Notgrass World History

[lunchlady]

I'm trying to decide what to do for this coming school year. We've done four years of TOG. It was a great match for ds, but he's going to do college stuff this year. DD, although a great reader, doesn't want to do TOG. I'm leaning towards Notgrass and just adding great books that we want to read.

 

Anyone have advice, opinions, suggestions on Notgrass?

 

How is the writing with the program? Will I need to do something else too?

 

Lisa

[Denise in PA]

Lisa:

From my humble experience I was asked to teach a world history course to my local high school co-op using the Notgrass World History text. After reading through the book I just couldn't teach from it. I found the text dry and quite vague on historical information. The questions from each lesson seemed rather 'canned' , not allowing a student to really think about the trememdous historical implications. One must remember that Mr. Notgrass writes all his curriculum but does not cite his sources - for me an important point. Your children may really enjoy the Notgrass curriculum but really read through it first. Regarding the co-op I ended up teaching from TOG, year 2 (Middle Ages, Renaissance, etc) adapting to the group of teens. The students loved the class discussions and really learned a lot of history. For me there is no subsitution to learning about God's history than by reading real books. Tapestry of Grace is also used in my home.

I realize that your children have gone through a rotation of TOG (mine too), however, there is a rich supply of new books available to study history hundreds of years ago. You may want to draw specific rhetoric material from TOG while reading new literary selections from your own library. For me I have found TOG very adaptable. You may want to still use it along with some of the Notgrass material. Wishing you wonderful journey studying world history!

Denise

[lunchlady]

I appreciate your advice, Denise :) I'm gonna borrow the American History from a friend who used it this past year so I can get a better feel for the Notgrass curriculum. Maybe I'll keep my TOG volumes for a while :)

 

Lisa

[islandmama]

and found it dry as well, especially in the ancient/middle ages, and ended up selling it. I've previewed the American History, and I actually like it much better, especially with the use of primary docs. We will use it this coming year if my ds can't get the online class at the local JC.

[praisefor3]

Our first year of hsing was her 9th grade year. We prayed, reviewed, analyzed, and ended up with Notgrass. In ps 8th grade she was elected to the National Jr. Honor Society and is academically strong in every subject. She absolutely loved Notgrass. If you are looking for something like Omnibus, Notgrass is not it. If you are looking for a chronological, Biblical worldview, primarily independent program, Notgrass may be exactly what you are looking for. But I will say, TOG was not for us, mainly because of all the arts and crafts projects - just not what we were looking for. We ended up staying with Notgrass for AH and government. I considered others but we always came back to Notgrass. Yes, she probably could have handled more of a challenge, but she really did learn from Notgrass and there were so many other things we wanted to teach during high school that I appreciated its ease of using.