We have used TOG for 6 years. I've talked with friends who have used SL,Story of the World, CC, and MFW. From what I can tell, TOG is about as comprehensive an option as you can buy when it comes to evaluating worldview and the scope of God's hand of direction in history. If you chose to do everything listed, it will be overwhelmingly thorough. But one thing about TOG that is a little confusing is that the discussion questions really begin at D level. From the books you listed, you were looking at the UG selections, as would be appropriate for your children's ages. At that age, the TOG manual really depends on the teacher's notes, the weekly threads summaries, and the week's introduction to give you as the teacher enough information to tie events, people, and ideas together for your kids. The age isn't focused on analyizing and intepreting much. It's really a time to catch the flow of events and enjoy meeting the people involved. It isn't until the D level that kids are given thoughtful questions to start investigating on their own and discussing literature, history, church history, and government. So if you are strictly looking for just grammar level material, then something like SL or MFW may be easier on you as the teacher without the loss of actual discussion questions you had anticipated were there in TOG. However, if you are looking to make the maximum out of your financial investment and want the depth that TOG has in years to come, it may be a better purchase for you now. My friend and I have both said multiple times we are so glad we started TOG years before we hit the older levels so we got the hang of how the material worked, how the threads of history tied together, and how to make decisions on weekly planning before we had older kids. There is a learning curve to using TOG but it is well worth it. You are correct that the UG level literature worksheets are basic. They are forming basic skills and preparing for the next level of literary analysis in the D level. TOG also has history response sheets available on the Loom that function like notebooking pages. As someone else mentioned, the Writing Aides book is an extra purchase but the handbook used to teach the writing that goes along with those writing prompts you were looking at in the weekly plan. I have a friend whose kids are doing marvelously with it. My kids did not. The TOG writing program is very much a modern methodology of teaching where you spend 30 min taking about what makes up a short story then have your kids start in on a writing assignment. It does break down the stages in the weekly lessons, like rough draft, next week polish and edit, etc. But the program itself is modern in that it doesn't really model for the kids how to write. It tells. It doesn't model. Something like IEW follows more of the classical approach to writing, which was definitely something my kids needed. There are a good number of TOG families that use IEW instead of TOG's Writing Aides. On the yahoo group there are even some schedules a few parents have uploaded with their IEW lessons plans that sync with TOG. So there are options for you if that is a major concern.

I have not used this yet but it is on my purchasing list for the fall and here's why. I have a friend with a Master's in math. When I asked why she recommended VideoText she said that over the past decade of tutoring college kids through math she saw the same issues popping up again and again. She said these issues were things the professor wasn't explaining and the students were able to think through. She finally hit on a way to explain these common trouble spots that have that ah-ha moment. She stood for quite some time at a homeschool conference and talked with the author of VideoText about these continual teaching breakdowns and she said every single one of them was addressed in VideoText. She was highly impressed with that. She also said that VideoText teaches math as a language and anyone who is really proficient in math treats it like it's own language. One thing to know about buying used is that the errata for Algebra is no longer available on their site. But otherwise it is a company that doesn't price gouge because you purchased used.

No, you don't need the dvd. I have been using the Fable stage past year before the dvd came out. It was written to be taught by a teacher. I think that the dvd was simply to help with the load of teaching in a homeschool setting.

