How does Truthquest compare to SOTW?

[michelle l]

I think I want to change it up next year. Instead of going into SL core 4 and do more American Hist. I think we want to learn about ancient cultures. I'm looking at maybe doing SL core 6, which includes SOTW, or maybe just SOTW and whatever goes with it, or maybe Truthquest. Does anyone know anything about it?

 

We use the readers and read alouds with our SL, but I don't use them LA, science, or math. I do like having the mapping activities readily available, and like doing a book of time. (although, someone here suggested Time Travelers to me and their book of time is really beautiful so I might get one of those for each child) I like knowing which book should be next and having them align with the history texts. I'm not sure I could do the lining up on my own, however, we don't read at quite the same pace and I don't really use the comprehension sheets. Sorry, I'm rambling.:001_unsure:

[PeterPan]

Time Travellers doesn't go through all of american history yet. If you want to use it, you better hop over and find the cd's that you're ready for. As you say, your dc are at a good age to enjoy them.

 

Why not finish american history? You could do american with TQ. TQ has samples on their website. Back several years ago a number of people on the board were using it. I have several of the guides and mainly use them for book lists. They're pretty destructured, so you have to be the type who is comfortable with that if you want them to be your main thing. Look at the samples and decide for yourself.

[Heather in OK]

I have no idea what SL is (Sonlight?) but we've done both SOTW and TQ.

 

TQ is literature-based. It goes through the time period chronologically and lists topics to cover. She does give a little intro/background to the topics, some more than others. They aren't read-alouds like SOTW has. After that intro she lists books and their grade levels. There are fiction and non-fiction choices. For many of the books she'll give a very short synopsis (i.e. "Classic, don't miss this one.", "Beautiful illustrations.", "The story of a girl and her doll who travel through time as ninjas" :tongue_smilie:).

 

If you have a great library system you should be able to find enough to teach the topics. Tulsa has a pretty good library and there are some topics that I will only find 1-2 books for. When I get a new book I sit down at the library website and go through the TQ book, typing in books that look promising (lol) to see if our library has it. Ones they have I check mark. That way when it's time to put books on hold, I don't have to waste time finding which ones I can get.

 

There are no activities suggested in TQ. But sometimes there are suggestions for library books that supply those ideas.

[michelle l]

Why not finish american history?

 

 

I definitely will finish this year with SL 3. We're not jumping midstream.

 

It's just that they keep talking about ancient Egypt and wanting to know the differenc between Greece and Italy, and asking questions about mythology, and...they're boys. They are so engaged by ancient and medieval "stuff". If we continue with SL it well be 2 1/2 more years before we get to that time period, and I don't want to miss this window of opportunity to study something that aligns with their interests. Plus, I'm intrigued by the idea of teaching what's going on all over the world in a particular time period. That is something I am really only just now understanding myself. I'm a "well-educated" woman, and I never had any history instruction that helped me put those pieces together. That is one aspect of SOTW that grabs me. I would love my kids to have that broader understanding.

[michelle l]

Thank you Heather. I completely misunderstood TQ and thought it was something to read to/with your kids. Sounds like it's more of a resource to help in planning. Does that sound more like it? It was hard to tell from the website.

 

SL is Sonlight. It's pretty much a lit-based curriculum with a history focus. We read real books, both read alouds and books they read on their own, as well as some specific history texts. It's all laid out with a schedule to follow, and you can buy the books directly from them, which was a nice option for a first time homeschooler. It doesn't include activities/projects, though they would be easy to add in. We're doing enough for now and will try to add just a few before the year is out. So, that is what I am comparing the others to. SL uses SOTW as an additional history text in Core 6 (roughly 6th grade-ish) See you confusing it all gets?

[Heather in OK]

Here is a sample from the Ancient Egypt/Greece book:

 

http://www.truthquesthistory.com/store/pdf/greece.pdf

 

The entire book is laid out just like that. I've never seen SL texts IRL so I have no idea how TQ compares to that. From your description it sounds somewhat similar. With TQ you read real books (going thru the TQ book you follow the topics chronologically), she gives some specific history texts/spines, and there are no activities like the SOTW AG but it's easy to add them in (and like I mentioned, some of the library books ARE activity books such as The Little House Cookbook when studying about pioneers).

 

You can choose how much time you want to devote to each topic. So as far as planning goes, it's mostly up to you. Nothing is laid out in the guide as far as, "Spend two weeks on Greek gods", "Spend 1 week on hieroglyphics".

 

Oh, and it's a religious text. At times it's almost too much for me and we are Christians. I agree with some of her points but I've skipped a good portion of the religious slant.

[michelle l]

Interesting! It's so different from the way SL is laid out that I don't really have a good feel for what it would be like to go through it. SL gives a weekly schedule on a grid saying specifically which pages to read in each book each day, with some notes, commentary, and comp. questions in the teachers guide. So it's quite different in that respect.

 

This looks like it could be used in conjunction with other things too. I do like the perspective she is writing from.

 

I can't see signatures right now, so sorry if I'm asking a silly question, but what about doing this material with 6, 9, and 11 yr. olds. Is it too heavy? Would we be better waiting until they're older to get into ancients? It really would be more than playing with the new Egyptian Playmobiles, huh. ;) Hmmm. Much to think about!

