SL Core 3 and 4 versus TOG? + question on Y4

[melmichigan]

I didn't think I would be asking this...Can anyone who has used these compare the two for me? After everything that has gone on with SL in the last year I am seriously questioning if I should be reconsidering TOG. I own all but 3 and 4 of SL from K-100. I have serious problems with SL for high school, I'm not sure that will change even with the "updates" they are discussing. I thought I was sure of SL until high school but now I am rethinking this. If I move to TOG I need to start saving up soon. (I would be keeping what I have of SL now.)

 

Would TOG Y4 be to redundant after SL Core 7 and 100 in a chronological plan? Would it be better to work SL into TOG for that time frame?

[3Rivers]

I'm not sure I can answer your exact question. I CAN say that SL and TOG are very different, IMO. I have now used both. I found the SL IG to be very user friendly and easy to use. The only problem we had was that I discovered I wasn't a good "tweaker" once into the program and had trouble adjusting the wonderful schedule so that we could do anything except plow through the volumes of books to read. Granted, they were wonderful books but...

I also couldn't juggle all the different ages very well with the one core..

 

Switch to TOG. I don't know how to define it, but the whole thing was just overwhelming. I went through the threads, overview and all the notes several times throughout the school year and just could not get my mind wrapped around it. I was overwhelmed by all the choices and so little direction that I was constantly lost. There would be an assignment to "trace the path of Paul Revere" for example....or "the battles in the war along with the topography and climate they may have encountered...." It got to the point where, despite all the resources I had purchased, I was still spending hours doing internet research to find the information I needed in order to assign the kids their work. It was insane. For me...

 

Then I read/hear about plenty of people who love TOG and it is very simple for them....In fact someone will probably respond in shock that I had such a negative experience...I can see how, theoretically it is a very rich curriculum...so I have just concluded that there are Sonlight brains and there are Tapestry of Grace brains. LOL :tongue_smilie:

 

I am closer to a Sonlighter myself, but I will be using My Father's World this coming year, which, I hope will take us on into high school. I am hearing great things about it, and the IG looks like just what I have been searching for. Fingers crossed....

 

Feel free to ask any specific questions -- I have done Core 3 and parts of TOG year 2. Hopefully you will get some good info from people who have more or varied experiences. :001_smile:

[MerryAtHope]

Ugh, I know this is a tough decision! I really wrestled for about the last 6 months with what to do from here on out (oldest going into 8th & me not sure about SL high school).

 

I haven't used TOG (I have looked at it closely several times & even downloaded the sample 3 weeks & poured over those). I really like some aspects (especially the worldview "plays" and some of the discussion questions), while I find others overwhelming.

 

I will say that SL cores 3 & 4 are my absolute favorite cores, and really the only cores I didn't tweak. I did them just as written. Cores 1 & 2 I swapped out the spine, spread them out, added in extra lit. PreK & K I did pretty much what was there (no IG in PreK) but I also spread them out & added in other books, more because of my kids' ages & our circumstances though. Core 5, loved the lit & readers, wouldn't do the history again, ugh!

 

Some advice from Lee Binz helped me as I wrestled with what to do in the future. She said don't change things for high school just because it's high school. If something is working, keep using it.

 

So I asked myself, what has worked for me?

 

With Sonlight, it's not really the IG's for me (I only rarely look at the daily schedule & the notes are not all that useful, though I like the ocasional article, but I love the one-page guide at the front telling me the order of the books & what week they are introduced! Guess what I did when I had chosen my lit for the year? Made up one of those 1-page guides for myself!). For me, what has worked from SL has been the readers and the Lit. books that SL chooses. Not necessarily the quantity though--but the quality, yes. So, that's something I'll keep, but I'll probably have to look for lit. analysis in highschool (unless Sonlight's big changes blow me away...).

 

The history has only sometimes worked. Cores 3 & 4 it worked. Cores 1 & 2, I liked the supplemental books, not the spines. Core 5--we liked maybe half of the history books. The same was true of SL K. Why it took me this long to realize that out of 6 cores, I only loved the history books as is, no tweaking, twice, I'm not sure!

 

I really loved MOH when we did cores 1 & 2 & have always wanted to do it again (but follow MOH's schedule rather than SL's)--so that's what I finally decided to go with for history. They have guidance on their site for how to make it work for high school, and I'm really excited about what we're doing from here on out.

 

All that to say...

 

Think about what has and what hasn't worked for you in the past, both in terms of curriculum (or parts of curriculum), and in terms of style. Think about the various IG's you have used for a variety of subjects--what ones did you like the most and why? What ones least and why?

 

Then compare that to TOG and anything else you might look at. Does this IG provide what you are going to want and need out of an IG? That may still be an unknown until you try it, or you may learn as you assess past experiences, what is realistic for you and what isn't.

