Tapestry of Grace - To use or not to use?

[Time for Chocolate]

If you chose to use Tapestry please tell me how it's going.

 

If you have stopped using it or looked into it and decided not to use it please tell me why.

 

Thanks for your time!

Judy

 

*I have five kids from 7th down to K.

[Georgiana Daniels]

I LOVE using ToG, and my kids say that history is their favorite subject. Do we delve in deep? Not even close, but they're getting the "tent pegs" and I'm getting the study time I need for later. It's been a huge blessing to our family.

[hollyandab]

I just ordered our first unit, so take this with a grain of salt, but I am REALLY liking what I see!! I've been putting our curriculum together for the past several years myself, mostly because I couldn't make my mind up between TOG and SL! But now that my boys are in 6th, I felt it was time to make my mind up and go with one or the other.

 

I made the TOG decision mostly based on the fact that I found myself scheduling very much the same way that TOG schedules, but now I don't have to stress over how long I spend on this or that--it's all done for me! I have twins, but they are at very different learning levels and have very different learning styles; however, I just couldn't justify buying 2 different curricula for twins!! :D TOG gives me the liberty to move the one up a level on reading while allowing the other to stay where he needs to be. It also allows me to assign more hands-on learning for the one and more reading for the other--all with the same curriculum! I also like to pick and choose among different books and activity options; I guess I don't like to be told exactly what to do! ;) Also, I love that the discussion/worldview is woven into the studies. For me, I think it's a very good match.

 

So, if you are in agreement with the TOG worldview, like having options, like the 4 yr cycle, want your dc on the same history timeline....well....I think that yes, it's definitely worth it!

 

Holly in KY

Mama to 11yo twin boys

TOGers

[Time for Chocolate]

I'm tempted t buy it and try it for all of the reasons y'all mentioned! I love the teacher information and discussion questions I saw in the sample on their website. Hmmmmm!:001_smile:

 

Still considering...

Judy

[TXMary2]

I have used TOG for a year now. LOVE it. I just recently did a blog post about how I do my planning with TOG and why it is my dream curriculum. I wish I had found it years ago.

[mhaddon]

I ordered mine over the weekend and have spent time going through it very closely. I was on the edge about ordering it and DH told me to just do it and well, I'm very glad I did. I am not seeing how it is that difficult to implement as she gives you many ideas on how to make it work for your family, planning pages, time table ideas, etc.

 

It looks like it can be as easy or difficult as you want it to be. I'm excited to get started and after talking with DS about what we will be doing and talking about how we will do unit celeberations he is ready to go too! I think honestly I could start it next week if I had my room organized enough :blush:

[Hedgehogs4]

I am going to be using TOG for the first time this year with one UG and one LG student. I chose it because I wanted my children to be on the same history timeline, and because I wanted them to be using the 4-year cycle that SWB recommends. I value history and believe it should be the core of the humanities studies, and TOG fits that description exactly. Our philosophies are virtually identical, and I love that there is something out there that matches so well with the way that I think.

 

I love that you can go as deep or as light as you want to with the program, and there is no limit to how many activities and exercises and books and crafts from which to choose, but I have promised myself that I won't feel guilty for not getting to all of them!

[dianachoate]

We have used TOG sucessfully. And we no longer us it. My kids really do like it. I just find myself wanting to do to much. And then it becomes overwhelming.

 

We found it to be more fun when you do it along with friends on the same schedule and can plan a couple of things together each unit. Celebration was more fun with more friends. We were studying the battle at Bunker Hill and reinacted it with squirt guns the the back yard. The kids had a great time!

 

Enjoy it!

Diana

[Time for Chocolate]

Thanks for all of the comments!

 

Does it take alot of time to get the hang of how to use it?

 

Thanks,

Judy

[mhaddon]

Browse around the sample. I did that a lot and it helped me get a feEl before buying.

[SnMomof7]

I have Y1U1 DE and I keep wanting to dive in but I just can't get around to the planning out the lessons/book choices and that does the entire program in. I realistically need to stick with open and go programs.