As one of the other gals mentioned, there are a lot of good, truly natural companies out there that are selling products at a much lower price. I haven't looked at Arbonne's products in a couple of years so they may have changed their formula but at the time my friend talked to me about them, they were not completely natural. They contained paraben preservatives. Their rationale was that they couldn't create a product that was completely paraben free because it wouldn't have a decent shelf life. They cut their paraben usage back to markedly less than standard make-up companies were using but it still contained paraben preservatives. I had already been paraben free in my home for several years so there was no way I was going to jump into that kind of product. Arbonne, like Melaleuca, claims to have natural products but when push comes to shove, they really don't. More natural isn't really natural. When I called Melaleuca to ask their customer service more specifically the gal told me that the recruiter never should have told me they were a natural company. She said they never claimed to be natural but that they use the power of nature and the power of science where nature isn't sufficient, which explains why you have to hold your breath if you're going to use their shower cleaner. Dave Ramsey did a segment on his radio show the other day about MLMs. He said he personally knew several millionaires who made great money in MLMs. But what he said was that you have to understand how they work. You're not selling a product you believe in and love. You're recruiting people. You have to build your base of "employees" essentially with a rate of about 95% of your recruits dropping out. He said you need to be willing to work like crazy for a number of years before you see any financial benefit. In something like this you don't ever really stop recruiting. In essence, what he said was MLMs can work for people but you have to know what you're getting in to. And for the vast majority of people, it doesn't work out like it was presented. There is hardly any money to be made until you have a huge base of downline working for you. I did Scentsy for a while and found this to be very true. I also couldn't get anyone recruited because I couldn't tell them the company line. I couldn't honestly look at someone and say I was making great money because I wasn't. I could only tell them that there was potential if you worked really hard and signed up people under you. That's a hard sell but it's the honest truth. One other little tidbit of advice from some friends of ours that tried several different MLM ventures. If you want to give it a try, then try. Just don't invest heavily into the marketing and promo stuff until you have some time to see how it works for you. We didn't hear that bit of advice until after we'd gotten the polo shirts, name tags, business cards, etc. It was all a waste and if it's a good product and you're a recruiter, you should be able to sell someone on the idea of signing up without all the pizazz anyway. If you end up just liking the product and want to stay in the company just for your own use then you haven't lost anything.

1) How long generally do you find the lessons take? About 15-30 min. if my kids don't complete the entire written practice. 2) Do you do the lessons 5x per week or less? We shoot for 5 days a week with quick lessons so that we have wiggle room for sick days. We also use ISHA's Daily Grams because they are great daily review of mechanics, sentence combining, etc. that keeps those skills sharp. It's only about 5 min. per day. If you do that, you can pretty much ax the last chapter or two of R&S's book. I prefer to have the daily skill practice on that skill set than the two chapters at the end of the book. 3) Should I buy the worksheets, etc. (I have the TM&student text)? I bought them with the 3rd grade and they were helpful but not essential. They're only helpful if you're thinking you may struggle with some concepts. They were great for my daughter with learning difficulties and for my son when first introduced to the concepts at the 3rd grade level. We haven't used them past that. 4) How do you all "do" the lessons and/or what have you found to work best with your kids? For 3rd grade and 4th grade, I sat with my children and read the lesson out loud, worked through the oral drill to make sure they understood the lesson, then had them selectively do the written practice. By selectively I mean that there are many times parts to the written practice that are exactly the same as the oral drill. Since I was only working with two students and not a full classroom, I had a very good idea if they had already grasped the subject. If they got it, they didn't need do waste time on the written practice. If they needed a little more practice or it was something like diagramming, they did the written portion. If your student struggles to remember proper sentence form like capitals, punctuation, etc. the written practice of copying sentences will solve that so you may want to have them write things out even if it seems unnecessary. Now that they are 5th and 6th grade, they read the lesson on their own and let me know when they are ready for the oral drill. We see how much they understand and I assign the written practice based on their understanding. They have worked through two years of R7S already and their understanding is solid so it goes pretty quickly. 5) For those with upper elementary/middleschool kids, how far in R&S do you plan to go before switching to another program or not doing anymore "formal" grammar program? At this point I am planning on finishing the 8th grade book and looking into the 9th/10th book. From the internet it looks to focus mostly on review of grammar and teaching composition skills. I would like to focus our composition time on another program so we won't be doing that book most likely. 6) Who uses the composition portion, and do you like it? Or do most of you skip it and only use the grammar part? We pick and choose. It's a good, solid basis for logical thinking in composition. We skim over the parts about friendly letter format, book reports, etc. but the sections on paragraph order of importance, order of time, etc. are pretty helpful, especially if you've got one of those kids that just writes and writes without stopping. We are combining the writing with IEW this year and next year will probably be moving into Classical Composition. So yes, we do read through it and work some of the oral exercises but don't labor over the assignments. We take the concepts and put them into our history or science projects and apply the lesson there. Some of the R&S writing assignments are the "Why do I have to write about that silly subject" kind of topics.

