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Truthquest
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I am looking at using the Medieval guide from Truthquest for next year, but I also like the more scheduled look of the SCM Medieval guide. Is there a schedule that combines these 2, by chance?
Thanks!
No, there’s no formal schedule combining the two programs. But, a number of ladies here use both and what they do is just write the pages for the TQ commentary into their SCM guide. Some highlight the books used in SCM and use those as the “must read” books for the year and if there’s time and interest will add a few of the TQ recommendations. HTH!
I tried to incorporate TQ with my SCM guide this year for the Greeks (Module 2). It might have just been that we weren’t that jazzed about studying Greece/Greeks anyway and it really hasn’t been very exciting to the kids or me, but I had a difficult time managing both books. I might have tried to take on too much as I worked through the whole TQ book using the Famous Men of Greece book as my spine and when that wasn’t on a particular day, I’d use another resource for that topic. We didn’t read any full books, just read chapters of books here and there. I think TQ is a great idea, but for my family and the study of Greece it just didn’t work as smoothly as I had hoped. I ended up bagging the TQ recently and am just finishing out the year with our SCM module. Unfortunately I got so into using the TQ schedule that we didn’t read all the suggest SCM books that went along with the module for each grade range. Looking back, I wish I would have just stuck with my SCM module – oh well, live and learn.
I will add that if you have children that devour books, maybe the TQ would suit you very well, but my kids aren’t really that way (at least not about Greeks) so it really hasn’t been that advantageous for our family.
Just my 2 cents and then some.
I do like Des suggested. I just pencil in TQ commentary pages into my SCM guide margins. I also pencil in TQ movie suggestions. I mainly stick to the SCM book list, but as my kids age may add in some TQ suggestions. To me, it’s the best of both worlds. TQ is challenging for me to plan, but I love the commentary. And Iove the SCM structure….really simplifies things:) HTH some, Gina
That is exactly what I like about it… the commentary of TQ and schedule of SCM. 🙂 thank you all for the suggestions. I will definitely have some decisions to make. My son enjoys reading but only books that interest him. If he has a tough time getting into a book it is like pulling teeth for him to actually absorb anything from it. The worst part is that our library is super small and even doing inter-library loans are next to impossible – tried it many times and never did get the books. :/ So for reading I will be picking a handful of must-reads and getting them used from Amazon or somewhere.
I have also looked at Biblioplan, but it is much more expensive. BUT, is it worth it? It seems to have a ton more info in it and it is scheduled….
We used Biblioplan this past year. It is like a textbook that is bought in different pieces. You buy the commentary, worksheets, and maps all separately. We didn’t like it and ended up using the books in the SCM list and others from Main Lesson. I have been thinking of using the Truthquest guides for next year. We have never used the SCM handbooks. We have always read from the booklist in the curriculum guide.
LyndaF, Could you explain what it was you didn’t like about Biblioplan? I was considering it for next year.
I have used the SCM modules and have used TQ quite extensively. We used SCM for ancient history, but there weren’t enough books scheduled for us, so I started supplementing with TQ. (We had used TQ previously for American history.) This past year we used just TQ for the Middle Ages.
In general, I like TQ and I don’t mind doing the scheduling for it. Sometimes, though, I get a bit lost in her commentary. For example, there were a few times when she would say something like, “You’ll remember…..” and I’d be like, “No, I don’t remember.” Or other times when she would hint at something important that was coming, and then never explain it. I don’t necessarily want to be spoon-fed, but I’m juggling plates over here and maybe you could just come and out and tell me what the important stuff is. Sometimes I felt as if we needed to get through a lot of commentary fluff to get to the meat. Now I feel guilty even saying that because I’ve been a pretty loyal TQ devotee.
I’ve been looking at Biblioplan and Beautiful Feet and would like to look over SCM for the next time period as well.
Biblioplan’s commentary is pretty brief. It is set up by the week. You may have 1 or 2 pages of commentary for the whole week. Then you have a worksheet with questions to complete if you buy the Cool History that goes with the time period you choose to do. There is no living book suggestion to go with it. I had a very hard time knowing the answers to the questions, giving how brief the commentary was. We ended up skipping a lot of the questions while we were trying to complete it because we couldn’t find the answers. My daughter is 11, and she was getting nothing out of it. At the end of the lessons, she couldn’t even recall what the lessons were about. We decided to go back to reading living books and narration. It wasn’t very CM friendly. If you have a textbook learner, it would be a very good program. If you have a child who has always learned from living books, it just won’t work. My daughter’s recall was much better when we went back to the SCM booklist.
Has anyone used the TQ Middle Ages and corresponding SCM together? I am wondering how much there is in the TQ that matches up with the SCM… if it would be just a lot of commentary (in TQ) on topics that aren’t talked about/read about with the SCM guide. What I am trying to say is I wonder if it is worth the effort to try to match up commentary to lessons, if there is enough of it to make it worth while.
If there is, I also wonder if using the timeline/maps/etc that are available with TQ or if using the ones from SCM would be a better fit.
Ok, thank you, that sounds good.
What about the extras – timeline, mapping, etc. Do you think the TQ or the SCM are better, considering I will be using the schedule from the SCM guidebook?
I can’t answer that, i’ve not used the TQ maps or the SCM maps. We use MP’s Geography 1 book and Map Trek maps made by Knowledgequest.
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