[mhaddon]

What I did before buying was print off the booklist. I went to the online library catalog for all the books they had and wrote down location. So now I know what books to buy. Wrote out price list per unit and any I felt we needed. Now I'm going through and putting all reading lists in binder and typing out weekly book list and which library I need book from. Now when that is taken care of I will choose activities and make list to have on hand to file for each week. Bought SAP for binder and will assemble it with those per week with paper for writing assignment and weekly planning sheet. I am unsure if we will do labooks. But I will do maps so I will prepare them and a time line. Still in planning stage for these.

 

Just to compare I was going to have my book list, workbook, map book, timeline, and activity sheet I I had gone with SOTW. So I guess it wasn't much different for me. Just book format versus on computer. Also my library had very little of the SoTw books so that was a huge breaker for me

[melmichigan]

I am definately feeling the :001_wub:. We are winding down Y2. I am currently finishing up workbooks for the first half of Y3 (these will be new for us this year). My year plan is marked and I know what books we will be using. The nice thing about TOG is the flexibility. You choose levels for each subject, you choose how deep you wish to go, which books you wish to use. This year I plan on doing more with Geography and Vocabulary than I did last year, in that sense it took me little bit to decide how I wanted TOG to look for us.

[mom@shiloh]

We started TOG a few weeks ago and my 'at home' kids are about the same ages as yours -- five of them from 1st to 7th grade. This is my 20th year of homeschooling, and our most current curriculum was SL. TOG was a bit overwhelming for me at first. The more time I spend with it, and the more I learn about it, the more I love it. The depth is there and they seem to really nail the same perspectives that I want to be teaching my kids. In other words, the themes that are brought out in Tapestry are the same things that I'd want to be highlighting, the lessons that I hope my kids are picking up, but that I might miss in the busyness of our day.

[Cinder]

We used TOG for 2 years--Classic 4 and Redesign 1 with a co-op that focused on the history and lit portions. It just didn't work for us. I love the concept of TOG but not the day-to-day actual use of it. My sons don't enjoy history--it's their least favorite subject. They particularly didn't like TOG. They didn't like that sometimes . . . well, many times . . . the answers to the TOG questions weren't in the assigned readings. They're very "engineer-brained." As in--if you tell me to read this then ask me a question, I should be able to find the answer here and not have to look it up somewhere else. I think with the revisions that problem has been reduced, but it caused them a lot of frustration. It also caused me frustration because one ds is known for not reading carefully. So then I'd have to read his assignments to be sure he wasn't slacking off. I couldn't just depend on the teacher's notes. My ds's also didn't take to the discussion format whether at co-op or at home.

 

After 8 years I finally admitted to myself that they do better with textbooks that have one voice in the writing and where all the answers are in the text. It made me sad to switch but history became much less stressful after we did so.

[mhaddon]

If you are not familiar with socratic discussions I can see how this would be frustrating. However, this is my favorite way to discuss anything, even when we read Chronicals of Narnia in kindergarten. He is already able to go beyond just giving back recalled information and I think that is one of the most important skills any child can learn :)

[RobinF]

I used year 1 last year and enjoyed it. I bought year 2 this year and I am not using this year. I am using Biblioplan instead. I have several reasons for this decision.

 

1. Planning was overwhelming me. I wanted to be able to use one spine for all three levels I would be teaching (TOG levels LG/UG/D). Biblioplan uses one spine for lower grades and one for high schoolers. This was much more manageable to me.

 

2. I wanted to have maps and worksheets tied to the spine I wanted to use. TOG provides literary worksheets but I don't always use their suggested books. Biblioplan cool history guides can be filled out using the spine and general info.

 

3. I wanted a planned family read aloud (much like Sonlight or MFW)...Biblioplan schedules this. I know that you can choose one for TOG but I wanted to do less planning.

 

4. I wanted to be able to choose some books but not have to worry about other choices (make sense?). Biblioplan gives me the option to choose certain readers and in depth options but the spine and family read aloud are usually only one suggestion.

