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Sonlight and TOG - Am I missing something?


CookIslandsMommy
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Hi there, 

 

I have been sorting through various curriculum choices - we want to do a year of America history.

 

I have pretty much spent weeks checking out the various curricula. 

 

I was reading a discussion of a lady who used to use SL and then switched out because of the lack of teaching history from a deeper biblical worldview. I am specifically looking at Core D. 

 

One other lady responded to her question saying that they use TOG and her reason was that it gave her kids so much more depth to their learning. 

 

 - for those that know TOG - what does she mean by depth?

 

For alot of these curriculum all I see are a list of books, historical fiction - plus some spines and then schedules. 

SL - has discussion questions form their guides on the actual books. Then added to this comprehension questions, I could be wrong but I do not see many critical or deeper thinking questions. 

 

TOG seems to have a few other activities...and teaching notes. The sample they had to for Year 2 looked very sparse. For example I was looking at the reading book: William Bradford -the questions were the same for each chapter (main character and summary). Then the writing assignment seemed very vague. I was hoping for something with more detail - they just said for upper grammar - write a historical fiction piece - choosing from a few time periods (the sample showed nothing more). 

 

I am not interested in the geography or the arts and crafts. 

 

The Wendy Lawton book - had some better writing activities. 

 

My head is really spinning from all the choices. There definitively does not seem like something out there that suits us perfectly - I am sure many people feel this too :)

 

MFW - doesn't appear to have any discussion notes at all

HOD - also has very little discussion notes and they recycle the same types of questions every week. 

 

I liked SL because of the discussion questions with each book. I am quite interested in this. 

I would prefer more writing application. So I looked at Oak Meadow. They seem to include more writing activities, but of course this would be crazy to buy both. 

 

I also looked at writing activities in the teacher's edition of "All American HIstory" from the samples on Christianbook.com it looks like they have some good writing ideas to put into each history period. 

 

It is a shame that the questions in SL for the individual books are not more critical or deeper thinking. 

 

I like the discussion notes that the rest of the IG has. 

But it definitely got me wondering what this lady was talking about in regards to "depth". Perhaps she is talking about the teacher's notes and teaching the kids from those?

 

I know my question is all over the place, but so is my brain!

Many thanks

Sherid

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I have used both Sonlight and TOG.

 

If I had to be pinned down I liked Sonlight better. It was easier to implement, IMO. I think the reason TOG seems more in depth is because there is a lot of bulk in the teacher's notes to it. I read them, kinda. It was just too much for me to do with my kids. To many books all over the place. However, programs are only as in depth as you choose to make them. You can alter things as needed.

 

I hated the TOG writing. There was no direction and no "teaching" just do this and that. I need more hand holding.

 

That being said. It seems that discussion questions are your main concern with writing behind it. Let me make a suggestion.

 

Use the SL books and IG. I like the IG because it gives me the order in which to read the books. That is pretty much all I use it for. Use the DQ as a guide and insert your own questions here and there to get more in depth.

 

For the writing, I would use IEW. You can take any part of a book, question, whatever and implement the IEW way of writing. Yes, it's expensive. You can find it used. But it is worth it. For me, being mathy not writey (see made up words there) it was excellent and hand holding and it was very gentle for the kids. They learn without even knowing it. At least mine did.

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If the age listed in your sig is up to date, I would choose SL.  How much depth does a 9 year old need? 

 

All my 9 year olds ( 3, so far) have achieved depth by immersing themselves in topics that interested them, not by all the books and information I so beautifully planned.  I might have barely covered ___, but that was enough to light the spark.  Leave some time for rabbit trails, and depth will happen on its own.

 

Also, SL is much more open and go. 

 

ETA:  SWB has wonderful suggestions for writing in her audio lectures--this one or this one may be especially helpful to you.

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I hated the TOG writing. There was no direction and no "teaching" just do this and that. I need more hand holding.

 

 

Did you use the Writing Aids book? It's a separate book that has thorough instructions for each type of writing assignment. I've found it useful and hope to get more use as the kidlets grow. Right now we're focusing on basic report writing before we jump into other areas.

 

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ToG is quite in-depth, imo. Because my kids are grammar stage, I haven't even gotten the full use out of the program. At this point we do the reading, maps, do sections on the people/vocabulary, the reading worksheets and the lapbooks. The discussion questions for dialectic and rhetoric stage cover SO much ground---I can hardly wait to get to them :D 

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Sonlight focuses more on historical fiction rather than non-fiction. TOG has mostly non-fiction with a historical fiction book thrown in each week. So as far as depth goes, you get more from the non-fiction. That said... I agree with the poster that asked how much depth a 9 year old needs.

