mom2boys030507 Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 I am seriously considering TOG for next year. History has been a struggle in our house since day 1, so has science for that matter. My boys will be in 4, 2 and K next year. (They are all reading independently, my oldest will be ready or almost ready for D level work, my middle most likely UG and my youngest LG) I have basically written my own history for the last 3 years. I have tried a few different options including SOTW - no one really liked it. My kids complained when I pulled it out. I tried planning based on CHOW, that worked but it was hard to go on my own. For the most part, I have done unit studies for the big cultures or ideas of each era. We have done Ancients, Middle Ages and now are now at the Revolutionary War. I am trying to decide if I should start with Year 3 or if I should head back to Ancients. I know my oldest is anxious to get back to Ancients so he can study dinosaurs and Ancient Babylon more. I am not sure how important it is for them to finish the rest of the American History cycle, yet should something happen that we send them to school. We want them to have some what of the history their classmates would have - small concern. Any suggestions? Planning is not a huge concern for me - I enjoy it:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 A couple non-standard options- If your kids really enjoy the knights and such--Go back to Ancients and then spend 2 years on year 2-one for units 1&2 and one for units 3&4. If you grab some extra books from the library Year 2 could easily become two years. Alternatively, you could do Year 1 Ancient World and Egypt in 1st year and Year 1 Greece and Rome in Second year and then continue with Year 2 and so on as normal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2boys030507 Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 Non-standard answers work. They give me more to think about. I think part of my problem is looking at the long term. I am not even sure if this will work for us or if we stick with it but.... I am looking at where my boys will land at the end of 10th grade. If and this is a big IF they continue working at the level they are for their age, we will be looking at doing a Post-Secondary option for 11th and 12th grade, if it is the right thing for each boy. Yes, I know this is a long way off, but it is all part of my thought process. But, as a result of these thoughts I am not sure where would be best to be ending the 4 year cycle, realizing that my middle will be in a different place then the oldest and the youngest. Decisions for next year that have the potential to effect the remainder of my boys schooling = scary. yet, I know that I can always change again. I just want to find something that will work for more than a 6 months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Non-standard answers work. They give me more to think about. I think part of my problem is looking at the long term. I am not even sure if this will work for us or if we stick with it but.... I am looking at where my boys will land at the end of 10th grade. If and this is a big IF they continue working at the level they are for their age, we will be looking at doing a Post-Secondary option for 11th and 12th grade, if it is the right thing for each boy. Yes, I know this is a long way off, but it is all part of my thought process. But, as a result of these thoughts I am not sure where would be best to be ending the 4 year cycle, realizing that my middle will be in a different place then the oldest and the youngest. Decisions for next year that have the potential to effect the remainder of my boys schooling = scary. yet, I know that I can always change again. I just want to find something that will work for more than a 6 months. But there are so many options for those last two years of high school. Preparation for the various AP or SAT II exams in history subjects or government or human geography all leap to mind. It could also allow a science minded child to pursue multiple science courses. You could also add in a year of world history such as Sonlight Core 5 and then return to TOG. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coffeegal Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 (edited) But there are so many options for those last two years of high school. Preparation for the various AP or SAT II exams in history subjects or government or human geography all leap to mind. It could also allow a science minded child to pursue multiple science courses. You could also add in a year of world history such as Sonlight Core 5 and then return to TOG. :iagree: Worry about high school when you get there. Personally I don't think there's a right answer, so what do YOU want to study next year? Which year plan seems most exciting/fun? :D ETA: Upon reflection, my suggestion would be to go ahead and do year 3 UG/LG. Have fun with it, do the crafts, make a salt map of the US, and don't try for perfection. Plan a Babylon unit study as summer fun, or plan your science around Babylon and dinosaurs. Babylonian knowledge of stars, circles, degrees, etc. Edited February 4, 2012 by coffeegal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAutumnOak Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Not sure this is going to be a helpful answer, but I love to start things at the beginning, so I would start with year 1, The Ancients...I hate to jump in the middle of something unless I absolutely have to :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Not sure this is going to be a helpful answer, but I love to start things at the beginning, so I would start with year 1, The Ancients...I hate to jump in the middle of something unless I absolutely have to :) When is the Ancients redo going to be finished and available for purchase though? I thought they were restructuring the years and were finished with all but Ancients? I'm seriously thinking about moving to TOG2 for next year. I didn't start with Ancients this year because (a) I heard year one was the hardest to do secular and (b) I was under the impression that they hadn't finished reformatting year one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehogs4 Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 