It was my understanding also that Memoria Press has simply reformatted them for ease of use. If you have questions, you can go directly to their website classicalcomposition.com and use the contact us link. The author, Jim Selby, has been great about promptly answering any questions I've had. We're looking at it for the rest of this year. I was planning on doing IEW but the more I've looked into it, the more I think there seem to be some holes there. So I'm still contemplating. You can also see a bit of the lessons on the different levels if you go directly to their website. Don't know if you've done that but it helped me a bit to see a sample lesson.

She sounds pretty advanced. I might look into Answers in Genesis science series since it's written for levels up through 8th grade. We like Apologia but my kids aren't advanced in science. Their young explorers series is written up through 6th grade.

There are writing assignments in the 4th grade book. We used it last year and it covered things like book reports, friendly letters, descriptive paragraphs, etc. It's sufficient. If your goal is to really delve into writing then you probably won't be happy with R&S alone. If you feel that getting the feet wet until they've got a better grasp of the language and basics is enough, then this will be all you should need. If you look up their website I think they list the Scope and Sequence for each book.

Thought I'd join you on the right board. :001_smile: I would agree with Aimie. My kids do the reading on their own then bring the book to me for oral exercise before they do the written. I find it important for a couple of reasons. It really gives me a good idea of whether they've grasped the concept before they spend the time writing out wrong answers to everything. It saves them frustration of having to do everything again correctly. If they really get it without any problem on the oral section, I can eliminate written exercises, pick and choose parts from the review, or tailor it to where they are in a matter of seconds. Making sure they do the oral part first before I start cutting sections helps because there have been times when planning the week that I didn't anticipate any problems for them and would have cut quite a bit but they ended up struggling where I didn't think they would. And as to having them be more responsible for their own work, I bought the teacher's manual this year because I think they're old enough to start grading their own work. So we'll see how that goes.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a high school world history curriculum that would be very simple and easy enough for a Downs Syndrome student to comprehend?

What age are your kids? Mine are upper and lower grammar and we're finding about half or more at the library. You might try checking out the Tapestry website and going to the updated book list. That's where they've replaced books that have gone out of print, etc. That should give you an idea of the current books they are recommending. http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/loom/year-all/drhelps.php

Kim, is this something that you choose to do together because it works for you that way or is it something that really needs to be taught in a teacher/student format? Is it something that I can hand my children and with a little instruction have them working on their own in their Bibles?

What Bible study is this? We are using their science but I didn't know they published a Bible study. I can't seem to find it on their website unless it's the Worldview book.

I'm a bit lost. What publisher is VP? I'm not pulling one from my thinking cap tonight.

I was looking at the Explorer's Bible study. I asked for the free samples to be mailed but can't find anything online to give me an idea of what the studies are like. I really liked that they can do multiple levels and I could even study the same things at an adult level. I hope I get to see the sample soon.

So does the Inductive Study stuff have them actually reading their Bibles? It looked like it did from the few pages I could see online. I've seen a few others that were more a synopsis or overview printed in their book where the kids were supposed to read about the life of Abram and then answer questions.

I am feeling a level of conviction that I really need to get my 10 & 8 year olds reading their own Bibles daily. We do AWANA so they are already doing Scripture memory but I feel they should be forming a pattern for daily devotions on their own. Anyone have some suggestions for some personal Bible study helps for kids? Has anyone used Precept Ministries kids stuff or one from Lamp and Quill? I can't remember if BJU Bible has the kids reading their Bibles daily. What I'm really after is a bit of reading with a few questions to answer. Not so much Bible survey info but actual Bible reading. I really don't want to collect a bunch of stuff that just sits around unused so I'd really appreciate some feedback here.

