Truthquest or Tapestry of Grace year 2

[Suzybearybake]

I have been looking for a history program that I could use for the Middle Ages in 7th. Some of you mentioned Truthquest but I checked their web site and am a little confused. Would I be better off using the Guerber books or the ones by Dorothy Mills as a spine for that grade level? I am a tad concerned how one documents progress without quizzes or questions? My older son will be doing Omnibus and I don't think I can keep up with the reading for both of them. Would Tapestry be a better fit?

I checked out TOG's online site and could not find a sample of the actual lessons but I was inpressed by what was covered. Does it give you a more spelled out program with test , quizzes, and questions without me having to read everything first? There are so many books are their lists;are they all neccessary to purchase? The program was $295; does that included any books or do I still have to come up with all of those too? Is there anything comparable to TOG but less expensive? I like what the program offers but it is so expensive. Anyone selling year 2?

Is it possible to just buy the history component of TOG. I had already planned on doing Literary Lessons in Lord of the Rings for literature?

[cajun.classical]

I have been looking for a history program that I could use for the Middle Ages in 7th. Some of you mentioned Truthquest but I checked their web site and am a little confused. Would I be better off using the Guerber books or the ones by Dorothy Mills as a spine for that grade level? I am a tad concerned how one documents progress without quizzes or questions? My older son will be doing Omnibus and I don't think I can keep up with the reading for both of them. Would Tapestry be a better fit?

I checked out TOG's online site and could not find a sample of the actual lessons but I was inpressed by what was covered. Does it give you a more spelled out program with test , quizzes, and questions without me having to read everything first? There are so many books are their lists;are they all neccessary to purchase? The program was $295; does that included any books or do I still have to come up with all of those too? Is there anything comparable to TOG but less expensive? I like what the program offers but it is so expensive. Anyone selling year 2?

Is it possible to just buy the history component of TOG. I had already planned on doing Literary Lessons in Lord of the Rings for literature?

I use Truthquest history and in 2 school years, I'll have one in Omnibus and 2 in TQ. I think that they will complement each other very nicely. TQ is designed to provide a lot of independent reading followed by (or preceded by) discussion. I have the Mills spine and the Geurber spine and plan to do both. I think they complement each other nicely. Our first time through Omnibus, I'll use Mills, Geurber, and Streams of Civ. as my spines. I've already mentally coordinated them and they fit nicely. My youngers in TQ will use Geurber as a spine and possibly Mills if I read it out loud.

As far as documenting progress in TQ, there are some writing topics, but you could quiz/test/document how you like. It's very flexible. I like that about it. You may not. On the Truthquest yahoo group, you can find lots of sample essay questions to help.

I've not used TOG, but my understanding is that the price does not include your books. I really like the Omnibus/TQ combo.

[Karen in CO]

I have got to go start my kids on math, but for TOG yr 2 I am spreading it out over two years. I was also unsure about the price so I just purchased one unit which is $60. I am very happy with it and more excited about using it when my younger two are in middle and high school. For that age, there are summaries of the history and literature. There are comprehension and discussion questions. There is also a discussion guides to help you get the kids thinking and talking and making connections. I bought my unit 1 guide then looked over it for a while. Then I checked out the books for the whole unit from the library and went over them and the TOG assignments. Then I decided what to buy and what to get from the library. There is alot in TOG and in year two I think it will be wonderful to do it a half pace and spend two weeks on each topic.

[MelissaMinNC]

3-week samples. There are two samples on their website - Go To Egypt, from their Year 1 plan, and (I think it's called) Sail to the New World, from Year 2. You can see how the whole year plan is laid out by looking through those 3 weeks of samples.

Basically, 1 year of ToG is 36 separate week plans, divided into 4 9-week units. For each week, you have Threads (weekly objectives), Reading Assignments, Weekly Assignments (everything but reading and writing), and Writing Assignments (these are broken down into 12 levels, while the other assignment charts are broken down by stage - Lower Grammar, Upper Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric).

There are many, many books listed in the reading assignments, just as there are many assignments listed in the other pages. They are absolutely not meant to be all done. The books are listed so that you will have options to choose from - you can pick what you like, or what your library has available. ToG is like a great big buffet - you pick and choose each week what you want to complete.

Besides the assignment chart, each week plan has Student Activity Pages, which include all kinds of worksheets that correspond with the literature assignments, as well as other assignments and activities (geography, Bible survey questions, Fine Arts/Activities instructions, etc.). Also, there are extensive Teacher's Notes, which include lots of information from World Book Encyclopedia, but also the author's own commentary - lots of good stuff in the Teacher's notes. Also, there are discussion outlines for history, government, philosophy, and literature, at the dialectic and rhetoric levels.

This all sounds very confusing, but I promise, if you print out a sample and live with it for a while, it starts to get really clear. I am using Year 1 with my 1st grader this year, and it's been a great choice for us - I know it's not for everyone. You MUST be willing to spend some time doing some planning, and you MUST be willing to leave some boxes unchecked. You cannot do it all, or it will burn you out.

I have not used Sonlight, but I did look at it when I was trying to decide for this year. I liked the look of it a lot, but one of the things that made me lean toward ToG was an eye on the future. I realized that if I buy ToG year plans now, I'd be able to use them for 2 more rotations with my dd - and my ds will start on our next go 'round, also. I would not be able to teach both kids together with the same Sonlight Core, and being able to keep everyone together as much as possible was important for me - $$-wise, and sanity-wise.

Oh, and no, the price of ToG does not include books - if you cannot buy books (I can't right now), and if you don't have a good library, this program would be difficult to use. We get all our books from the library (except for a couple that I have picked up very cheaply), and if my library doesn't have what's listed, they usually have a suitable substitute.

I hope I didn't confuse you more, please ask questions.

:)
Melissa

[KayT]

Here's the link to the 3 week sample for year 2.

http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/newworld/index.htm

Although the sample starts with week 20 when US history is getting started you can still see how it is laid out. We used most of year 1 last year and we really enjoyed it. If you decided to use it I really recommend buying the guides first and reading through them to decide what books you want to use. There are suggestions every week for alternate books that you might prefer over the ones they recommend or if you are lucky maybe you already own one!

Year two looks a lot heavier than year 1. I think they crammed too much history into one year and we plan to spread it out over 2 years.

Kay