What's the difference between TOG and SL?

[4kids4me]

I've had the chance to go through TOG so I'm familiar with how it works. What's the difference between that and the core program of SL? I'm not too familiar with SL and am trying to get my head around how it's set up.

Also, any suggestions for a non-Christian boxed curriculum for a friend? Thanks!

[Pretty in Pink]

The primary differences between the two, as I see it (and I've only owned TOG) is that:

1) Sonlight has more read-alouds
2) TOG is written to be used with simultaneously with multiple students at various grade levels. All of your students, regardless of grade, will be studying the same time period in history. This is not true with Sonlight, unless you combine cores and tweak it to work for you, but out of the box Sonlight does not work this way.

Sorry, I'm not experienced with boxed curriculum.

[attachedto4]

The primary differences between the two, as I see it (and I've only owned TOG) is that:

1) Sonlight has more read-alouds
2) TOG is written to be used with simultaneously with multiple students at various grade levels. All of your students, regardless of grade, will be studying the same time period in history. This is not true with Sonlight, unless you combine cores and tweak it to work for you, but out of the box Sonlight does not work this way.

Sorry, I'm not experienced with boxed curriculum.

That sounds right to me, too. (As someone who has only owned Sonlight). I could easily combine SL Cores in my house, because my 8 and 6 year olds are close in age and identical in ability level, except for the fact that they have completely different learning styles. They are still currently doing Core 1 together, but I have to add in more non-fiction with pictures for ds. It is doable though, even with TOG it looks like you'd have to go through the weekly schedules and spend some time picking which ones you want to use.

SL has a lot of historical fiction and TOG looks more varied in the types of books included, and the suggestions are already there for you if you have different learners.

Another difference, is that Sonlight comes with all of the books you need and if you can follow the IG without tweaking (which many do tweak), it's open and go. From what I understand, TOG requires more prep.

TOG also has hands-on activities to choose from, with SL you have to add your own.

TOG looks like it digs deeper and requires more of the child in the dialectic and rhetoric stages. Not that you can't do that with SL too, you'd just have to be intentional about it and add that in. I do really like how TOG does it from the samples I've seen though.

IME, SL really instills a love of learning and reading and we really have loved the read-alouds. Their readers have given my ds a lot of confidence, and SL turned hsing around for us after it started off very negatively with a different curriculum. It's a fun, relaxed curriculum. I have no experience with TOG but have been looking at the samples a lot lately, due to some of the issues I mentioned with learning styles.

For a secular boxed curriculum, all that I can think of is Calvert. I used this briefly with my son when he was in 5th grade and we did not like it, but others have had good experiences.

[Aurelia]

Also, any suggestions for a non-Christian boxed curriculum for a friend? Thanks!

Calvert, Oak Meadow, K12 or Moving Beyond the Page

[GVA]

I've used both as well, and we've found that Sonlight works better for us. I have only two, fairly close in age, and I prefer Sonlight's emphasis on literature for younger children. I actually like the schedule. We're using a mixture of purchased, library, and borrowed books, so the only pre-planning I do is to make sure that we have the books we need in hand, otherwise it's open-and-go and I've had DH take over at times with no transition at all. My children prefer pursuing their own subjects in art and we do a lot of drawing together, so the lack of hands-on has not been a negative.

The one downside to Sonlight is finding the read-aloud time and matching the particular readers to the ability of your students. TOG has less read-aloud time as most configure it and is more flexible age-wise. At times I've let my younger one skip some of the readers when she was younger, and they're currently on the easy side for both of my children, but they enjoy them and both use Christian Light Reading in addition to their Sonlight reading to compensate.

This is our last core though because we are transitioning to even more independent work with my oldest enrolling in mostly outside classes next year. We're going to miss Sonlight, but I'm still keeping it as a possibility in the future.:001_smile:

[siloam]

I've had the chance to go through TOG so I'm familiar with how it works. What's the difference between that and the core program of SL? I'm not too familiar with SL and am trying to get my head around how it's set up.

Also, any suggestions for a non-Christian boxed curriculum for a friend? Thanks!

To me SL is a fully furnished apartment. Just move in and enjoy. Hope you like the color of the carpet. ;) SL is open and go and there isn't a lot of set up required.

The "core" of SL is the history study. To make an emotional connection to the history being studied Read Aloud's that coordinate with the history are scheduled. The child's readers also coordinate if you are using Core 3 or above. The LA is based on the child's readers, using dictation as a key learning tool. The Bible program has you read the whole bible in 5 years and also covers one of the 4 gospels each year. Science levels K-6 are being re-written as of April so I won't comment on them.

TOG is much more like an unfurnished house where the builder has handed you with a book where you can pick and choose things to customize it to your liking. It does go deeper, but only if you take advantage of it.

It has a weekly schedule instead of daily. To that effect it has a weekly topics that all the book choices, mapping, timeline work and activities wrap around. The literature (readers) portion could be anything from historical fiction, to literature or poetry from the time to a biography. Generally TOG has more of everything SL offers (more books, more mapping, more timeline work, more questions-comprehension, discussion-logic level, written work-literature worksheets and evaluations). The other thing I really enjoy is that they integrate topics that SL keeps separate. Bible is integrated, people of interest are pointed out (I can choose who to follow up on, where SL will make those choices for me) art history is included, architecture history, philosophy, science history, ect... Sl will touch on all of these but not have them be the consant that TOG does. TOG also has teacher notes with an overview of the material so the teacher doesn't have to read the books, where SL notes only discuss the material read-the parent has to read the books to keep up or let go and just trust John's notes.

Both are good programs, TOG is often called SL on steroids because all of the choices overwhelm some people.

But I wouldn't recommend TOG for a non-Christan family. The Biblical worldview is too ingrained. Even on weeks where there isn't Bible history, church history or missionary biography covered they will include scripture references in the philosophy section and other paces. SL on the other hand has many secular users and a whole yahoo group dedicated to helping each other identify and replace the books with Christian content. The Bible program is separate from the history study and up to Core 5 you don't even have to buy it as part of the Core.

Heather

[4kids4me]

Thanks, everyone for the detailed comparisons of the two programs. I really appreciate it. :)

[susie in tx]

I know of at least one family that is not christian and using TOG.

For us, I don't always use the religious material. We're in Y2U1 and it covers the renaissance and reformation. I don't plan to spend nearly as much time on the the religious figures of the time as we will spend on the historical figures.