Posted by OhElizabeth on 21:25 Mar 9
In Reply to: O-o-o-o-oelizabeth...sigh... posted by 4kids4me
I have only one dd, a very precocious history buff 2nd grader (as opposed to me, the history hater/tolerator) who reads all this stuff on her own unless I happen to like it enough to be willing to. I get headaches a lot (my little secret) so I like things that are clear, no-brainer, and allow her to do on her own anything that doesn't need my attention. I put my efforts into LA and she basically does her own thing for history. She's self-driven you could say. And yes, I spend a lot of time and effort on this. She really, really enjoys it though, so that's why. She reads these things on her own, because she enjoys them, no pushing on my part.
You can see a demo of the VP cards on the Veritas Press website. Yes, you could use them as part of the curriculum. The tm's, which come either printed or on enhanced cd, have a similar format for each card: read the card and do a worksheet for comprehension/memory work, do some activities (simple crafts, narration prompts, or enrichment through extension topics in art, etc.), then a test page reviewing almost exactly the content of the original card worksheet. Some people like that. We've drifted away from them and she's still learning enough to suit me, so whatever.
The VP cards, for me, provide that utter no-brainer structure I mentioned. I buy books from the TQ lists, put post-it notes with the card # they correspond to. It's a hassle in the beginning, but oh does it pay off later. Today, all I did was ask her what card she had last read on (what topic). We looked at the next card, read it to discuss, then checked the shelf for books with that number. Told you it was simple! When she finishes a pile of books, we record them on our reading list, put back on the shelf, and start the next card.
If you go to TQ's website, you can see the table of contents for each guide. Consider that this table of contents IS the order everything is covered in the TQ guide. If, when you look at that, history makes sense and the world opens to you, use it. For me, the VP card order is more convenient, so that's what I use. The VP cards, alone, are an organizational and memory work tool. You could use them for memory work by singing the song and still go through TQ in the TQ order. You could do TQ in VP order. And not to confuse you, but you could do TQ in order following whatever spine you chose (Guerber, whatever) and just sing VP on the side. There are lots of ways to do it and the materials are so flexible!
Fortunately for you, you can see these things for free online by looking at the samples. TQ has samples at www.truthquesthistory.com Guerber samples are at www.nothingnewpress.com. www.veritaspress.com has a promo video where you can see the cards. The back of the cards schedule only the main spines (kingfisher, Streams of Civ, etc), not the fiction, just so you know.
Yes, I bought the Guerber ancients book and have a couple of the others I think. They're just overkill for us now, so they'll wait. I personally found the VP sequence to be very thorough, especially in its depth with Egypt. I'm not a history whiz, but from the little I learned there, my personal sense is that a student who has some background will more readily grasp the connections Guerber is trying to get you to make than a student who has not. If the student has no prior experience to make the material familiar, then being older would help obviously. I wouldn't expect a 3rd grader to read/listen to Guerber ancients and make all the connections, just my opinion.
My dd is too young for the commentary in the TQ guides, so we just use them for booklists. VP as NO commentary, none on the cards. That's why I have both, one for the memory work and the other for the literature and philosophical side. It works well enough for us that we're continuing this combo of VP cards with TQ books right on into american history next year...