 

As I said, I love aspects of TOG, but realistically, I'm not going to wade through those pages every week to pull what I would want to use. And I get bogged down in choices (I'd have to go through the guide and choose it all up front I think!). The more decisions I make up front, the more likely I am to follow through. Every time I hear people talk about TOG, I want to love it & make it work for me...but I think it's just not a fit for my style and my needs. It may be for you though.

 

Hopefully something in here will help you assess and make some decisions about what to do in the future! Merry :-)

Edited July 31, 2010 by MerryAtHope

[Mom0012]

I didn't think I would be asking this...Can anyone who has used these compare the two for me? After everything that has gone on with SL in the last year I am seriously questioning if I should be reconsidering TOG. I own all but 3 and 4 of SL from K-100. I have serious problems with SL for high school, I'm not sure that will change even with the "updates" they are discussing. I thought I was sure of SL until high school but now I am rethinking this. If I move to TOG I need to start saving up soon. (I would be keeping what I have of SL now.)

 

Would TOG Y4 be to redundant after SL Core 7 and 100 in a chronological plan? Would it be better to work SL into TOG for that time frame?

 

Just curious what you mean by "after everything that has gone one with SL this last year"? I've always used SL and we're getting ready to use Core 4, but I've been looking at other options for high school as well recently.

 

Lisa

[1bassoon]

Let me echo a few pps and share my experience. . . . .

 

First: like Merry said, you do really need to look at why you want to change. Is it something intrinsic to the curriculum itself, or are you no longer comfortable supporting SL financially? (I got that from your post. . . but I'm in the dark on that situation. Happily in the dark, most likely.) Once you have the why down, it's so much easier to answer the "What do I do now?" question.

 

Second: To address your question directly - yes, TOG 4 would be very redundant after SL 7 & Core 100. If my family had just finished those Cores, I'd got to TOG 1.

 

Third: My story in a nutshell. I used SL from K-Core 6 with my oldest. Loved it. Was a SL rep briefly (lost money on that one, but that's another post ;)) Once my younger kids needed more "school" than just a basic K level, I was a disaster. It was just too hard for my poor addled brain to put everyone together. And when I turned my oldest loose on Core 6 on her own - I lost her. She would read, and I was not good about keeping up with her. I felt like she was not a part of our schooling anymore - does that make any sense?

 

I switched to TOG - I've done Classic Year 3 & 4, and Redesigned 1 & 2, and moving into DE Year 3. I've had great plans to integrate my SL books into TOG, but haven't - mainly b/c I'd been borrowing year-plans from people, and I never wrote in my own library selections. Hoping to do better about that this year. For our family, TOG is a good fit: I love the Biblical integration, the multi-level aspect saves my sanity, and the discussions with my D &R students are the highlight of my weeks.

 

Finally: I do think there's a lot of validity to the "There are TOG brains" statement. Sometimes, when I hear Marsha Somerville speak, it seems like we think in the same ways - and that's probably one reason I "jell" with TOG so much. I don't know if that makes any sense. . . . but I have had a friend use TOG and say, "But I just don't THINK that way!" TOG can fit many learning styles - but if it doesn't work with the way Mama functions, it's not a good fit.

 

Sorry this got long. I'm really lousy at giving answers online - there are a lot of people who do that better (Siloam, Tina, Merry) - but hope this was a bit helpful.

 

Oh, a final note. I'm assuming you're Christian - I've found when I pray, God always makes it very clear what I should do. Maybe should have mentioned that first ;)

[texasmama]

:bigear:

[melmichigan]

Just curious what you mean by "after everything that has gone one with SL this last year"? I've always used SL and we're getting ready to use Core 4, but I've been looking at other options for high school as well recently.

 

Lisa

 

Feel free to PM, I don't want the thread to get off track. :)

[melmichigan]

More to think about...I do tweak SL, a lot.

 

I love the literature in SL.

 

I have 3 of my children on the same history cycle, and would like to keep it that way. I currently plan to bring the boys in on their own schedule, I want them to start with Ancient history in the same manner as the other kids. (Although that is of course subject to change. :))

[siloam]

I agree that it comes down to why, and how you hs. I re-wrote SL and that was with just Core 1 and 2. ;) It would be worse now because I have specific authors/titles I want to use, and SL doesn't schedule them: MOH, Guerber, AAH, and Mike Venezia books are all on my must read list. I don't like History of the US and prefer to just listen to STOW on audio while using a different spine. I also don't like how SL separates topics: 200, 400. I would prefer to see them integrated like TOG.

 

TOG works for me because it gives me weekly topics, and I can use the books I want and it has the integration I adore.

 

That said TOG just clicked and made sense to me. I was a little overwhelmed, but more excited. I had the advantage of knowing exactly what I wanted and I could see exactly how TOG would fit into that vision. Now TOG has a lot more to it, but that is what got me started. There are portions of TOG I totally ignore, because while they are good and cool they just don't fit my vision.

