Hi again,

I just talked to a friend of mine who used TOG year 3, not the new re-design. She said it took her most of last summer to get prepared to use TOG, then it was more time each week planning things out. She was pretty overwhelmed with it all.

Is there a big difference in the new re-design verses the older ones. I really wanted to start w/ year one, re-design. I am really afraid it is going to be too overwhelming for me. I am not one who likes to sit down and spend weeks preparing to use something, let alone months. I am fairly unorganized, not fun to admit, and really need something I can open and go, knowing exactly what needs to be done each week. I don't need a daily schedule but....I needed it fairly organized or I will get lost and overwhelmed quick. I also don't mind sitting down w/ my kids and discussing things once a week but, with a baby coming in February and six other children, I just know that if it takes a lot of time from me each week, we won't get it done.

My friend is pretty organized too and she was overwhelmed...I think that is what is scaring me a bit.

I just really want my daughters, 12 & 13, to have a rich love of history and literature. I do NOT want a boxed curriculum. But..I also know, knowing me and my personality, what I will be able to do and what I won't.

Please let me know your opinions on this. I am not trying to be difficult. I just know there are great programs out there that just don't work for me and the ones where you have to open up a book and spend a month studying before diving in w/ your children, do not work for me.

Thanks in advance,

Kim

TOG is not what I would call an open and go curriculum. However, I don't spend nearly that much time prepping or planning. One thing I did this summer was to print off student pages/maps/timeline figures(from Homeschool in the Woods)/writing aids. So, I have everything I need for the year already printed. Weekly, all I do is read over the teacher's notes and figure out what I want to focus on and make sure I have supplies for projects. It doesn't feel like it takes a ton of time, but I do like planning and I am pretty organized. :-)

If you are looking for something that you can just pull out and do, this might not be the best fit, but I will tell you that it is so worth the time you put into it!! I would try the three week unit Go to Egypt and see how it works for you.

Wow! I can't imagine spending that much time preparing to use TOG. I have found the prep time to be relatively low. I don't recall the authors suggesting spending the summer going through the plan as well as planning each week. It sounds like your friend might have been trying to "get her head around" how to use Tapestry before actually starting to use it and that is why she felt overwhelmed. I found jumping in and going with it worked best. Trying to figure it out beforehand did not work for me. I tried and as a result did not purchase TOG when I first saw it. I so wish now that I had.

This is my 2nd year using TOG. It has been much easier this year than last, because after using it for 36 weeks I was very familiar with the set up. The first year I used the classic design. I prepared for each week on Sunday and spent about one hour deciding what my kids would read, printing out their assignments etc. then during the week I would spend about two hours at the very maximum reading the teacher's notes and preparing for our discussion time.

I have found the Redesign takes far less time to prepare. It takes me less than 30 minutes on Sundays to plan all of their assignments as well as print out their student pages. I still spend about an hour to two hours reading my teacher's notes to prepare for our discussion. But that is it. To be honest sometimes I dont even do that! This week I did not spend any time in the teacher's notes at all. I sat down on Thursday and spent 30 minutes finding the answers to the questions I assigned from the student activity pages, then we had discussion. I don't recommend this as there were some holes in my teaching but some weeks life gets in the way and when it does I attend to it. My TOG is not my master. It is my servant.

The only other time I spend on TOG is for our weekly discussions. But that is not prep time that is class time. Ideally, I spend about an hour an half on Thursday with history discussion and then another hour to an hour and a half on Friday with literature discussion with my 10th grader. I do spend time correcting their writing work but this is not prep time. Some weeks we do not spend this much time but I try to do so. It is worth is and this is the core of my student's learning. I have found they really need my help in making the connections and understanding what they are reading and why it is important.

I can say that I definitely experienced the four week fog Tapestry talks about. And it took me at least two months to find my groove so to speak but this year no problem. I jumped right in. There was some additional time spent this year reading documents for my high school student, so if you have a high schooler you will spend some extra time with reading material to prepare, but it certainly would not have taken me the entire summer! In fact I can honestly say if I had one week (five day) of five hours a day I could totally prepare for the entire semester! Now I do not have that kind of a block of time so I just prepare week to week. And it works great.

It is possible your friend spend quite a bit of time on finding books. If you choose not to buy the books you need from Lampstand Press then yes, it is going to take additional time to find the resources you need to implement the Tapestry of Grace plan. Remember this is a curriculum plan that you implement. The actual teaching comes from the reading assignments and then the discussion you have with your students. The TOG plan gives you the info you need to teach so you don't have to do all the reading your student does. From that perspective I have found TOG to be open and go. If you do not use the books suggested by TOG (and you certainly do not have to) then you are going to spend additional time preparing. Your prep time will be less with the redesign because of the way the pages are laid out. You can review the threads at the beginning of each week and use that information to plan your reading etc.

