I will be doing Year 1 in the fall with a UGdd and twin 3 yr ds in the midst. I live in southern Ontario just west of the GTA. It would be wonderful to hook up with another family. I'm looking for someone to check in with a.k.a. accountability. Of course, a co-op or getting together for unit celebrations would be great!
Sylvia

Sylvia,
I found your message while searching for Toronto area families doing year 2 this coming fall. I am on the East side of the GTA, starting with TOG in the fall for the first time. My kids are 12, 10, 9, 6, and almost 4...boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. So we are doing three levels.
I am writing because I'm interested in knowing if you know of other GTA families doing TOG.
I have just begun sorting out my package for Y2, acutely aware that I have so much to familiarize myself with before August. I think it would be interesting and helpful to meet some local moms and hear what they are doing.
Missy Ween

Hi Missy,
My daughter is 10 as well. Too bad we're not doing the same year!! I don't know of any other families in the Toronto area. Hopefully more will turn up.
Sylvia

Hi,

I'm going to start year one in the fall. I live in Kelowna, BC. I have a friend here in town who is also starting year 1 this fall. Feel free to email me, if you like. My email is jvanz@shaw.ca

Lori

Hi,
I am just north of the GTA. However, I will be starting in the fall with year 3. My children are 14, 12,9,9. Sorry I can't help with year 1 but it was good to see that there are other TOG users in the GTA.
God Bless,
Dione

I am east of GTA -- moved from Sonlight to TOG Year 2, 3? years ago, finishing year 4 now and moving back to year 1 in the fall with my grade 8, 6, and 1 children. We are Americans, here for 3rd of 3 years (finding US history books has been a challenge!). I would be interested in staying connected with some local TOG families, esp those doing year 1. We are sticking close to the weekly calendar next year, too.

Missy Ween -- My kids match yours in age and gender except that I don't have a middle boy! Where is whitevale? We are near Oshawa. I never expected to find any TOG users here in Canada!

I am in BC, just finishing year 3 with 5 kids, 17, 14, 11 ,7 and 5;boy, girl, girl, boy, girl. I don't have anything else to contribute to this thread. I am just really excited to see some activity on the Canadian board. Do any of you belong to the LooseThreads yahoo group? There are several virtual co-ops running from there, you might want to check them out.

Blessings,

Carol

I'm starting Y1Redesigned in Sept and I'm in Edmonton, AB, altough I just moved here from the GTA... too bad!!!! I can't find any toggers in Edmonton!

Hi Karyn,

I'm in Edson, just 2 hrs west of Edson. We'll be using yr. 2 redesigned in September.

Nice to see another Albertan here.

Juanita

Hi Juanita! What levels are you doing? I'll be doing 1 yr of LG then on up from there. What did you do (or will you do) with all the US history? That's my stumbling block right now.... I love TOG but I'm nervous about supplementing so much

Hi Karyn,

I will be doing year two with my grade three child this year, in Calgary. I plan to take two years to do this year-plan, so that we won't have to rush over the material. I haven't made all of my plans yet for the last two units, but a friend of mine, doing year two with four children, two years ago, used the "Discovering Canada" series, by Robert Livesey, as well as "The Kids Book of..." series with her younger children, and the "Story of Canada" with her older (upper grammar). She also had a sizeable collection of biographies of great Canadians. There is a wealth of material to choose from at CHER (Canadian Home Education Resources) here in Calgary, and Saipe Publications, in Edmonton, is a great place to look for books, history and otherwise. They both have websites.

I do not speak from any experience, but I have looked over the books my friend used, as well as the Donna Ward books and Donalda Dickie's "My First History of Canada", and I know that it is possible to do Canadian history using a combination of these books with TOG! You may feel very sorry for me, as I might for you, as we agonize over our decisions and plans next spring/summer, or we may really enjoy the great adventure we will undertake! I think either feeling would be appropriate, depending on the day. Planning is like that. I also feel that we probably will be more at ease with "tinkering" after using the program this year.

I hope my note gives you a few ideas you can use. I hope Juanita can offer you more!

TOG is so flexible. It is like my favourite cookbook: it begs you to customize, and then thanks you for making the recipe your own. We can do this!

Megan

I live in Edmonton and am thinking of starting Year 2 TOG this coming year. We are in the midst of finishing up SOTW Year 1 and are definately planning on doing SOTW 2 but I am tempted to do it along with TOG Year 2 as well. My kids will be grades 4 and 2 next year and I've looked at TOG since last year, debated whether to start but figured it might work better for us when the kids are older. With th redesigned coming out though for Year 2, I'm tempted to try out a unit this fall along with SOTW. I think I would learn so much and it might be a good way to "get my feet wet" for when my kids are a bit older. The writing program appeals to me too.

Shannon

We're starting Year 2 redesigned in Sept as well. I'm just finishing year 1 with my preschooler, grade 1, and grade 5 students. We didn't supplement at all this year. We've really enjoyed year 1 and I look forward to starting year 2.

However, we're only doing units 1 and 2 of yr 2. There was a lot of American content for units 3 and 4 and I'm going to spend that time doing a little bit on Canada. Megan posted some great resources for Canadian history. There really is a lot out there - lots of Canadian historical fiction as well.

I'm not sure how much of year 3 we're going to do, but we will do all of the units of year 4 when the time comes and just intersperse Canada's role in the 20th century as we go along.

Sarah - in BC

Hi to everyone!

We did Year 2 (Classic) 4 (?) years ago. At that time, my kids were upper grammar. What I did then was a lot of the US history, especially the Colonies because I thought it was 1. good to know and 2. ties in well with the Canadian history (where did the Loyalists come from, for example). At that time, I used primarily Dickie's My First Story, supplemented with other books. I found that her layout worked better with the TOG timeline than A Story of Canada.
I don't have it but Heather Penner's _Modern History Through Canadian Eyes_ has a lot of resources listed and I believe that it's laid out chronologically in a way that would fit with TOG as well. You can view samples here: http://www.solidoakpublishing.com/About.htm

HTH. It would be great with the number of people doing yr. 2 for us to share resources & ideas over the year(s).

Oh, and I forgot my kids' ages. The oldest is in gr. 10. He's doing a Great Books 2 course this year (online) so he won't be reading all the literature but I expect he'll do at least some of the history. The next is gr. 8 and I'm going to pull from both dialectic & rhetoric for her as she's already read some of the dialectic selections. My last two are gr. 3 & 1 so they are lower grammar, although my gr. 3 girl is a very strong reader so she will end up reading from the upper grammar list most of the time.

Juanita