squirtymomma Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 (edited) I've been lurking for awhile here, and finally decided to register to ask a question. I'm researching where I want to head with my girls in a couple of years. I have a heavy leaning toward CM. Who has started TOG with their first in the 1st grade? What do you think of the program for a lower grammar student? How long does it take you to get through the TOG material for the day, and then how much time do you spend on other subjects? Do you supplement the literature with other good children's books? I'd hate for my kids to miss certain children's lit just because they're not tied into the history studied for the year. TOG is appealing because I really like the idea of doing studies together as a family (as much as possible). I also like the rigour of TOG in the upper years, and the way kids learn about lit, art, philosophy, etc as a reflection of the worldview in each period of history. I want a program in the younger years that prepares them for that (or a similar program). I think that's best done by reading high quality books, not by giving them more work than they're ready for. I'm wondering if I should start with something else 1st-4th (like AO), and then start my oldest in TOG for 5th. I've heard that recommended somewhere, I think? Edited October 30, 2008 by squirtymomma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 (edited) I've been lurking for awhile here, and finally decided to register to ask a question. I'm researching where I want to head with my girls in a couple of years. I have a heavy leaning toward CM. Who has started TOG with their first in the 1st grade? What do you think of the program for a lower grammar student? How long does it take you to get through the TOG material for the day, and then how much time do you spend on other subjects? Do you supplement the literature with other good children's books? I'd hate for my kids to miss certain children's lit just because they're not tied into the history studied for the year. TOG is appealing because I really like the idea of doing studies together as a family (as much as possible). I also the rigor of TOG in the upper years, and the way kids learn about lit, art, philosophy, etc as a reflection of the worldview in each period of history. I want a program in the younger years that prepares them for that. I think that's best done by reading high quality books, not by giving them more work than they're ready for. I'm wondering if I should start with something else 1st-4th (like AO), and then start my oldest in TOG for 5th. I've heard that recommended somewhere, I think? Hello Katy! I love Tapestry of Grace...and this is my first year of homeschooling and using TOG with lower grammar students. I too lean heavily toward CM and love TOG. Tapestry only takes me 30-60 min a day in addition to our three R' (reading, writing, and arithmetic). I have four dc and our three R's take up about three to fours in the morning...and history takes about 1 hour in the afternoon..maybe longer one day a week if we have an activity planned. The history and literature books are excellent in Tapestry of Grace...which is exactly what CM advocates. Year 1 has less liturature...but years 2-4 has many classics that other curriculums have listed. If you have time I suggest spending some time on the TOG bookshelf and looking at various books for various years (lower grammar, upper grammar, dialectic, rhetoric). It has really helped me to see what books are scheduled each year at each level. Edited October 31, 2008 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trivium Academy Posted October 30, 2008 Share Posted October 30, 2008 Who has started TOG with their first in the 1st grade? We started in 2nd grade but ds4 will start in 1st. What do you think of the program for a lower grammar student? For us it's great, EXACTLY what I needed. History is not the most important subject in our day and TOG puts it in its place for us. How long does it take you to get through the TOG material for the day, and then how much time do you spend on other subjects? Do you supplement the literature with other good children's books? I'd hate for my kids to miss certain children's lit just because they're not tied into the history studied for the year. The time spent depends on what we choose to do, how many books we choose to read in a week and the time spent doing projects. Right now I devote 30-45 min daily, 4x a week. There are some times we skip it but I work on a weekly basis not a daily, as long as we're done with our planned activities in the week- I'm good. TOG is appealing because I really like the idea of doing studies together as a family (as much as possible). I also like the rigour of TOG in the upper years, and the way kids learn about lit, art, philosophy, etc as a reflection of the worldview in each period of history. I want a program in the younger years that prepares them for that (or a similar program). I think that's best done by reading high quality books, not by giving them more work than they're ready for. EXACTLY why I'm using it! The workload is completely dependent on you. I appreciate the fact I can beef up when I feel dd is ready at any time without too much trouble. We're doing probably 40% of the workload we could be doing. I'm wondering if I should start with something else 1st-4th (like AO), and then start my oldest in TOG for 5th. I've heard that recommended somewhere, I think? It's actually SOTW first 4 years then TOG. AO is a different cycle and subjects than TOG or SOTW. TOG isn't for everyone, you have to be able to take the elements you want and leave the rest, even at the higher levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NevadaRabbit Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 I've been lurking for awhile here, and finally decided to register to ask a question. I'm researching where I want to head with my girls in a couple of years. I have a heavy leaning toward CM. Who has started TOG with their first in the 1st grade? What do you think of the program for a lower grammar student? How long does it take you to get through the TOG material for the day, and then how much time do you spend on other subjects? Do you supplement the literature with other good children's books? I'd hate for my kids to miss certain children's lit just because they're not tied into the history studied for the year. Welcome! :) We started TOG last year with my youngest roughly 1st grade and my oldest roughly 3rd grade. The material for LG is challenging, fun; I feel like we're laying great ground work for those upper years. We consider TOG the frosting on our day. Priority subjects are math, vocab/spelling, science, and language arts. We spend probably 30-40 mins on math, 15 on vocab/sp, 30 on science, and another 30-45 on lang arts (grammar, writing exercises). We also do memory work, math games, Latin, and Bible throughout the week. TOG takes us anywhere from 0-60 mins per day. Depends on the activity, amount of reading, and if we're all just tanked for the day, we just ... don't. I consider the week as a whole and look to hang as many pegs for future learning as I can, but we don't kill ourselves over it. I should add that we use SOTW as our reading spine, and SOTW Activity Guide to supplement reading and activities - I guess I'm blending TOG and SOTW for Grammar level. You can add lit as much as your kids will read. TOG is appealing because I really like the idea of doing studies together as a family (as much as possible). I also like the rigour of TOG in the upper years, and the way kids learn about lit, art, philosophy, etc as a reflection of the worldview in each period of history. I want a program in the younger years that prepares them for that (or a similar program). I think that's best done by reading high quality books, not by giving them more work than they're ready for. I'm wondering if I should start with something else 1st-4th (like AO), and then start my oldest in TOG for 5th. I've heard that recommended somewhere, I think? TOG appealed to us for many of the same reasons. We study it together and we're looking forward to the critical thinking skills backed up by the rotations through history, lit, art, geography, church studies, etc. Like I said above, I'm using SOTW heavily in this rotation through TOG because they dovetail neatly together. Sometimes we lean more heavily on TOG recommendations, sometimes more on SOTW, and there is significant overlap. Glad to talk more about that if you have questions. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NevadaRabbit Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 TOG isn't for everyone, you have to be able to take the elements you want and leave the rest, even at the higher levels. :iagree: As a recovering I-Must-Check-Everything-Off-My-List-Before-I-Stop-per, this has been HUGE for me - there is no way to do it all, and you must consider TOG more like an all you can eat buffet. Pick some stuff, do it, and move along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 I'll note that this was the "classic" version, not the redesigned. I had the best of intentions and gave it a full run, but it was too much for my time and energy constraints and we have since gone another direction that is working better for us (Classical Conversations with Sonlight for history/lit/science this year). Content-wise it's a lovely program, and I could have really enjoyed it under other circumstances. I just don't have the time though to do that level of planning and gathering, and that is probably never going to change in our house. I truly had the will, but not the way. More gets "done" in our house with Sonlight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirtymomma Posted October 31, 2008 Author Share Posted October 31, 2008 Thanks everyone! Your experience is helpful. Lots of thinking to do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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