 

5. I wanted a program that uses SOTW as the main spine for each year. I have used both MFW and TOG and neither of them schedule SOTW as the primary spine each year. I realize they have their reasons for choosing other spines but I don't like jumping around from spine to spine and I think you lose some continuity from doing so. Biblioplan plans use SOTW as their spine.

 

6. I needed a program to schedule history and lit; not science, writing, grammar and so on. I like MFW but when I looked at the year they do more science that I wanted to do and I wanted something that I didn't have to make lots of changes too.

 

TOG is a solid program but I was paying for many things that I wasn't using. I was overwhelmed and ended up too stressed for my peace of mind. I know many use it and I have raved about it. I will still use some of the book suggestions but over all it was overkill for us. We are history lovers so I don't have to have a program that is history heavy. My boys willingly pick history books to read in their free time. I guess overall TOG didn't fit with my goals this year. It may in the future but right now I am looking for a plan that I can use long term. I don't think that TOG is that plan simply because of planning involved and the fit for our family.

[hsingscrapper]

5. I wanted a program that uses SOTW as the main spine for each year. I have used both MFW and TOG and neither of them schedule SOTW as the primary spine each year. I realize they have their reasons for choosing other spines but I don't like jumping around from spine to spine and I think you lose some continuity from doing so. Biblioplan plans use SOTW as their spine.

 

Thank you for sharing that! I'm downloading the three-week sample as we speak.

 

I had thought of ToG, but the cost involved even using the library was more than we can afford. And there's never any guarantee of when library books will be available.

[baybedaul]

I just ordered our first year last week. I'm really enjoying looking through it all. I can see how it could be overwhelming, but I've been drooling over the program and the samples (and the posts about it in this forum) for nearly a year so I feel like I had a good idea of what to expect. It helps that my kids are still so little. I'm viewing TOG as a gentle guide right now and these early years as an opportunity for me to get comfortable with the material. I really hope it works as well for us as I think it's going to!

[Time for Chocolate]

O.K. Robin,

I'm off to check out Biblioplan!:001_smile: You made some interesting points... I am a recovering curriculum junkie so I really want to be as sure as possible before purchasing anything.

 

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

 

Judy

[corbie]

We've done half of y2, all of y3, and will start y4 next year. I have used dialectic, upper grammar, and lower grammar levels. Before I bought y4, I asked my girls what they thought. They love TOG and don't want to stop. That's enough for me. The literature and history are fabulous. I also do map aids and evaluations. To me, the planning is all done. We don't do all the reading/activities. I have found it fairly easy to plan each week. I do have a handful of books that didn't get read or we didn't like. I feel that is a small price to pay for a really successful school year. I'm learning a lot too!

[hollyandab]

Someone here posted about Biblioplan. I tried using it last year (since it was cheaper!) and if you only want the books planned for you, it's fine. But if you want the discussion and worldview all planned for you, it's just not there. I actualy found Biblioplan to be extremely boring. But then again, I think I was not wanting to like it so I could talk myself into buying TOG! I think I felt like I could schedule what Biblioplan does. What I don't feel like I can do is to come up with discussion questions, worldview discussions, literature analysis, poetry, government tied with history, philosophy, activities, president study, etc, etc, etc... There's just so much more with TOG, but then, it costs more too!! :)

 

Holly in KY

[Time for Chocolate]

Thanks for the info. Holly!

I checked out Biblioplan, and decided, like you, that I wanted more. The choices and added topics that Tapestry offers is more along the lines of what I was looking for.

 

So ladies, what year should I start with? We are just finishing up the Revoltionary War with my 6th grader. Should I get Year 3 Unit 4 for the continuity, or start at the very beginning with Year 1 Unit 1?

 

Thanks Everyone!

All of your thoughts have really helped!

Judy

 

ds 12, dd 10, dd 7, dd 6, dd 4

[mhaddon]

I would go with where you are rather than starting over :)

[momee]

TOG for us at the dialectic/high school level did not work out for various reasons.

