Truthquest American History

[ALB]

I bought a TQ guide (AHYS 2) and have many of the recommended books.  I'm going nuts, though, trying to figure out a schedule or even loose plan on how to organize history this way.  Honestly, I'm tired of having to plan everything out myself since we already did that last year.  We enjoy notebooking, so will incorporate that.

I also bought the Binder Builders, but honestly am a little disappointed in what we got for the price.  

I always see TQ so highly recommended, but can't figure out how to implement it without having to do lots of planning every week.  Anyone had success?

[Staceyshoe]

Ds has a certain # of minutes that he reads history each day, and he does something binder/lapbook/notebooking related each week that we add to his 3-ring history binder.  He reads more about topics that interest him and less about ones that don't interest him as much.  We read the commentary aloud together.  I find that it has the advantages of DIY without all the work.  The only thing that takes up my time is ordering library books, and I tend to order large batches every couple of months.  By setting aside a certain amount of time and planning to just "do the next thing," it goes very smoothly for us.  HTH!

[ALB]

Ds has a certain # of minutes that he reads history each day, and he does something binder/lapbook/notebooking related each week that we add to his 3-ring history binder.  He reads more about topics that interest him and less about ones that don't interest him as much.  We read the commentary aloud together.  I find that it has the advantages of DIY without all the work.  The only thing that takes up my time is ordering library books, and I tend to order large batches every couple of months.  By setting aside a certain amount of time and planning to just "do the next thing," it goes very smoothly for us.  HTH!

How does the notebooking work with him reading the books independently?  Do you just assign a certain day to be notebook day and have him do a written narration/lapbook about the current topic? 

[PeterPan]

I hadn't seen the Binder Builders thing before, so I'm just going by what I see online.  History/Geography Curriculum  That's the link to their list of history products.  The trick with TQ is deciding how you're using it.  I used it as a book list and plugged things into the structure of VP.  For me, that was the easiest way.  Some people will pick a spine and correlate TQ to the spine.  Some people are really comfortable with a go with the flow kinda thing.  Now that I've been through this before, I feel like I could be there, just sort of relaxed, chilled, that's fine, let's read.  

 

So that's one step, to decide what you want driving/organizing or whether you just want to go with the flow.  The TQ author herself is VERY much a go with the flow kinda person, which is why the materials are set up that way.  

 

So then I'm looking at the online samples for those Binder Builders, and I think the issue is the TQ BB pages versus the pages they're making for other spines.  Like if you had gotten their pages for Hakim (at that link), you might be saying oh cool, awesome, kwim?  And you can USE Hakim with TQ!  If you like a spine that's on their list, sure use it!  I just think TQ, for what it actually brings, is pretty spartan, which is why you're going hey stuff is missing.  

 

I think there are lots of good ways to use TQ, so it's really about getting what you're looking for.  For me, I wanted my dd to have the continuity of thorough instruction but the eclectic mix of books.  That's why we blending VP and TQ.  We used the VP self-paced at double pace and piles of books.  Before the self-paced came out, we did things ourselves with the print materials.  We did some of the Time Travelers cd back in the day.  My dd just isn't much of a paper kind of woman.  She was more of a doer, and ds is definitely a doer.  

Edited June 28, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[kaxy]

I'm not sure, myself. I'm planning on starting AHYS1 coming up, and I'm just going to jump in and get a feel for what works, and then work it into a plan somehow. I'm marking which books I already own, which ones I've heard of that I might want to read, and I'll get whatever else from the library to make quicker decisions.

 

Ideally, I'll have a book for my son to read to himself and discuss with me later, and I'll have another book going as a read-aloud.

 

If he's interested in a particular topic or wants to dig deeper, I want to allow room for that. If the commentary is plenty and we want to move on, so be it.

 

I still need to sort out how often I want to read/discuss from history each week. I'll probably write it in as "read TQ book for X minutes" and see how that goes. So casual. I hope I can handle it.

[ALB]

What drew me to TQ in the beginning was the freedom to do it our way, not on someone else's timetable.  I just don't want to feel burdened scheduling our week every weekend.  

I think we'll just "read a bit" or a lot, or however much we feel like, and do something notebooky every day.  Not a whole narration, but maybe a Binder Builder, some copywork, coloring and glueing in a picture, or labeling a map.  

I love the idea of going with the flow, but sometimes that ends up being more work in the end.  Hopefully I can be satisfied with NOT scheduling it all out and making more work for myself than necessary!

[kaxy]

What drew me to TQ was the freedom to follow my own pacing, choose my own books from the curated list, and discussing them. My son is only a rising 2nd grader, so I'm good with narrations and general discussion at this stage.

 

I'm wondering if it will move more smoothly for you if you prepare a procedure for how you want to do TQ. Have you seen this on Pam Barnhill's blog? I like it! http://edsnapshots.com/homeschool-procedures/

 

Maybe you could map out a general procedure and loop through activities, or just choose from what most makes sense.

[ALB]

That's a great post, kaxy, thanks!

I also want to backtrack a bit to comment on what I first wrote about the Binder Builders.  I spent more time looking through them all today and there is more there than I had initially seen.  I do think they will provide us with more unique notebooking activities.  

I'm also looking at ordering Time Travelers to do as well.  My kids are crafty so I think they will be a hit.

[caedmyn]

I choose a spine book and made up a weekly schedule that aligned spine chapters with whatever Truthquest commentary pages I wanted to read.  There wasn't commentary for every week (and I didn't read every commentary in the book, but most of the longer ones...we did the 3rd AH one last year).  I only chose a few go-along books, using some CM booklists for that time period.  She read a couple of chapters of go-alongs twice a week.  Then if DD was particularly interested in a topic I'd point out whatever books on the topic we had in our library at home (or she'd find them on her own), and use the TQ booklist to search for books on the topic from the public library also.

 

If I wasn't using an actual spine, I'd still use the TOC from a book that could be used as a spine to narrow down the topics to cover, because otherwise the book is too overwhelming.