[PeterPan]

Michele, that makes sense that you're wanting to catch their engagement! I will point out that doing american doesn't mean you totally skip reading about other time periods. You COULD keep going with your american (since SL3 is only going to get you through the first half of american history) and bring in books on the topics they're interested in. Usborne Time Traveler, the Roman Mysteries, etc. Have you looked at Veritas Press? They have AMAZING lists of books in their catalog, and their ancients and middle ages books are some of my dd's fav's. She reads them over and over, even though we covered those time periods years ago. They're just plain fun. :)

 

Now if I could say, the TQ guides for ancients are the least interesting to me. She doesn't even recommend doing ancients till kids are older, and they don't have nearly the same thoroughness and format of the AHYS and AOR guides. If you were using them just with an older student, maybe. But for the ages you mentioned, kids wanting fun, I'd lean toward something a little more FUN that gives you more in one package. The TQ guides for those time periods stick to just certain cultures. If you go with MOH you'd be much more diverse. Or you could do jump into the VP sequence, which is very thorough. You could do OTAE and NTGR in one year, no problem, then go on to MARR (the Middle Ages) the next year. If you do that, I would get the Story of the USA books 3 and 4 you would have covered in SL4 and read them this summer, just as a light touch. That way you'll have at least covered it.

 

Do you know VP now has online, self-paced classes for their history? Go look at the samples. They're very cool! http://www.veritaspress.com

[Laboroflove]

We've used Sonlight two years, plus adding SOTW 1 as a storytime this year.

(We want to jump into SOTW2 with friends next year). I've looked at Truthquest, but there was something that bothered me about it. In the sample online, the author adds her personal viewpoint into the curriculum. Specifically, I viewed the sample for the Middle Ages. There wasn't anything wrong with her viewpoint; I simply leery of buying into a curriculum which does the thinking for my children, especially in consideration to faith. Sonlight and SOTW give the background without any bias. I've not used Truthquest so I'm not trying to criticize the use of it - simply giving my observation. If you love the perspective of across the board world history, then I recommend Genevieve Foster's books. The Sonlight 6 program uses her Augustus Caesar's World and The World of Columbus and Sons. It gives history in short story, narrative format, providing a view of what's happening around the world simultaneously. Good luck - whatever you decide I'm sure will work beautifully.

[PeterPan]

Not to state the obvious, but the point of TQ *is* the commentary. TQ has a heading for the event or person, some commentary, and book lists. Occasionally it will have a writing prompt. That's IT. It is not an informational curriculum, and does not attempt to be anything else. She's very influenced by Francis Schaeffer and wants you to read the commentary with your dc (or restate it to them) as a prompt for discussion. That's the whole point. Now there are people like me who use it for booklists and skip the commentary. But if you do that, you've got to realize you're getting basically a bunch of booklists in order, nothing else. No teaching guide, no mapping, no nothing. Some people thrive on that freedom and some go crazy. You've got to know yourself. You can use something like the VP cards to give yourself structure and then plug the TQ commentary or books into it. There are charts at the VP_Elementary yahoo group where people have correlated the VP cards to TQ.

[TechWife]

I'm looking at maybe doing SL core 6, which includes SOTW, or maybe just SOTW and whatever goes with it, or maybe Truthquest. Does anyone know anything about it?

We used SL core 6 last year with adjustments to in after Christmas (I was falling asleep while reading out loud).

 

We use the readers and read alouds with our SL, I do like having the mapping activities readily available, and like doing a book of time.

We did the same thing, just the readers and the history. In the middle of they year I found the SOTW activity guides and the maps in there are wonderful, as are the directions for what should be completed, so we switched to those maps.

I like knowing which book should be next and having them align with the history texts. I'm not sure I could do the lining up on my own, however, we don't read at quite the same pace and I don't really use the comprehension sheets. Sorry, I'm rambling.:001_unsure:

I liked having the books in order as well, but quite frankly, Core 6 is much more disjointed than cores 3 & 4. I ended up dropping some books because they weren't appropriate and then adding other books to make things more interesting. Of course, I tweak much of what we use, but I found myself doing an unusual amount of tweaking. We finally hit our stride after Christmas. I used SL to schedule SOTW and Usborne World History reading as well as the readers and read alouds that I kept in the schedule. Then, I went to the SOTW Activity Guide and got some books from the reading list and put some of those in the schedule to substitute for the SL books that I dropped. We used the maps and map instructions from the Activity Guide. We used the questions as a starting point for our discussion or to do a short written paragraph. I can't remember if we did our timeline entries from the SL schedule or if there were some in the Activity Guide, but we did utilize the SL Book of Time. We also did some of the activites in the Activity Book - some of them were more basic than my son would have enjoyed, but some were a perfect fit. By the end of the school year, I felt like I had not used my money wisely by doing core 6. I could have just done SOTW w/the accompanying Activity Guide. To add more reading, I could have just gotten some of the SL readers from the library or used books from other book lists.

 

As far as scheduling goes, I think it would be very easy to figure out once you see the way the SOTW books are set up. Not only are there chapters, but the chapters are broken up into sections. You could decide how fast you want to cover a chapter, then break the reading up accordingly. You could easily cover 1 chapter in a week w/the supplements, if not 2 at your kids' age.

but I don't use them LA, science, or math.

I don't either! I use IEW for writing, until this year I made up my own science (basically unit studies on topics of interest) and used Horizons math. DS didn't need spelling, handwriting or grammar last year.

 

This year we are reviewing grammar and spelling and are using History Odyssey to schedule out history. Writing is now incorporated into his history and science, which we have also formalized this year with a textbook. You can see extensive samples of History Odyssey here.

 

I hope some of these ideas help you out, I so understand where you are right now!

Edited January 8, 2010 by TechWife

[sherry80]

:lurk5: