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If you DISLIKE Trisms, tell me Why


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Ugh. On so many levels I would love to try Trisms HistoryMakers with my son who is going into 8th next year. I would love to learn history that way. But, he is a textbooky kind of kid who does not like for a curriculum to be too "busy" (I don't mean busywork, I mean a lot going on i.e. flitting from one thing to another to get it all done) In other words, Trisms in all likelihood won't work for him at all.

 

But they've revised it! And it's on sale!

 

So please, please, tell me why you DON'T like Trisms. (either as a former user, or someone who has considered it and decided against it) I really need help talking myself out of what would probably be a bad curriculum choice.

 

:tongue_smilie:

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I decided against it because it is student-research-based, and ds did better with a spine and literature tied into history, so we did Omnibus 1 and 2 (the upper ones weren't out yet) and modified Sonlight. He needed someone to lay out the big picture and help him draw conclusions and make inferences, as that was his weak area. Omnibus allowed him to "hear the voices" of people of the time via primary sources and literature written during the particular time periods (Great Books). He also did not have patience to dig out answers for himself--felt like busy work to him (not saying it is). He wanted to be fed the gist and then guided more in making connections/seeing the historical importance.

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I love research. I can become lost in a topic. Alas, my boys do not feel that way. Alongside other stuff, we used some HM with some success when my oldest was in junior high and my second was tagging along as a middle schooler. Looking back I know the success was because I was spearheading and enjoying the research.

 

Gee, though, now that you have brought it up... Don't you think that I could combine the first semester of HM with Hakim's Story of Science book 1 and some SL core G for my youngest when he is in 6th. :lol::lol::lol:

 

HTH, LOL!

Mandy

Edited by Mandy in TN
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I love research. I can become lost in a topic. Alas, my boys do not feel that way. Alongside other stuff, we used some HM with some success when my oldest was in junior high and my second was tagging along as a middle schooler. Looking back I know the success was because I was spearheading and enjoying the research.

 

Gee, though, now that you have brought it up... Don't you think that I could combine the first semester of HM with Hakim's Story of Science book 1 and some SL core G for my youngest when he is in 6th. :lol::lol::lol:

 

HTH, LOL!

Mandy

 

I like the idea of combining HM with Story of Science. We will be doing HM this year although my dd is in 8th grade so I am hoping everything will be easier to coordinate. Since she will be entering high school soon I will have higher expectations for her research and writing. Even though there are IEW assignments within HM, I was thinking of also including IEW's new Rockets, Radars, and Robots writing curriculum. I think it would go very well with HM. I am excited about the revised HM this year! I think I have finally filed away the idea that I will ever use Sonlight, just too much to coordinate with everything else I am doing and I like coming up with my own booklists. I guess that is why I like Trisms, because we have more choices in books and we can read the ones we really are interested in. Since I have trouble trying to keep myself from going overboard with planning, this year I have resolved to keep moving along each week to the next topic even if we do not get to read everything, do every project, etc. I might start a blog this year with our Trisms experiences which I think would be another way to keep us on task as well.

 

To the orginal poster, you know you want to buy it! I am completely a curriculum enabler!

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We did History Makers for DS in 6th (his brother was 7th, and that was last year he was homeschooled).

Loved it!

The only negative I can find is that sometimes the resources are hard to track down, but that's a failing of the local library system, not Trisms.

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I just got Trisms, like a couple of days ago. I bought the 2001 version (it's worth considering if you're really going to get it). I've been looking through it, and I love it.

 

HOWEVER....

 

There's not any way I can implement this without changing up our homeschooling completely. It's really very intensive, requiring a lot of organization and intellectual stamina. I love that, since my kids and I are like that, but it doesn't sound like your son would enjoy that.

 

Plus, where's the history? I'm a little baffled, actually. I love the inclusion of explorers, scientists, inventions, mathematicians, artists, and musicians. Lovely, really. But where's the history? Like, history history. Like kings and empires and politics, etc. Not much emphasis on that. Frankly, that's something I LOVE about Trisms HM. It introduces students to history as something where war and rulers is not a singular focus. But I bet that wouldn't work for lots of kids. I've always thought of historical periods and leadership as something incidental to the cultural and social development of the times, so I'm just loving Trisms.

 

So, seriously. Would you really want to put your son through that? And yourself? I mean, it seems like a seriously huge amount of work. For me, I'll be implementing it with a 10-year-old and a schooling 12-year-old. I plan to take at least 2 years. Maybe you could just get the Trisms reading resource. I think it's like $10 downloaded. And supplement textbook history with other resources. Or if you really want your son to do research, you could have him look up topics he finds interesting in his textbook readings.

 

They have a hefty sample for download. It was very helpful for me to read through it a couple of times. Still, I don't have a good sense of how to implement all the parts, but the sample will get you started thinking about how you could use a Trisms curriculum, or how you couldn't.

 

Good luck deciding!

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I think that because Trisms History Masterminds is an overview of history, it does not have as much depth as the other Trisms curriculum. I actually kind of like that they include science and inventors, and all that other cool stuff you don't see in other history curriculum. I think it would be easy to take Trisms HM and beef it up even more by adding a textbook, encyclopedia, or other resource or spine, maybe even a website or videos to give it a little more depth. I am mainly wanting to use it this year for the way it is organized, the writing, reports, and research activities, the reading and topic lists, and mapping. I am just seeing it as more of the skeleton that I want to frame my history around. There are a lot of other curriculum programs out there that I felt like I would have to change too much, which would just give me extra work and I don't have that much time on my hands. At least with Trisms I feel it is more ready to go and when we have time we can add in things here and there.

 

I have heard that some are not as happy with Trisms HM as they are with the other levels. I just see HM as laying the groundwork for the other years to come with DAW, etc. I think it is helpful to have a year to work out the kinks and kind of see how the day to day activities flow, how to do the research and reports, etc.

 

I am not sure if I would classify Trisms as having too much busywork. I feel that curriculum is what you make it. It can be really overwhelming, difficult, and fill your days and nights with paperwork, grading, etc or it can be an enjoyable learning experience with you and your child choosing only the activities, readings, etc that will help get you to point B. I do feel that there are some curriculum products that are really overwhelming and a little too much, mainly Tapestry of Grace. Some people are able to make that work and just take what they need out of it, but it is not for me, I would be overwhelmed at all of the choices. I like that Trisms does not overwhelm me with choices. It is just enough to give a little variety and give the student options, but not so much that you spend weeks trying to plan what to do.

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