Compare TOG & SCM

I’ve looked into into for the four year cycle versus six, but the expense was just too much. Plus it was really hard to decide which resources to use in the huge catalog they suggest ( but are not required). There were just too many decisions for me to make as this is my first cycle of the history material I didn’t know what my kids would lean to or benefit from.

TOG is classical.  The ages are divided into the lower grammar, upper grammar, dialetic and rheteric.  You need to plan for each level.  It provides suggested books for every week but you need to find them and schedule them.  In the dialectic and rheteric stage you would do a discussion of the readings using the scripted questions provided.  It costs a lot of money.

SCM is Charlotte Mason.  It is designed to do as a family study other than the independent reading.  The plans are all done for you if you buy the very inexpensive guide.  The book choices are all made.  You would ask the students to narrate what they read or heard.

I did TOG for 2 years.  It takes a lot of planning (maybe an hour per week) with the choosing and requesting books from the library, deciding on assignments, printing maps and worksheets.  I personally found it too time consuming.  If something happened (sickness, etc) and I didn’t get history planned, then there was no history.

TOG does have a great booklist that I reference.  But, I prefer SCM because I agree more with the CM philosophy of education.  And the more I read CM, the more I like it.

I tried it.  There were things that I loved about it, but seriously, a week’s schedule was 50 pages long!  I’ve been homeschooling for more than 20 years and it was the first curriculum that gave me panic attacks because it was just so overwhelming.  Now, IF my children were very independent in their other subjects, like math and LA, and IF I had lots of time for planning, and lots of money for spending, I might consider it again because the teacher notes were excellent.  But, none of us really liked the book selections all that well either, so I doubt we’ll ever try it again.  

I definitely prefer the simplicity of SCM over what I hear about TOG. We add in Truthquest biblical commentary for some worldview questions. I just pencil in TQ commentary pages into my SCM guide. I also pencil in TQ movie suggestions. TQ would also give you more book selection ideas if you wanted them. But I love how SCM has everything wonderfully planned:) Gina

this is a helpful thread.  the ladies at church all use TOG and i wondered if i was missing something.  my ds12 needs more of a challenge with history, science, l.a., etc.  i thought TOG might work but now am reconsidering…

I know I’m in the minority here but we’ve used ToG for six years now and have made it work really well alongside our Charlotte Mason ideals. Admittedly, I don’t use the whole program to the fullest of it’s potential, but I’m very  much ok with that. The way we use it in our home means the planning each week takes me only  as long as it takes to look up and reserve books from the library or pull of the next ones that we have on our shelves. I have loved that our family has always learned together from the very beginning, I love the four-year cycle (we’re halfway through our second round and my older kids are making connections this time through that they couldn’t have seen four years ago and that’s really exciting – I love that they will get to do it one more time four years from now when they will connect even more ideas together), I love the hand-holding through the Socratic discussions in the older years and I love the freedom to use it in a way that works well for us. It is an investment and six years later I see that a curriculum like Truth Quest might be more in line with the way I use ToG, but from what I have seen from the book sugestions they are quite similar. ANd TQ isn’t cheap either. 🙂 

ToG is a very full curriculum. I know I don’t even come close to using every aspect of it and honestly I don’t ever plan to. THe book list is extensive but they are clear on the fact that not every book is supposed to be read. The teacher is given instructions to choose according to the needs of her student and “permission” to be selective. 

ANyway, I have no need to defend ToG and no reason to convince anyone to use it. And really, something like TQ might be a mroe paired-down version that fits CM families better, but it’s worked really well for our family and just wanted to be one voice that says it can certainly marry well with CM philosophies.