we've been part of a co-op.
We were very satisfied doing it on our own, and loved the program. But as we used it more and more, I knew I wanted to have a group to have discussions with by the time my kids reached R level. I talked up TOG with my friends and convinced 3 other families to do it with us. We met every other week for 2 hours, and we just did hands-on crafts and discussion during that time (our kids were UG and D at the time). We had a blast!
Today my kids are D and R level, and our co-op has grown to 13 families, with more wanting to join in next year.
Those D and R level discussions really are fun for the kids with a group, so if you do decide to get TOG, you might want to look into co-ops (especially for your R level kids). You can either start your own, like I did, or look into joining a virtual one. Virtual co-ops are groups that meet online using something like Skype, with the moms leading the discussions. The moms split the work, so you would only have to prep for the weeks you teach. If you visit the TOG forums you'll see the co-op section. There should be some notices coming up soon from folks announcing next year's groups.
Co-ops aren't necessary, but they do add a rich element to the mix!
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It sounds like you've printed out the sample weeks, right? If that's the case, then do this to get the basic gist:
first, look at the first "yellow" page -- it's titled "Reading Assignments" and says "Primary Resources" in the gray line at the top of the page. This page has 4 columns. Look at the bottom of the page, and you'll see the color-coded names of the 4 levels. You're only interested in the green (Dialectic) and blue (Rhetoric). The books in those 2 columns are the assigned readings for that week. (the other yellow reading assignment page is only alternate resources -- books you could use if you want to, but not required)
second, turn a couple of pages to the red pages, labeled "Writing Assignments." Look for the writing assignments for the level (or grade) of each of your students, and decide if you want to do those writing assignments or use another program of your choice.
Third, turn to the blue pages, labeled "Student Activities." Now look at the bottom of these pages, and look for your color-codes (green for dialectic and blue for rhetoric). Those are the activity pages for your kids that week.
Fourth, turn to the white pages, labeled "Teacher Notes." These are the pages for you to read over as you prepare for discussion at the end of the week. Discussion scripts for both dialectic and rhetoric are found here.
Remember, there's so much in this program, you probably can't do it all. You have to pick and choose which parts to do with your family.
I've used TOG for 5 years and love it. It is so very rich and complete, IMHO.
If you have more questions, let me know!
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My 14 yo is interested in this area also. Here's what little we've done, but I'm looking forward to seeing more responses!
He does Speech and Debate classes through NCFCA (www.ncfca.org) and competes in those tournaments.
We did a 2-day seminar through the Leadership Institute (a conservative org. which encourages political involvement for high school and college students)
I plan to put him in Generation Joshua next year (through HSLDA)
I'm planning to look into AP economics, AP government, and I'm looking into the online Constitutional Law class that Michael Farris teaches.
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Jann,
will you be posting information on your class later on? If not, could you include me in your mailing list? janaalexander09 (at) bellsouth (dot) net
thanks for your insight on Jacobs and Holt, btw!
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Jann, please PM me too! :D
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The Power Search is your best bet. You would have to do a search for books one unit at a time, and print those out. Or you could copy them to an Excel spreadsheet to make a 1-page list.
There isn't a list of which books are used which weeks, as that would infringe on the copyright of the program.
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Woohoo! Don't all those pages look clean and pristine in those PP's? I must confess -- I'm not a PP'er -- I even *gulp* write on my TOG! But I do think they look great all protected :-)
When my dc were 7, they were still a fairly long way from being responsible for their own work -- they're still not completely there, and they are now 12 & 14. At that age, I made a simple chart for each week. It had the subjects going down the left side, and the days across the top. I shaded out the blocks on days they didn't have to do a subject. Then they could see for each day (column) what they needed to accomplish. They would put a check or a small sticker in each block when they did each subject. At the end of each day, or the end of the week, have your student turn that into you, and you could give him some type of reward -- even a checkmark on your own chart to accumulate for a monthly trip to the ice cream parlor or something like that.
You'll need to give a lot of reminders in this process, but it will eventually develop into habit.
As far as reading goes, he should be fine reading the lit on his own (assuming he's capable) but I read the history assignments aloud to mine up until about 5th/6th grade. We had great discussions along the way, and I could be sure they were getting the material.
Have fun!
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What are the ages of your children? If they are younger than dialectic, you wouldn't have to be title-specific for anything other than the literature selections. With Dialectic and Rhetoric you could still fudge a little on specific titles, but it might be hard to find the correct answers to all the discussion questions.
Also, don't forget to check out the TOG forums for used books available. That can be a big help!
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Are you a member of the yahoo group TapestryLooseThreads? (I'm not positive that's the exact wording of the title, btw!)
There was a big discussion about this recently. If you're a member you could search the posts for "chronological" or "track 1" and probably find a lot of opinions there!
fwiw, we covered it in the order TOG presents it and did just fine!
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http://www.homeschooljourney.com/
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/Forms.htm especially the links near the bottom for "Ancient History through the Early Church" and "Fall of Rome to the US Constitution" -- this is a treasure trove of ideas!
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is Omnibus more difficult than Tapestry of Grace?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Is the booklist you have for TOG from the Classic version? You can use the link Karen gave you to see the Redesigned literature selections, but like she mentioned, it doesn't list the many books from the Bible. Also not listed there are the readings for Government, History In-Depth, or philosophy. I've not compared TOG to Omnibus, but just wanted to mention that in Redesigned at least, there are more readings than the TOG list you pasted in your post.