 

I wanted to help if I can about where to start.

I would caution about starting in the middle of a year with a dialectic student. The pace, the work and the writing are topics I can think of right off that ramp up at the beginning of the year and if you start mid-year you're going to miss that ramping up.

 

It would not be an issue if you were teaching only lg/ug.

HTH

[hsingscrapper]

Oh wait. . .

 

I just double-checked the price tag on Biblioplan. I don't think it will be happening for my crew anytime soon. Maybe in the future?

 

Thanks for the suggestions!

[prairiewindmomma]

I own years 1 & 2. We just, as of this week, decided to leave it. It's just too much right now with various issues going on in the home and the relative young ages of my children. We are going back to the WTM recommendations.

 

Ultimately, I think reading, outlining, and doing timeline work is all that I really need to do right now. I'll throw in some art bits from Discovering Great Artists where they line up, and I have some great shelves of historical fiction, but all of the grids and planning and stacks of books are just giving us too much stress.

 

I need to be able to maintain balance between history + the rest of homeschool. I'd rather be able to spend extra time in math or on science experiments.....or at least my kids would rather. ;) (I'm such a book junkie!)

[hollyandab]

Thanks for the info. Holly!

I checked out Biblioplan, and decided, like you, that I wanted more. The choices and added topics that Tapestry offers is more along the lines of what I was looking for.

 

So ladies, what year should I start with? We are just finishing up the Revoltionary War with my 6th grader. Should I get Year 3 Unit 4 for the continuity, or start at the very beginning with Year 1 Unit 1?

 

Thanks Everyone!

All of your thoughts have really helped!

Judy

 

ds 12, dd 10, dd 7, dd 6, dd 4

 

That is so funny! We ended the year with the Revolutionary War also! I already bought yr 3 unit 1 of Tapestry to pick up where we left off, and it looks great! I would not have wanted to start all over again since we were already halfway through the 4 year cycle...definitely go with yr 3! I'm planning on starting it in Aug--just as soon as the neighbor boy goes back to school--he's over all of the time, and he has an in-ground pool....just try to homeschool 11 yr old boys over swimming! :D

 

Holly in KY

Mama to 11 yo twin boys

[hollyandab]

I just saw where you asked if you should start in year 3, unit...was it 4 you said? If you just finished up with the Revolutionary War, you're in perfect position to start with year 3 unit 1. Year 3 picks up with reviewing George Washington as president, goes into Adams as president, and goes into the French Revolution. And, that way you are starting your D level student at the beginning of the year, as someone else mentioned is better than jumping into the middle of a year. This also sets you up for starting a study on all of the presidents and states. It's perfect timing!

 

Hope that helps!

 

Holly in KY

Mama to 11 yo twin boys

[TheAutumnOak]

I looked into TOG, but decided in the end that WTM was enough...I REALLY like WTM and didn't feel it was necessary to spend so much on TOG...

[Time for Chocolate]

You are so right, Holly! I meant Year 2 Unit 4...

 

Year 3 Unit 1 would be a good fit. I was debating starting over with Year 1 because of my littles K, 1st, and 3rd grade. But that would mess up my upcoming 6th and 7th graders.

 

Part of me would love to just do it the WTM way. But I feel like I need a little more hand holding for middle school. I like Tapestry's dicussion questions, World View, Church History, etc...

 

I wonder sometimes, O.K. alot of the time, if I'm just making life too complicated. Why can't I just look at the WTM, pull the materials, and write up the lesson plans. Find a Church History book that I like and use it.... :confused:

 

Thanks Everyone!

Judy

[RobinF]

O.K. Robin,

I'm off to check out Biblioplan!:001_smile: You made some interesting points... I am a recovering curriculum junkie so I really want to be as sure as possible before purchasing anything.

