TOG, MOH, other?? Help me figure this out!

[Shoshana]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm brand new to the boards and classical ed., although we've been homeschooling for eight years now. For the past seven years we were part of a wonderful co-op, but after moving this summer we're on our own. So far we've been using Abeka but both the kids and I are hating it. It is so boring! I've been reading lots of books on homeschooling philosophies, especially classical ed. and I'm really drawn to it. This is the education I want my kids to have!

 

Anyways...I love the idea of TOG; it looks like my dream history curriculum. The one major drawback I see is that it looks really teacher intensive. Is it? I've got four school age kids (grades 8, 4, 2, and 1). So that would be three different levels of TOG, right? I also have four younger kids (ages 4,3,2, and 13 months) who keep me busy and I'm pregnant. I don't mind spending an hour or so a week planning and I want to be involved with my kids, but there's only so much time I can spend.

Would MOH be less teacher intensive? Is there another history curriculum that would work better for me? I really want something that is classical (4-year cycle), Christian, uses lots of living books, and can be used by all my kids.

 

Thanks!

Shoshana

[siloam]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm brand new to the boards and classical ed., although we've been homeschooling for eight years now. For the past seven years we were part of a wonderful co-op, but after moving this summer we're on our own. So far we've been using Abeka but both the kids and I are hating it. It is so boring! I've been reading lots of books on homeschooling philosophies, especially classical ed. and I'm really drawn to it. This is the education I want my kids to have!

 

Anyways...I love the idea of TOG; it looks like my dream history curriculum. The one major drawback I see is that it looks really teacher intensive. Is it? I've got four school age kids (grades 8, 4, 2, and 1). So that would be three different levels of TOG, right? I also have four younger kids (ages 4,3,2, and 13 months) who keep me busy and I'm pregnant. I don't mind spending an hour or so a week planning and I want to be involved with my kids, but there's only so much time I can spend.

Would MOH be less teacher intensive? Is there another history curriculum that would work better for me? I really want something that is classical (4-year cycle), Christian, uses lots of living books, and can be used by all my kids.

 

Thanks!

Shoshana

 

Shoshana,

 

MOH would hands down be less teacher intesive. Though be aware that MOH has a world history focus, so most MOH users do a year or two of US history, which messes up the 4 year rotation. You might be able to make it work by assigning deeper reading to your older kids on American History topics rather than doing a whole separate program.

 

I love TOG and actually will use MOH as a spine text for TOG. But I am one of those people who mess with everything and anything they use, so TOG just gives me more to mess with. If you could use MOH as open and go, just picking out a few additional books from the book list, it would be much simpler than the choices you have to make with TOG. That said TOG does have more depth.

 

I believe My Father's World also has a four year rotation, it is christian and it is scheduled day by day where TOG has more of a weekly focus.

 

Heather

[boscopup]

You might want to look at Biblioplan. It uses SOTW as a spine, but also schedules MOH and I think a couple history encyclopedias. It includes living books. There are reading recommendations for different age groups.

 

TOG looks awesome though, and I drooled over it for weeks before deciding to go with Biblioplan so I can have the ease of SOTW (for my younger kids) but also have the ability to easily get more out of a topic if we have time. I think you can kind of do that with TOG... I have seen SOTW/TOG lists and there are SOTW/MOH lists. It'd take some teacher planning, but if you planned a unit out ahead of time, you might be able to make it somewhat open and go. I know I would rather use TOG for an 8th grader.

[siloam]

You might want to look at Biblioplan. It uses SOTW as a spine, but also schedules MOH and I think a couple history encyclopedias. It includes living books. There are reading recommendations for different age groups.

 

TOG looks awesome though, and I drooled over it for weeks before deciding to go with Biblioplan so I can have the ease of SOTW (for my younger kids) but also have the ability to easily get more out of a topic if we have time. I think you can kind of do that with TOG... I have seen SOTW/TOG lists and there are SOTW/MOH lists. It'd take some teacher planning, but if you planned a unit out ahead of time, you might be able to make it somewhat open and go. I know I would rather use TOG for an 8th grader.

Did you know that TOG now has SOTW scheduled in it on the alternate list? MOH isn't yet, so I did have to make a schedule for that. :D

 

I think the hardest thing is some people just get TOG and don't find it to be a lot of planning. Other people find it harder to figure out. Then there are those like me who don't find it difficult but like to play with it.