My husband was frustrated that I didn't think to let the sheriff talk to the kids. I was kind of acting on instinct and my instinct told me the house was an absolute disaster...and I do mean absolutely a pit...my kids had been unattended long enough to call, and I didn't want a police officer in the terrible house. It all really looked negligent and my sub-conscience told me he shouldn't be wandering around my home. He was very nice and non-threatening but still. I think I will try the police station though.

I forgot that I used to do that with my older two kids! Thanks. I remember that really helped them to discern a real emergency. My kids actually seemed to be surprised that the officer actually came to the door. I don't know what they thought 911 would do when they did call if they didn't understand that help would come. It seems to be one more of those reminders that my focus has been on my older students and my younger ones have missed out on yet another moment of learning.

We had the sheriff show up at the door responding to a 911 phone call from my house. My 6, 4, a 2 yr olds were playing with the phone when I wasn't watching. The 4 yr. old is the one who actually placed the call and since he left the phone off the hook, they had to send someone to respond instead of just calling back. So my question is how would you handle this with the kids? Would you come down really hard on them for playing around? They aren't to be playing with the phone one way or the other and they should know that. Or just sit and explain carefully the dangers of crying wolf? What I'm afraid of is that if I make a huge issue of it, they will be hesitant to ever call 911 in a real emergency.

My daughter was much as you're describing yours. I have to say that even with MUS, it's been a struggle to get it to stick. Where we were in tears with the math before MUS, now we still struggle but without tears. My daughter understands the math concept but it's retention of the fast facts that held us up. It took us ages to get through Alpha and we just finished Beta even though she's in 4th grade. It is working though. My daughter is very good with language such as poetry memorization and remembering many facts from history that I read aloud. But when it comes to math facts or definitions in grammar, it is lost for her. We have found over the last year that some of her problems stem from neurological learning issues so in a sense, that was relief because it can be treated and this will eventually get better. All that to say, if you notice similiar problems with recall in other areas, it might be something to look into. In the mean time, MUS gets my approval.

It's my understanding from what I've read on the TOG forums that they are pretty selective about what they have the kids reading out of the books, which is also why they don't use the whole series of her books. Dana, at Tapestry, made the comment that her bias is written in such a way that it is difficult for young kids to pick up on it so that is why they limited the amount they used.

Thank you for that!! I can't stand the wet fish handshake while looking at your feet. My mom tried and tried with my younger brother. It wasn't until he finished boot camp in the Army that he finally had it figured out.

One thing to remember about MUS is that it will eventually get around to teaching everything that is usually covered in other books. It just follows a different order. I've had several friends be concerned that they aren't seeing things that should be in a 5th grade book. As others have said, it's mastery based so don't forget to work toward that mastery with the kids explaining everything to you at the end of the week. I have resisted the urge to supplement with any other formal curriculum but we do use wrap ups, the MUS online drills, Math It game, turbo twist,etc for drills. We also have some great kids computer software that provides plenty of word problems to work with and the kids enjoy the fun. MUS has added more and more word problems with every edition so I think they are getting stronger in it. As Steve Demme says in the DVD, the whole point of math is that it applies to the word problems of life. I'd just encourage you not to overwhelm your kids. I talked with a number of parents before I switched to MUS and almost all of them had students that were either graduated or in high school and had used MUS all the way through. They all said their students were very strong in math, even the ones that were not gifted.

It seems that no matter what curriculum we choose to go with, almost all of us feels the need to find something to supplement with. I wonder if this is just one of the curses of homeschooling! Combining, supplementing, or use both simultaneously, doing double duty with trying to instill in our children the love of learning. :) I've noticed people using MUS feel they need to supplement with Singapore. People with Singapore are feeling they need to supplement with RS. People using R&S grammar feel the need to supplement with something else and the list goes on. I'm currently contemplating switching from Easy Grammar to Rod and Staff. This also seems the time of year that we all look at what we have and start thinking there must be something else out there that works better and off a-hunting we go. When I was growing up homeschooled some 27 years ago, my mom had the choice of Rod and Staff, BJU or Abeka. That was pretty much it so I don't think she faced what we do today. So do you think this is a good penchant we tend to have or is it detrimental?