I would ask your friend if she spend a lot of time trying to find books to use rather than buying the books from TOG. That might account for some of the planning she was talking about. TOG can seem overwhelming but once you begin using it you see how beautifully simple it actually is. I personally do spend time getting books from the library. With students in three different levels our family could not afford to buy all the books the plan suggests, so I use the library a lot. I do not include the time I put into gathering library books into my planning time. I feel that is a personal family choice and not reflective of planning time that is part of the TOG plan.

Hope this helps. I agree with Kim, you should print out and use the 3 weeks from the Go To Egypt sample on the website. Think of it as a mini-unit study. Your kids will love it!

Lisa in AZ

oops, sorry Kim...I saw at the bottom of my post I put your name and I meant to say I agree with WTMindy. Sorry for the confusion.
Lisa

Well... I spent a lot of time preparing but then I did on Sonlight which you are supposed to open up and go. I probably spent nearly months looking at the curriculum, buying books, reading all of the dialectic books and printing off their activity pages and assignment pages, typing up a list of resources since I have a lot of extra resources on some topics for them to read each week (the 2 page chart was too confusing especially since I was substituting). I printed off coloring pages to go with each topic for my 5yo. Looked through Netflix for videos. REad through all of the teacher's notes. Decided how to set up my planning pages. I am a bit obsessive, however. My life is SO busy during the school year that I don't have time to do any of that during the year. So during the school year all I do is reread the teacher's notes and highlight what is important. Everything else is printed out and ready to go.

Christine

Christine

Okay...thank you all for your input. I think I will print out the Go To Egypt. Do you know...if I order the CD is everything on there? I went to the website and it seemed to have several things to print, are their teachers notes, maps etc..to all print off seperately.

I know TOG is a wonderful program. I, however, knew that Spell to Write and Read was a wonderful program but I could not personally do it. I guess my brain just didn't work that way. I love the idea of Sonlight but I like TOG's philosophy so much more. Sonlight is probably more my speed, with the daily lessons and books all ready to buy, everything you need. I just can't seem to do it w/ my older girls because I am want them to learn about John Calvin, Martin Luther, the Reformation etc..

TOG fits our religious beliefs more and that matters a lot to me BUT...just not sure I can pull it off w/ a baby coming etc..


Thanks again,

Kim

Kim
When you view Go To Egypt online, you are able to view all the recommended components separately. There is a link at the top of the page that will allow you to print the entire week plan at once. It is a total of 56 pages for week one. Included in the week plan is everything discussed in the left hand column of the page that says Week One. On the right side of the column where it says Support Products the following items are listed, Map Aids, Writing Aids, Lap Books, Evaluations and Pop Quiz. All of these items are optional. Everything you really need is in the week plan.

So to answer your question the answer is yes. Everything is on there. You don't HAVE to order the cd. Everything on the CD is also online. I believe the cd was created for anyone preferring not to access the info online (people using the library or dial up service).

The Go To Egypt CD looks just like what is online. If you click this link
http://www.lampstandpress.com/egypt/index.htm

It will take you to the home page. Click start here and read the entire page to get an understanding of what you are going to be looking at. Then click week one. Where it says Just a quick word of instruction is where the link is to print the entire week plan. Below that TOG go through each part of the week plan with, essentially holding your hand, explaining each PART of the week plan. What it is, how to use etc. If will say you tons of time if you go through this Go To Egypt Tutorial step by step because it will essentially walk you through the week plan and show you how it works. It is WELL WORTH your time to do this.

I used Classic last year but I still went through this "tutorial"" so I could better understand how the redesign was set up. I am so glad I did.

TOG does have everything you need! Just like Sonlight. If you go to the bookshelf you can order the year plan AND all the books all at once just like in Sonlight. Have you seen The Bookshelf? All you have to do is go through steps one through five, click, click and you are done. If you are not sure what you want to order you can view The Bottom Line brochure here

http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/tog_fast/PDF/ThebottomLine.pdf

Print this out and it will list for you EVERY title for every stage (lower grammar, upper grammar, dialectic and rhetori) and every book for every subject, history core reading, history in-depth reading, literature, world view, fine arts, government etc. You can use this brochure to pick and choose the books you want. You can also use this printable order form to decide what to order.

http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/PDFs/PDFOrders.pdf

This form has all the titles for year one and will help you with book purchases.