 

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

 

Judy

 

I can't even say I am recovering since I bought both TOG and Biblioplan and even considered MFW this year. I finally had to prioritize what I wanted and one of my top priorities was using SOTW as the spine. The next one was activity guides that lined up with SOTW. After I figure those things out I decided on Biblioplan but unfortunately I had already purchased TOG DE. I hope I have learned my lesson.:tongue_smilie:

[hollyandab]

You are so right, Holly! I meant Year 2 Unit 4...

 

Year 3 Unit 1 would be a good fit. I was debating starting over with Year 1 because of my littles K, 1st, and 3rd grade. But that would mess up my upcoming 6th and 7th graders.

 

 

Thanks Everyone!

Judy

 

I would go with where your older children are. Plus, the younger ones would probably enjoy more American History before they get into the Ancients. That would also line your 7th grader with starting yr 1 in the 9th grade, just in time for rhetoric!

 

I also remembered that we actually went a bit past the Rev. War. We went over the Constitution and Washington's presidency, so that's why yr 3 unit 1 was best for us. However, if you were to get a couple of books on the Constitution and Washington's life and read those during the remainder of the summer, then you would be ready to start yr 3 at the beginning of the school year. For some reason (and I was never like this before) I wanted to start at the beginning of the Tapestry year this August. Either yr2 unit 4 or yr 3 unit 1 would be fine, but if I were you, I would just try to finish up the yr 2 topics on your own and not buy the whole unit... But that's just me!! You can't go wrong!

 

If you really want the discussion/worldview and don't have the confidence to pull it together yourself, then I bet you'll really like Tapestry. And you can always use SOTW with TOG--I may have said that before--I just got back from a 14 hr trip in less than 2 days. :tongue_smilie: I'm a bit cross-eyed!

 

Blessings,

Holly in KY, who needs to go to bed!

[melmichigan]

The loom documents for Y3 include summer reading recommendations if you are just starting TOG with Y3, there is also some review of Y2U4 in Y3U1 where things overlap somewhat. :)

[Time for Chocolate]

Great to know! Thanks!

 

I tend to make things more complicated than I should. So please tell me how hard it is to get the hang of Tapestry. Is it difficult to choose what to do and what not to do? Another words do you feel like if you don't do everything you will somehow not be successful with the program?

 

Thanks,

Judy

[Hedgehogs4]

:lurk5: yup...that's something I need to know as well.

[jamajo]

Great to know! Thanks!

 

I tend to make things more complicated than I should. So please tell me how hard it is to get the hang of Tapestry. Is it difficult to choose what to do and what not to do? Another words do you feel like if you don't do everything you will somehow not be successful with the program?

 

Thanks,

Judy

 

 

Why do we do this?

 

I'm chiming in late but as I read the posts it is so clear that curriculum choices are dependent upon our individual goals, our children with their learning styles and our own teaching styles. I've heard it here so many times here that the reasons one family loves a curriculum is the same reason why it doesn't work for another. With that said - I purchased Y2U1 last year and used it for 10 weeks as scheduled and decided it didn't work for my family because of the time commitment in planning and choosing from so many options (again, the exact reason why another mom loves it!)

 

I love MFW for taking this away from me. The lesson planning is done for me but I still feel the freedom to add or take away resources or go down rabbit trails but still have a well defined track so that I can get back on without my kids losing the built in comprehension included in the curriculum.

 

I felt like TOG wasn't building comprehension because you could choose from so many different sources and there weren't many learning aids to reinforce concepts (like how the SOTW Activity Books works to reinforce the reading in the SOTW text). I see the value in TOG, I just couldn't bring it out.

 

One more thing .... there are so many other things that are important in my homeschool (i.e. I prefer a different program for writing and literature outside of the lit that corresponds to history) that I hated spending so much time planning TOG which was more of a history curriculum for me.

 

whew... that was a mouthful. Pick your lane and stick with what in your gut feels right for your family. It was relatively easy to transition out of TOG if you purchase in units to "try it out" before committing to a full year.

[tjneary99]

I know I am late in the game in this thread, but here goes. I have a love/not love relationship with TOG. I have used year one..