 

Heather

[*anj*]

I have specific authors/titles I want to use, and SL doesn't schedule them: MOH, Guerber, AAH, and Mike Venezia books are all on my must read list. I don't like History of the US

 

Heather,

This is kind of off subject, but can you flesh out these thoughts? Which titles by those authors? Why or why not? I know there has been a lot of debate about the History of the US series, but I never paid much attention because I wasn't using them.

 

I'm making my TOG Y4 shopping list today, so I'd be really interested to learn the reasons behind the opinions that you stated above.

 

Thanks! :001_smile:

[siloam]

Heather,

This is kind of off subject, but can you flesh out these thoughts? Which titles by those authors? Why or why not? I know there has been a lot of debate about the History of the US series, but I never paid much attention because I wasn't using them.

 

I'm making my TOG Y4 shopping list today, so I'd be really interested to learn the reasons behind the opinions that you stated above.

 

Thanks! :001_smile:

 

With the Mike Venezia books I do pretty much all of the. Where TOG will list a president and use a single title to cover all of them I buy each individual Mike Venezia title. Because he has so many more Artists than TOG covers I went in and schedule them all by birth, covering one per week. It is a little off from our history studies, but not by too much. I did miss the new scientist books he is putting out, but will use them next time through.

 

Guerber was listed in the Classic, but I don't think is in the redesign. I just liked the uniform chapters that were from the more conservative perspective than History of the US. Let me clarify that I like the newer, cleaned up versions put out by Nothing New Press. I read aloud Guerber to everyone during year 2 and 3 covering Story of the Thirteen Colonies and Story of the Great Republic. I read History of the US just to my oldest till book 9ish where I just ran out of reading time and stomach for History of the US. I really want to use Guerber in year 1 as well, but I think it will be redundant with MOH. I will probably still order to it make sure. I would like to have all the Guerbers on my shelf either way.

 

MOH I just fell in love with the first time I used it and I want to use it again. AAH (All American History by Bright Ideas Press) is structured similarly, but has a more formal tone. People seem to like when they use it with older kids, so I have both Landmark History of the American People from Core 3 and 4 as well as AAH on my to use list for next round and neither are scheduled in TOG.

 

In doing year 4 this time around I ended up using the OOP title DK Children's History of the 20th Century. For a DK/Usborne/Kinfisher book it isn't bad. Generally it has a two page spread on each year (more some years) and is written as if you are reading news paper articles from that year (present tense). It was scheduled in classic. Then, because I wanted something that was more big picture as well, I scheduled in the DK History of American People for American events and Kingfisher World history for world events. Neither of those were scheduled. Lastly my oldest is reading the UG history book on her own, generally the 20th Century Perspectives series or Cornerstone series. I prefer the second but many of them are oop, so the first series gets the job done but is a little textbook-ish.

 

Once I know I like a book, I am highly likely to buy another in the series. In choosing books to use I will go with one I know I like over one recommended in TOG.

 

For example with year 1 I knew I wanted to use MOH, but beyond that I went ahead and ordered all the spines used in the first few weeks just so that I could see them. I also considered scheduling in Kingfisher Illustrated World History, but in the end decide it was to much work, given Usborne really does cover the same materiel and is already scheduled. The Usboren book TOG uses also has better pictures than some of the other Usborne options. I will RA Usborne (UG book) and MOH to all my kids and then have my oldest read the D text on her own. I thought about having her read Guerber, but then I would have problems doing the questions. The Biblical readings in TOG are insanely long (to me) some weeks, which is where having MOH will be nice, because it has lessons on most of those topics that are nice and concise. We will be covering Bible from a historical perspective while continuing our regular Bible study. If I were using TOG as our Bible study then I would take the time to do the Bible readings as scheduled. If one liked Guerber you could probably use Guerber's Story of the Ancient World in the same way.

 

I hope that gives you an idea about how I think about it and through it. I try to balance buying books I know we will love and be read again, with scheduling needs and practically using TOG.

 

Let me know if you have questions.

 

Heather

[momee]

"Would TOG Y4 be to redundant after SL Core 7 and 100 in a chronological plan?"

 

I say yes, if you have done those two cores, you'll want to start TOG year 1. It will put you on that 4 year plan TOG is so tied to, being a classical program. It will also be a great start with TOG. It's a great year, and covers a bunch of stuff that I don't think SL covers at all, like feasts and Genesis and Israel and so forth.

 

I think the backlash yucky stuff about SL would probably be best in another thread, lol. It's a big ole mess.

 

If it helps, I replied to the SL/TOG comparison thread with a bunch of my personal thoughts about the two.

[*anj*]

Thanks, Heather! Much food for thought. ;)