 

The best thing for anyone who is considering TOG to do, is to try one of the 3 week samples.

 

Heather

[Carol in Cal.]

You might want to start with one of those three week trials of TOG--free on their website--to see how it works out in actual practice. Another short trial option while you are figuring out what you want to do could be a Steward Ship unit study--those take 4-6 weeks and cover one major topic area. They are for grammar through middle school grades, with modifications for older and younger children, and tend to be more available for US history topics than the world history ones that tend to be emphasized here.

[Shoshana]

Thanks ladies!

 

I'm going to try out the Go to Egypt trial starting next week (have to get books from the library etc.). The more I look at TOG the more I love it, but I do worry that I'll burn myself out.:001_smile:

 

A few questions about MOH and Biblioplan:

Is there a place to see MOH's book lists?

Is Biblioplan just a book list or does it have worksheets and other activities?

 

I do wonder about high school. If I buy TOG now I'll have it for the future and there don't seem to be many other curricula where all grades can be combined. If I buy TOG in December but don't start using it until January maybe the planning won't be too bad. Thinking, thinking...

[siloam]

Thanks ladies!

 

I'm going to try out the Go to Egypt trial starting next week (have to get books from the library etc.). The more I look at TOG the more I love it, but I do worry that I'll burn myself out.:001_smile:

 

A few questions about MOH and Biblioplan:

Is there a place to see MOH's book lists?

Is Biblioplan just a book list or does it have worksheets and other activities?

 

I do wonder about high school. If I buy TOG now I'll have it for the future and there don't seem to be many other curricula where all grades can be combined. If I buy TOG in December but don't start using it until January maybe the planning won't be too bad. Thinking, thinking...

 

No the booklist is copyright protected, but you can get an idea of what books are recommended by looking at Illuminations for MOH. I would assume all or most of the literature used in Illuminations would be on the book list because the same people are pulling them together. Illuminations might also be another possibility, as it schedules out the activities and literature for you, and has the upper level guides with vocab, comp questions and literature analysis (not for every book read, but for enough to learn it).

 

Heather

[Shoshana]

No the booklist is copyright protected, but you can get an idea of what books are recommended by looking at Illuminations for MOH. I would assume all or most of the literature used in Illuminations would be on the book list because the same people are pulling them together. Illuminations might also be another possibility, as it schedules out the activities and literature for you, and has the upper level guides with vocab, comp questions and literature analysis (not for every book read, but for enough to learn it).

 

Heather

 

Thanks Heather! Illuminations looks interesting, it uses quite a bit of curricula I wasn't planning on, but maybe I need to do more research.

[Donna A.]

Have you looked at My Father's World? It's meant to be done with multiple age levels (the author's raised 6 children), would be less time consuming and less teacher prep than TOG, and would offer/integrate a lot more than MOH. Also, MFW comes "complete" and has been around a lot longer than the MOH Illuminations. To ME, when I've glanced at the Illuminations stuff, I think it doesn't look nearly as efficient as MFW. (JMO).

 

You would only need two programs for your kids' ages, or possibly just one with something separate for phonics and math for the 1st grader. Of course every child does math and LA at their own level *anyway*, so you could use MFW 1st grade or not. http://www.mfwbooks.com/

 

Be sure to check out their message boards, too. :)

[Shoshana]

Thanks Donna. I've spent a bit of time on the MFW website. While I like the elementary part I'm not sold about high school. I really want to follow the four-year cycle. Is the geography year important or can it be dropped easily. And then I'm not sure about repeating the same curriculum over and over. Are there booklists for different age/grade levels?

 

I'll go check out the message boards!

[Donna A.]

Thanks Donna. I've spent a bit of time on the MFW website. While I like the elementary part I'm not sold about high school. I really want to follow the four-year cycle. Is the geography year important or can it be dropped easily. And then I'm not sure about repeating the same curriculum over and over. Are there booklists for different age/grade levels?

 

I'll go check out the message boards!

 

You can do the 4 years of history in MFW without ECC. Then high school is a 4-year cycle as well, so no problem there. You might want to poke around on the high school board (here), too, as there are several of us using MFW high school.