 

We loved Core D and got a lot out of it. I didn't use the discussion questions though. We just read the books. The following year, I was burnt out on historical fiction, so I switched to TOG year 4 and really liked it also. I'm not using it now because baby kind of caused a life upheaval. I will likely use TOG again later though. It's especially a good fit for my history loving quick reader.

 

We currently use Mystery of History, and my kids all have to notebook about each lesson. My 6th grader does a map (traces it) pertaining to the lesson, draws a picture about something interesting, and writes a summary. My 1st and 3rd graders do the same, except they write a sentence instead of a paragraph summary. This method will really work for any curriculum, and I've noticed that my 3rd grader is remembering previous lessons much better.

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We switched to TOG as a survival tactic. With so many children, we had to have everyone on the same subject matter, albeit at different levels. SL was perfect when we started - it gave us confidence to branch out and start with TOG two years later.

 

In our experience, TOG has way more activities than anyone can do in a week. We can only get to ten percent of all the embodied learning and extra projects. It's pretty in depth!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...

We have used TOG for 6 years. I've talked with friends who have used SL,Story of the World, CC, and MFW. From what I can tell, TOG is about as comprehensive an option as you can buy when it comes to evaluating worldview and the scope of God's hand of direction in history. If you chose to do everything listed, it will be overwhelmingly thorough. But one thing about TOG that is a little confusing is that the discussion questions really begin at D level. From the books you listed, you were looking at the UG selections, as would be appropriate for your children's ages. At that age, the TOG manual really depends on the teacher's notes, the weekly threads summaries, and the week's introduction to give you as the teacher enough information to tie events, people, and ideas together for your kids. The age isn't focused on analyizing and intepreting much. It's really a time to catch the flow of events and enjoy meeting the people involved. It isn't until the D level that kids are given thoughtful questions to start investigating on their own and discussing literature, history, church history, and government.

So if you are strictly looking for just grammar level material, then something like SL or MFW may be easier on you as the teacher without the loss of actual discussion questions you had anticipated were there in TOG. However, if you are looking to make the maximum out of your financial investment and want the depth that TOG has in years to come, it may be a better purchase for you now. My friend and I have both said multiple times we are so glad we started TOG years before we hit the older levels so we got the hang of how the material worked, how the threads of history tied together, and how to make decisions on weekly planning before we had older kids. There is a learning curve to using TOG but it is well worth it.

You are correct that the UG level literature worksheets are basic. They are forming basic skills and preparing for the next level of literary analysis in the D level. TOG also has history response sheets available on the Loom that function like notebooking pages. As someone else mentioned, the Writing Aides book is an extra purchase but the handbook used to teach the writing that goes along with those writing prompts you were looking at in the weekly plan. I have a friend whose kids are doing marvelously with it. My kids did not. The TOG writing program is very much a modern methodology of teaching where you spend 30 min taking about what makes up a short story then have your kids start in on a writing assignment. It does break down the stages in the weekly lessons, like rough draft, next week polish and edit, etc. But the program itself is modern in that it doesn't really model for the kids how to write. It tells. It doesn't model.

Something like IEW follows more of the classical approach to writing, which was definitely something my kids needed. There are a good number of TOG families that use IEW instead of TOG's Writing Aides. On the yahoo group there are even some schedules a few parents have uploaded with their IEW lessons plans that sync with TOG. So there are options for you if that is a major concern.

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Sherid,

I did SL literature in 2nd grade with my middle son and tried ToG for one semester. SL is nice but I always find that I want to combine my kids as much as possible because it means that we are all more interactive and it's easier on me to focus on one type of science, history, bible, art. ToG was completely overwhelming. There is tremendous depth there, to the point that if you did even part of all the readings it would be more like a college level class.  It wasn't just that there were so many books and so many options for each week (because there were) but even the notes for the teacher were taking alot of time for me to process each week. I really prefer reading notes that are meant for the kids, and reading to the kids. ToG was too much information, too difficult to get into (the online signins for instance) and too expensive for me.

 

This year we are trying Wayfarers from  http://barefootmeandering.com/site/wayfarers/ and of all my years of homeschooling it's my favorite system so far. I can combine ages and subjects and I like the resources suggested. She has included some additional notes to go along with each weeks main focus (geography, history, information about various locations from the readings), but there is also plenty of freedom to choose the math program or writing program, etc...the fits your students. 

 

Sorry to muddy the waters but it is a relatively unknown curricula/plan and I wanted to mention it.

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We love Sonlight.  I use the core for history/lit/Bible.  There is a good mix of fiction and non fiction. I love that my kids read about it the fiction books but then can't wait to go learn more about it from non fiction sources both Sonlight's and others.  I use IEW for writing/grammar, Memory work from Claritas Academy, Apologia Science/Science from the Beginning and CLE math for main subjects and then we use other stuff too. 

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