Before switching to Tapestry of Grace, we had used a literature based curriculum. We LOVE great, living books. We have shelves of living historical fiction. Tapestry uses lots of great books...but most of them are not fictionalized accounts. I missed the reading from our other curriculum, and added a few of our favorites in here and there.
Slowly I've come to realize that we DO have lots of GREAT books with Tapestry of Grace....most of them, however, are biographies or non-fiction....still living books...
I often hear others say TOG is not for young children...and I understand the thought. However, one of the strengths that I've come to cherish in TOG is the really GOOD picture books that they recommend for young children. This week we read two that illustrate my point. "The Butterfly" by Patricia Polacco, is a true story set during WW2 in France. It follows the adventures of a young girl who discovers her mother is part of the resistance and hiding a Jewish family in her basement. In this book we follow the escape attempt of the Sevrine and her family and are even told about the life-long friendship that Monique and Sevrine enjoyed.
Another great non-fiction Children's book is "Passage to Freedom:The Sugihara
Story", by Ken Mochizuki. This story is told from the perspective of 5 year old Hirokio Sugihara. Hirokio tells the story of how his father saved the lives of 10,000 Jews while he was serving as a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania in 1940. It's an amazing story. Night after night his father sat hand-writing visas for people who were trying to escape the Nazis - against the express orders of his own government. I would like to read more on this incident. Anyway, I've been amazed at the wonderful, accurate, engaging PICTURE books Marcia has found for the younger children. Both of these books were in my local library. Of course, I want to BUY them both now. ::snort::
8 comments:
De'Etta, I remember seeing part of a program on PBS about the Japanese man who signed all the visas...you might want to do a search on Netflix. I didn't see it all, but it was very powerful. The urgency in the man's desire to get as many people out as he could before he was caught was tremendous. There were certainly a lot of heroes of many types in the war.
We've enjoyed many Patricia Polacco books. At least several of her stories are based on her own childhood, and she has an autobiography for children, Firetalking.
Thanks for the other rec, I've requested it from my library!
DeEtta,
Your posting started out making me nervous but then I calmed down. I have just about settled on TOG DAW for James for 9th grade. Yes, it will only be one child but I have others that will be home in the future.....
We loved the Butterfly too when we were studying WW2. I didn't realise it was for younger children though. Mine were 10 and 12 when we 'read' it! LOL!
Dorothy
I don't think I've seen these books - egads! how did THAT happen?! I can't believe there are books that I not only haven't SEEN but I don't have them checked out & fines overdue on them.
We've just finished our Amer Rev co-op & used several Cheryl Harness books, those are MY favorite picture/history books. I'm going to try to order some used (because of the library/fine thing, you know).
A book on Sugihara for you and your older children is A Special Fate by Alison Leslie Gold. I read it several years ago and remember it being excellent.
Thanks for the tips Debbie and Laura.
Renee, I bought TOG FOR my older children, because of all I've heard I'm not sure I would have bought it ONLY for young children. HOWEVER, having used it for young childre - it's wonderful. Of course, I do adjust it for my family.
Dorothy, it's listed for lower grammar - grades K - 2 or 3. We LOVED it.
Liz - wellll - we could let you pay MY library fine on these books, if that would help you feel better. ::snort::
Kristine - I'm going to look for more books by here. We are finding that we really like non-fiction, afterall. LOL
I wanted to share some of the things my younger set are doing with TOG that we love, because I hear so often that it's for "high school students". ::snort:: I think that if you tried to do EVERYTHING in TOG it could overwhelm younger children....or if you didn't adjust it for your tastes. I have the classic so there are about 6 choices for each week - if you tried to read them all - it could be too much... I don't know - I'm not sure why so many say it's not for younger kids - actually these types of books are holding my younger's attention far more than some of the longer books we read with our previous curriculum. I've been thinking I need to add a few more longer - challenging books for read alouds....then I remembered that we do lots of family reading at night that are longer books...so really...why not enjoy these non-fiction, colorful historical books for school time????
Thanks for the added comments about TOG. I wont have any younger children at home this coming school year (unless something changes). I'll have a junior, a freshman and maybe a 7th grader... I am looking foward to TOG yr 1 redesigned... it looks well laid out (I like some planning done for me)
Post a Comment