One of the reasons I chose TOG is because I wanted my children to have more opportunities to engage in hands on activities. I plan for us to set aside Saturday mornings as activity day.

But, now that I'm looking at everything more closely I feel overwhelmed. I looked at the overview for week 1 and 2 to pick out an activity for us to do. I have 4 children on 3 levels, but I don't necessarily plan to do 3 different activities. Just 1 or 2 that look really interesting and helpful.

Some of the activities suggested were not in the activity books. So, where do I find those instructions? I looked at the TOG website under yr. 1 arts and activities, and found some links, but not exactly what I'm looking for.

Do I have to search the web?

For example: under overview for dialectic for week 2 it says, "paint a wall frieze." But in the reading assignment where it lists Ancient Egyptians and the Neighbors it calls for pages 8-9, 21-26, 42-45. None of those pages describe a wall frieze or mention it. Now, I'm quite aware that I probably don't want to paint one, but where would I get that info.?

Thanks for any help understanding more about this.

I also found activities overwhelming. I had been using Sonlight and had bragged about not being a hands on mom.

So I created a structure for myself.

First, I order the craft and activity books almost as soon as TOG arrives in my hands. Then I go week by week and use post its to flag any project that I think looks interesting and doable. At most I flag one or two each week.

Next I sit with each child and note which activities they want to do. Ones that everybody wants to do are a go. Ones that are mixed, I asses if the child could mostly do this on their own.

Then I created a activity shopping list which lists everything each activity needs. I can sort this list by the week we are in or by the store you would buy stuff at. I bought the first two units before school started last year and I'll do the same this year.

All I can say is you just have to choose. I struggle with the same thing. All the activities look and sound SO interesting, but I just can't do them all for all my levels. There's just not enough time. So I pick one that most everyone will enjoy and be content with that. If I have more time I can add in more activities, AFTER I get all my basics done.

As for not being able to find info on the frieze I'm not sure. Hopefully someone else can help with that.

Hi Ellen,
I bought a hands on history kit from www.handsandhearts.com their kits contain ALL the supplies, so when we are ready to do a project I grab the box and we're off!
Blessings,
~Evelyn Mae

Am I missing something? Activity books? What are these? Are they only with the Redesign version, or is it something simple that I'm just missing?

Thanks,
Diana

quote:

Originally posted by luvmyfidgets:
Am I missing something? Activity books? What are these? Are they only with the Redesign version, or is it something simple that I'm just missing?

Thanks,
Diana

Sorry Diana, just my own personal nomenclature which I think is not obvious. Sorry about that.

In Redesign there are books listed as "Art and Activities" some of those are not art history books but books that give you projects to do that relate to the time period studied. Those are what I mean by "activities" books. If you are using mostly Rhetoric level books, you may have none of these, but for D, UG, and LG I think there are plenty of these for each TOG year.