The biggest difference between SL and TOG that I found was TOG is a week plan, not a daily plan. So you will have to help your studens break down the reading by day. Eventually they can do this on their own. So Week One of Year One Redesign has Dialectic Students reading "The Ancient Egyptians" by Lila Pearl for their core history reading. They are supposed to read chapters one and six. So they need to read those two chapters for their weekly reading. Now I have my students complete their history reading by Thursday in order to be ready for history discussion. So I would divide those two chapters over four days. Does this make sense? So that you do need to do that with TOG but at the same time, it saves you work. You plan the week once. The students work the plan. They are responsible for making and working a daily plan. Unless they are grammar age and can't do that. But you don't have to check a daily plan for older students. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I am not all that involved in my student's TOG work unless they have questions. If I do have something to work with them on it is usually their writing assignment. But otherwise they are old enough to follow the assignment and do the reading on their own. I don't do reading aloud anymore. It got to be too much for me. But you can if you wish. For me, I found TOG easier on me than SL and I used SL for four years and loved it.

Does this help?
Lisa in AZ

Lisa,

That helped a TON...I mean a TON!! Thank you for all the links and information...I appreciate it soooo much! I think I would actually like a week plan better than a day plan for those days when things just aren't clicking along and we need to include Saturday or something. I really, really want this to work.

One more question, for now..ha, I am very, very weak in writing/grammar etc..is their a place that the students can send in their writing to actually be graded by someone else? Does this cost? This would help me a ton also!

Thanks again so much!

Kim

the quick answers...yes and yes. LOL!

Check out www.writeathome.com

or click this to see the program they have with TOG

http://www.writeathome.com/Display.aspx?tabid=71

They have a special deal with TOG that they will review TOG assignments. It is actually rather inexpensive. I think it is something like $125 for 9 submissions. I forget.

I used Write at Home for one semester last year with my 9th grader at the time. We did not do the TOG writing assignments for the semester. She just did the WAH course. It was good, she liked it...but I really feel the TOG assignments are much more thorough and will produce excellent writers as well as really cement the student's history reading in their minds. We remember more of what we have to write about.

Having said that, I think if you can pay for the WAH to critique your student's work this would be an excellent compromise.

From someone who has also struggled in the area of grammar and composition as well let me say that once you get going with TOG you should really try to use Writing Aids. I bought it this year and really love it. I have tried other programs to teach writing and really did not do very well. Writing Aids works for us. AND Marcia Somerville has an awesome two CD set on The Bookshelf about teaching and grading writing. It is really, really good. She walks you through how to do it. I discovered that I actually CAN do it!

http://www.lampstandbookshelf.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv...&Product_Code=TWTOGW

So, get TOG under your belt first. Then look into the Writing Aids and the seminar by Marcia. Remember, drop by drop the bucket is full. This is a work in progress for both YOU and your student. I believe as long as you diligently seek the Lord and continue to try to learn yourself he will give you what you need when you need it. TOG has all the tools. But we must pcik them up and use them. Start with one tool at a time. A builder does not try to work on the roof when he is just starting the foundation. So it is with us and our children and our homeschool.

Let me know how else I can help.

Lisa

How else can you help? Want to drop by and walk me through it step by step...HA!

Wow...I have to watch my mind because I think I let myself get too overwhelmed before even starting.

Thank you again Lisa! I hope you visit these forums often!!

Kim

Kim
LOL! If you lived near Phoenix I would be happy to get together with you! I have done that for a few ladies I know. It's fun!

But as it is, praise God and Tapestry for the forums! And yes, I am on here quite a bit...with my own questions! LOL!

Lisa

We are nowhere near Phoenix. I live in Western, KS and can pretty much say for certain, no one around me uses TOG. My friend tried for a year but has switched. A lot of homeschoolers around here choose "boxed" curriculums.

Kim
Well, I think there are homeschoolers everywhere you go who use box curriculum.

Here is a link from TOG that lists other homeschoolers in the state using Tapestry. No idea how far they are from you.

http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/tog_fast/findafriend/kansas.htm

Lisa

Wow...that is great, thank you Lisa. I sometimes wish I had stuck w/ boxed curriculum. But...I deeply desire for my children to Love TO learn and I just don't always feel like I am cut out to teach them in the way that I really want them to learn.

I am feeling a bit convicted though...I think I need to apply myself a bit more, sounds like it would be worth it with TOG.

Another quick question When they have vocabulary words is there a pronunciation guide so that we know we are saying them correct?

Kim