I am seriously considering TOG for next year. History has been a struggle in our house since day 1, so has science for that matter. My boys will be in 4, 2 and K next year. (They are all reading independently, my oldest will be ready or almost ready for D level work, my middle most likely UG and my youngest LG) I have basically written my own history for the last 3 years. I have tried a few different options including SOTW - no one really liked it. My kids complained when I pulled it out. I tried planning based on CHOW, that worked but it was hard to go on my own. For the most part, I have done unit studies for the big cultures or ideas of each era. We have done Ancients, Middle Ages and now are now at the Revolutionary War. I am trying to decide if I should start with Year 3 or if I should head back to Ancients. I know my oldest is anxious to get back to Ancients so he can study dinosaurs and Ancient Babylon more. I am not sure how important it is for them to finish the rest of the American History cycle, yet should something happen that we send them to school. We want them to have some what of the history their classmates would have - small concern. Any suggestions? Planning is not a huge concern for me - I enjoy it:) We were in the same place as you find yourself when we began TOG, so we started with year 3. I have really enjoyed it. Unlike a PP, I don't care where we start, as long as I have covered all the history. I can honestly say we have never covered so much material so joyfully in so short a time. We have also never worked so hard (but not painfully!) on a curriculum. My son enjoys what he reads so much he asks for more. :001_huh: Currently he is reading all of the upper grammar and all of the dialectic selections, purely out of interest. He loves the material. I know you said history has been a struggle, but this makes it as interesting as history could possibly be, IMO. We just came home from our unit celebration, which is a pot-luck style evening with our other TOG co-op families. The kids did their presentations and recitations for the dads, we ate a meal together, and just by chance someone pulled out a Tim Hawkins dvd and we all laughed ourselves stupid together. After the kids presented, the moms commented that we have never worked so hard at homeschooling before, and yet, we feel very fulfilled. I really believe it helps to have at least on other family to track with, but I know that even if I didn't have other families working on this with me, we would still be pursuing this diligently. IMO, I think that TOG is one of the most complete curricula you can find. I have posted my thoughts and reviews on our experience with TOG so far on my blog, which is in my signature. The posts are highlighted in the sidebar, if you want to know more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candid Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 This: "History has been a struggle in our house since day 1, so has science for that matter." has me concerned. Why has history been a struggle? Tapestry does have some books that lean towards dry and I'd be concerned about children who don't like history and it. If you struggle with history because of implementation and lack of structure or organization, then fine Tapestry will work, but if it is because its not an interesting subject then I'd be more cautious. For your oldest, tapestry has at most one week (creation week) where dinosaurs will come in. AND resources for the Babylonians for younger than R level are thin (and even R level resources for Akkadian oriented materials are thin, it's not an area that is filled with student level books). So let me throw up another small caution. I love Tapestry, but history is a big deal in my house. It was the subject I saved for the end of the day because I knew that no matter how late we would do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 I agree with Candid--you aren't going to get a lot of prehistoric stuff with TOG, or Ancient Babylon. Let that be a science study. If you are YE, you can do Dinosaurs By Design and some activities. If not, there's plenty of resources. LOVE the idea to focus on Babylonian science/discoveries. Maybe your kids would like more hands-on? Doing some activity books like WP has and incorporating literature might make a nice mix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2boys030507 Posted February 5, 2012 Author Share Posted February 5, 2012 History has been a struggle mostly due to implementation. My boys enjoy learning about anything. They do enjoy history and science. Part of the implementation problem has been that I can provide the books and they read but we end up not doing much with it. I will look at WP. I am really not sure where we will end up next year. My kids love to read but would also love it if I added in my hands on. I am feeling the need to add more writing, most likely in the form of notebooking. Thank you for raising your concerns about using TOG. This is helpful to me and being able to ask good questions to figure out if some thing may work in our house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candid Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 History has been a struggle mostly due to implementation. My boys enjoy learning about anything. They do enjoy history and science. Part of the implementation problem has been that I can provide the books and they read but we end up not doing much with it. I will look at WP. I am really not sure where we will end up next year. My kids love to read but would also love it if I added in my hands on. I am feeling the need to add more writing, most likely in the form of notebooking. Thank you for raising your concerns about using TOG. This is helpful to me and being able to ask good questions to figure out if some thing may work in our house. I can say if it is implementation that Tapestry will help. If nothing else reading the threads over and asking them questions from them would help! Sometimes it is so hard to do the parts we need to do even though, at least in my case, we know that those parts really wouldn't take that much time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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