Help please from Year 4 TOG and SOTW Vets

[BlueGator]

We've only used SOTW for 3 years with suppliments from the library.

Has anyone combined these two? I get overwhelmed on the TOG page. It seems that I would have to do 1/2 year 3 and 4 in TOG if I wanted to do it all (6 units). I'm trying to plan for next year and I'm not sure I want to or can do it all.

I most interested in emphizing the Civil, WW1 and WW2 with my son. It doesn't seem TOG or STOW gives you much time for that. You just keep moving.... It seems that it will be a blur of a year.

My DS will be in 4th grade.

Suggestions from TOG and SOTW vets please!

[Langhaven]

Hi Pam:

I think your idea is a good one in tackling Year 4. As your child is in 4th grade, you may not want to expose him to too much of the culture and darkness of the twentieth century. Even for my Rhetoric level kids, I shielded them from a bit, because I did not consider it necessary for them to get all the gory details of the wars, the culture, etc. And yes, TOG does cover an amazing amount of history each year. My advice would be to pick a unit or two that holds the events that you want to cover, and focus on those throughout the year. It will be plenty. This way, you can go much deeper, and skip the areas that you are trying to avoid.

As a supplement, there is a resource called All Through the Ages, by Christine Miller, which is a history through literature guide. It includes selections for every period in history for every grade level, whether you are looking for text, biography, literature, historical fiction, etc. If you find you want to go more in depth, you can consult that resource to get very excellent books on any given topic. http://www.nothingnewpress.com/atta.shtml

I hope this helps! I think you have the right thought! If I was only working with my upper grammar level, I would do the very same thing.

Pam

[kangato3]

When I transitioned from SOTW to TOG a few years ago, I also chose to condense. For our 4th year cycle, I did the 2nd half of TOG Yr 3 as scheduled. Then I condensed TOG Yr 4 to the 2nd half of the year. I covered the basics of the two world wars, and did just an overview of the rest of the 20th century. Since at the time my kids were 4th grade and younger, I did not cover the "darker" side of the 20th century. We focused on the fun, lighter cultural developments.

Louise

[ELaurie]

and I haven't used TOG (although I have looked at it somewhat carefully)
. . . but I wanted to remind you that you can pick and choose what you would like to emphasize (or skip altogether) when using SOTW. There's not need to "keep moving along" if that doesn't give you the educational experience you desire for your dc. Spend more weeks on the things that you feel are most important; omit or streamline your presentation of chapters that are less relevant to your goals or less appropriate for your dc.

Sometimes, less is more :)

[BlueGator]

and I haven't used TOG (although I have looked at it somewhat carefully)
. . . but I wanted to remind you that you can pick and choose what you would like to emphasize (or skip altogether) when using SOTW. There's not need to "keep moving along" if that doesn't give you the educational experience you desire for your dc. Spend more weeks on the things that you feel are most important; omit or streamline your presentation of chapters that are less relevant to your goals or less appropriate for your dc.

Sometimes, less is more :)

Thanks, your right. We are just finishing SOTW 3 now. We stopped off at the American Rev for more than a month. We read a biography of G Washington and watched some movies.

I want to combine SOTW and TOG with out freaking out next year..... I was freaking out when I started to combine it all. I have a very hard time leaving out 20th century information.

Thanks for letting me talk it out.

[WTMindy]

Honestly, what I would do is to stick with SOTW 4 next year. I did all 4 volumes of SOTW and now we are doing TOG (and we also re-read the SOTW chapters as we go along). I would look over the Table of contents and map out a plan for the topics that you want to spend a little more time on, and maybe cross out a few topics that you could skip. I think that TOG could be great for the second rotation (that is what we have done). The bottom line is that you just can't do the 4year history cycle without cruising through history. :auto:

[BlueGator]

Mindy,

Thank you for the response. I looked at your HS web blog. Those projects look really neat.

Can I ask how much time you dedicate to TOG every week? It looks like a lot more than we spent on SOTW this year.

[WTMindy]

Mindy,

Thank you for the response. I looked at your HS web blog. Those projects look really neat.

Can I ask how much time you dedicate to TOG every week? It looks like a lot more than we spent on SOTW this year.

On Mondays we read the history outloud. (probably an hour or so) They write an outline for their writing assignment. (15 minutes)

On Wednesdays we do the maps and the timelines and do a notebooking page (30-45 minutes) and they write a rough draft.(15-30 minutes) We might do more reading if there is more to do.

On Friday we answer Bible questions if there are any, do an evaluation, do a notebooking page. (45 minutes).

The kids read their literature all week and do the literature worksheet as they read.

The cousins come over on Monday afternoons and we do a project. (1 hour)

I plan one unit at a time and put together notebooks (you can see a post about my notebooks here (http://magnumopusacademy.blogspot.com/2008/02/pictures-of-notebook.html) So, the weekly planning isn't bad at all. On Sundays I read over the notes (not even all of them) and make sure that I know what I want to focus on and bring out during the week.

We are really loving TOG, but I wouldn't have given up our 4 years with SOTW!