My dislikes:

-SOTW as an on and off spine--I prefer MOH(though I understand why people prefer SOTW)

-didn't like the worksheets provided much--some good, some not for me

the format was too much for me to synthesize every week--spending hours on planning and adding my own worksheets to make it work for us

-if we didn't use all of their books and a spine, I found to meet the goals for the week without just reading off the teacher's pages

-I found my time was spent trying to fill their heads with knowledge and keep up rather than focus on their hearts which is my main goal at this point.

-expensive...I would have to add evaluations and the writing aids for my style

- prefer it if writing aids, map aids, and evaluations were already printed and included in each section of the curriculum--having to do this on my own every week is too much to organize after already organizing the books

and daily lessons each week

-the Bible portions were not enough for me--again it is not just about knowledge of the Bible for me...I have more I want to teach them that I can get elsewhere. I ended up spending hours making up my own extra Bible plans even though I did year one with them--which is the most Bible heavy.

--would have really liked premade vocab games--word searches, crosswords etc...

--not Christ-centered enough for me

--prefer daily schedules(even if I don't follow them totally--just like a general idea) to weekly topical ones

--doesn't fit my personality

--felt disorganized and lost on weeks with no spine/base knowledge if I did not have the TOG books listed in order to meet the requirements for the week in the threads. I did not want to just read the teacher's notes to the kids if we couldn't find the info elsewhere. For example, when studying ancient Greece, our library just did not have info for my kids on the bronze age--it was difficult to fulfill the TOG requirements in this area w/o reading off the notes.

 

Likes-

--comprehensive and good info in the curriculum overall

--classical and C. Mason

--like living books--but not all, though she does give warnings periodically in some areas

--some very good books and activities are included

--has great questions and does compare history to Christian faith throughout

--great for people who prefer topical, weekly organization

--great for people who do not want evaluations in their base package

--I may come back to it for the rhetoric level

--Marsha S. has worked very hard and provide in depth studies here; she deserves to be recognized for providing an excellent, comprehensive curriculum

--I will be using it more as a supplement than a base at this point.

 

Summary--I would have stuck with it if:

It provided already printed MOH spine references instead of only SOTW, timelines/timeline grids with answers, maps, vocabulary worksheet(s) on the words given, more heart focused stuff from the Bible for the kids, coloring pages(I had to find my own for my kids to stay focused on all of the readings), evaluations/general overview worksheets for each week, etc....in the curriculum, and daily plan guidelines

As it was, I was searching for and printing these things out week after week from either TOG's resources or the web.

[Heidi]

I looked at TOG but decided it was just too much. Too many books, too many subjects, too much planning, too much money.

I just purchased biblioplan and will start it next week. I like the handful of read alouds scheduled throughout the year. Not too many and really high quality ones. That way I will still have time in the day to read good lit that is not tied to history as well. I didn't want our school to rotate around history, but I wanted more than just sotw.

Another tipping point for me was that it uses resourses that I have already purchased (sotw, usborne enc., history of us) as well as books that I really wanted to use ( famous men series), and schedules it all in so I don't have to figure it out.

I also like bp's extras: the timline, companion, maps. And I like the bible is scheduled in year 1.

as for rigor in the upper grades im currently enamored with kolbe's lit & history plan for middle & high. And I prefer to tie religion in with our own books.

[kanagnostos]

I used TOG at one point for UG level but decided that the things I liked best about the curriculum would be best left until a later level. We went back to Sonlight. This year, I'm using TOG again at dialectic level, and we are so much more successful and not so overwhelmed with the program at this level. We are using Y2, but since we just studied American History for the past 2 yrs, we are only doing TOG Y2U1 and U2, maybe bits of U3. Therefore, the pace is more relaxed, and I don't feel pressured to skip things that I want to cover just to keep up. Also, compared to the first time we used TOG, my son is a much better reader and has no problem reading everything on the primary charts as well as additional literature and worldview selections from the secondary charts. So, basically, TOG is working great for us at dialectic level but was overkill and just plain overwhelming at lower levels.