 

On the booklist, yes, age ranges are given for each book listed, and in the lesson plans, you'll see some assignments marked as "Advanced". Teacher notes explain how to adapt for the multiple ages. High school has its own list and its own set of books, as it's written for the student to primarily work independently, so not a lot of hands-on time for Mom there and virtually NO prep time for high school. From what I understand, MFW has a lot less prep time for Mom in the elementary years than TOG, too. (I've not used TOG, but did borrow my pastor's wife's manual to peruse, and I decided MFW was much more doable for us.)

 

So MFW high school is *different* than MFW elementary. Thus, you wouldn't be repeating the same curriculum over and over.

[siloam]

Thanks Heather! Illuminations looks interesting, it uses quite a bit of curricula I wasn't planning on, but maybe I need to do more research.

 

There is a yahoo group on which those who created it (a group of mom's) and the publisher are available to ask questions of. I will try to get back here tomorrow and post a link.

 

Heather

[Chris in VA]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm brand new to the boards and classical ed., although we've been homeschooling for eight years now. For the past seven years we were part of a wonderful co-op, but after moving this summer we're on our own. So far we've been using Abeka but both the kids and I are hating it. It is so boring! I've been reading lots of books on homeschooling philosophies, especially classical ed. and I'm really drawn to it. This is the education I want my kids to have!

 

Anyways...I love the idea of TOG; it looks like my dream history curriculum. The one major drawback I see is that it looks really teacher intensive. Is it? I've got four school age kids (grades 8, 4, 2, and 1). So that would be three different levels of TOG, right? I also have four younger kids (ages 4,3,2, and 13 months) who keep me busy and I'm pregnant. I don't mind spending an hour or so a week planning and I want to be involved with my kids, but there's only so much time I can spend.

Would MOH be less teacher intensive? Is there another history curriculum that would work better for me? I really want something that is classical (4-year cycle), Christian, uses lots of living books, and can be used by all my kids.

 

Thanks!

Shoshana

 

Have you considered just using SOTW this year--starting everyone off in the rotation in the same year (Year 1?). I would do this:

 

Everyone--Mom reads SOTW aloud (or let your 8th grader do it), then,

 

8th grade-- Do more reading in the history encyclopedia (I'd use Kingfisher, if you can find it.) Outline the coordinating reading. Pick one topic a week to research, writing several paragraphs. Help youngers with activities. Read from own list of historical fiction, nonfic and biographies, keep timeline.

 

4th grade--Write out narration for each chapter, making a notebook page. Do mapwork. Do activity with youngers. Independently reads coordinating lit. Listens to read aloud. Next year, add in the Kingfisher and have (then) 5th grader make a list of facts from the chapter, and pick one topic a week to write a short report/paragraph about. Add in the timeline next year, too.

 

2nd grade--Write narration--can dictate and mom writes it, then 2nd grader uses it for copywork to make a notebook page. Do mapwork. Do activity with younger and older. Listens to read aloud, does some lit independently, depending on reading level.

 

1st grade--Dictate narration, mom writes out for notebook page. Thru the year, gradually writes a sentence or two of her/his own. Do mapwork. Do activity. Listens to read aloud, may read a simple book now and then, depending on level (mine could read pretty well by then, and there are lots of suggestions in the activity guide)

 

Chose the same read aloud for the 4,2 and 1. Make a book basket with more picture book type books for the 2 and 1 (and actually, the 4 would benefit, too).

 

Use the activity book and SOTW. The AG coordinates the readings in several encyclopedias. All you have to do it assign them to your 8th grader. She could go off by herself after the reading aloud on the first day, completing tasks the rest of the week, checking back in at the end. Keep the others together while you do mapwork and the activity. Have them narrate separately--just assign some independent work or a chore or two to the other 3 while you sequester them one at a time to do the narration.

 

This works best if you are in the first two years of the rotation. Year 3 is a little more complicated. I wouldn't do year 4 this way.

 

The next year, you can transition your 8th grader out of SOTW, but keep her in the rotation. I like Omnibus for high school, but that's just me. Keep the others in SOTW until you finish the rotation, then switch.

 

What do you think?

 

Need lit ideas? You can find a lot in the activity guide, but you can also check out Sonlight year 6 and 7 for the 8th grader's lit. There are tons of logic stage lit suggestions in WTM, too. HTH!

Edited November 4, 2010 by Chris in VA