[Hedgehogs4]

Okay we are four weeks into our first year of TOG (year 3) and WE LOVE IT! The lessons and material are diverse and interesting, the activities are fun, the information for the teachers is thorough and very well presented, and to top it all off we are meeting with four other families each week as a co-op and are having a blast. I am using WA with WWE level four and that is going well. (I am using WWE Strong Fundamentals textbook, not the workbook, and taking our dictations and narrations from SOTW and our other lit and history readings.)

 

So far, no complaints.

[matilda]

We are loving TOG, too. I love having all of my kids studying the same thing and having everything there for me to choose from. But like the pp, I would not be as happy if I didn't have a D student along with the younger ones.

[Aubrey]

I did a lot of research on the time period I was about to teach (ancients), bought a used copy of Year 1 Units 1 & 2 & spent a while reading through them & the rec'd books.

 

I decided not to use TOG. I have several reasons, but the following are the ones that pertain to the 2 ancient history units I looked at:

 

1. The biggest problem for me was the ... shoot, I can't remember the word. But the authors believe that God causes everything--the rise & fall of nations, etc. I'm a conservative Christian, but I've never used a Christian curric (until this year--SL preschool) because the religious position of authors of curric is often too strongly present in the curric. So while I believe that God is all-powerful & all-knowing, I also believe that people have the power to sin. I read many events in history as a result of sin, not of God's...providence! That's the word!

 

The curriculum is too *providential* for my taste!

 

Now, I think one could read over that, skip, modify, whatever. I just know ME. I'd be too irritated all the time. I'm not good at letting things drop. So, it was a bad fit for my personality.

 

2. The teacher notes look really awesome at first glance. At 2nd glance, though, they're just articles copied from a set of encyclopedias (legally). The font is smaller than I'd like, there's too much gray space. The pics are nice, but really--if I'm going to read about what the kids are reading, I want something more accessible. (Theirs is very accessible. I want something MORE accessible, lol.)

 

3. The amt of time spent on one culture vs another is not equal. The entire eastern hemisphere is lumped into one 9 week unit that focuses on how that hemisphere isn't Christian. The illogical nature of this focus irritates me because, in ancient times, the west was not Christian, either. I prefer to study cultures for who they are, not who *I* am.

 

4. The flavor of TOG & their forums is not who I am at all. I love for things to be rigorous & intellectually challenging, but I also love creativity & humor & irony. I love historical fiction. I like showing The Flintstones when we study pre-history. Not during school time & not AS history. Just for fun. I don't think TOG'ers would criticize that, necessarily, but...I think I'd be an oddball in their group. Of course, that's probably true in any group... :leaving: :lol:

 

Given the above, there's still a lot to like about TOG, & I really wanted to like it. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt convicted to teach history in a way that seemed honest & pleasing to the Lord *to me.*

[mom&nana]

I have always been drawn to TOG. I have considered using it twice now. I bought one unit and the books to try to make it work. Each time I decide to give it a try, the more I look at it the more I'm convinced that it just doesn't fit my goals for our homeschool. I think a previous poster said it well, "It's just too much." Too many books, too much money, too much information, etc. To me, it feels like the pace of the program has you devouring books instead of slowly savoring them. Also YR 1 is my favorite year as it seems to be the one that has the most Bible. The other years shift more to Church History, and that's not what I want at all.

 

I also agree with Pencil Pusher- I like historical fiction and TOG seems to have less of that than other curricula around. So to me some of the books seem boring. The one child I would having using TOG is not a huge fan of history or reading, so I don't think it would fit her well either.

 

It looks like a great program. I love how it has all the teacher help, tons of information at your fingertips. I know myself though, and eventually I would probably grow to hate having to read all those teacher's notes every week. I also grow bored quite easily and the benefit of re-using the curriculum to save money is not realistic for me. I have a lot of children and more than likely, I would not stick with just one program for that many years.

[Blueridge]

In case you haven't watched the video on TOG Weekly Planning, here it is:

http://vimeo.com/tapestryofgrace/videos/sort:date

Very helpful information!