TracyP Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 I am looking at this for my K son for next year. He will follow along with TOG with his big sis and I thought she could maybe follow along in GtG with him. So I'm wondering.... 1. Is this appropriate for a young K'er - will be 5 in October? 2. How much time do you spend on this per week? Did you do the whole book in a year? 3. Is the bundle worth it? 4. Any likes or dislikes you could share would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmeraldGirl Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 We starting using it as a "Guide" this year. I did not buy the bundle. I found books that I already owned which were appropriate. My ds4 does it along w/ the other 3 dc and she gets into it. We started with our own tour of the 7 continents, tracing them, labeling, and finding an animal located on that continent for them to draw. Now we are beginning to go to individual countries; just finished up China for 2 weeks. We only hit it about 3x/week, but the kids enjoy it and I find it easy to implement. The GTG manual is a great spine for giving you ideas. You can borrow most of the books from the library, except for Considering God's Creation (but we are doing that separately, not as prescribed in GTG). There is a Yahoo Group you can join to get ideas also, and some of the women have posted their completed projects and outlines on blogs that you can find linked from the Yahoo Group. It will take us another year to get through the program but I have found it well worth the "trip" as it really provides a "peg" for hanging history info as you present it along the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemongoose Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 1. Is this appropriate for a young K'er - will be 5 in October? Yes. I used it with my DD at 4.5-5yo. Some of the info was over her head, but she picked up a lot! 2. How much time do you spend on this per week? Did you do the whole book in a year? The book took me about a year...just a bit over. I think we spent about 13 months on it. We spent about 20min a day on it or so. We read about the country and did a craft or worked on our notebook pages. 3. Is the bundle worth it? Honestly for just a 5yo, no not really. I had the bundle. The books I used were the Children Just like Me, a bit of the mammals book, a very small amount of Exploring Creation Science, and the cookbook. The other books she was often not interested in. They were a tad too mature. We got our own atlas that she liked better (more pictures, closer up versions, mountains drawn in etc). The cookbook is a must!!! Most everything turns out well, and it was actually good! 4. Any likes or dislikes you could share would be appreciated. Honestly, I liked the booklist, but I wanted more to work with as far as a notebook. We ended up using a lot of free stuff from homeschoolshare. com and other free notebooking sites. It was easier for her to list things on small books. We also enjoyed getting Rick Steve's travel Europe DVDs while we studied Europe. Egypt was by far her favorite country to study, the Amazon was her favorite region. I tried to spend more time on 1 important feature of that country and really learn about that. For example, in the Amazon countries of South America we did most of our study of the animals and habitat of the Amazon. In Argentina we studied the Pampas. In Africa we studied the African animals. In Australia, we mostly studied marsupials. In Italy, we studied painters, sculptors, and Astronomers etc... Hope that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaReese Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 We are thinking of doing this next year. I found this awesome site that looks to be helpful http://www.homeschoolcreations.com/Geography.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 How hard would it be to do this secularly? I'm planning Geography studies - doing one continent at a time - for next year. I haven't done detailed plans yet - I have the Evan Moor Beginning Geography, a Sticker Atlas of the World with animal stickers, a Globe, a large wall map, Children Just Like Me and I just discovered Children Just Like Me Our Favorite Stories. I'm interested in including studies of World Religions but don't want a curriculum that is overly Biblical. (I know this includes Considering God's Creation but is it really necessary?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemongoose Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 You could easily do this secularly...just don't get Considering Gods Creation or really the missionary books either. I would get the cookbook, an atlas, and the Galloping the Globe guidebook. Then I would just use the book list to get books at the library. Most of the books on the list are secular. The mammal book listed in the bundle package is not secular. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyP Posted March 27, 2010 Author Share Posted March 27, 2010 1. Is this appropriate for a young K'er - will be 5 in October? Yes. I used it with my DD at 4.5-5yo. Some of the info was over her head, but she picked up a lot! 2. How much time do you spend on this per week? Did you do the whole book in a year? The book took me about a year...just a bit over. I think we spent about 13 months on it. We spent about 20min a day on it or so. We read about the country and did a craft or worked on our notebook pages. 3. Is the bundle worth it? Honestly for just a 5yo, no not really. I had the bundle. The books I used were the Children Just like Me, a bit of the mammals book, a very small amount of Exploring Creation Science, and the cookbook. The other books she was often not interested in. They were a tad too mature. We got our own atlas that she liked better (more pictures, closer up versions, mountains drawn in etc). The cookbook is a must!!! Most everything turns out well, and it was actually good! 4. Any likes or dislikes you could share would be appreciated. Honestly, I liked the booklist, but I wanted more to work with as far as a notebook. We ended up using a lot of free stuff from homeschoolshare. com and other free notebooking sites. It was easier for her to list things on small books. We also enjoyed getting Rick Steve's travel Europe DVDs while we studied Europe. Egypt was by far her favorite country to study, the Amazon was her favorite region. I tried to spend more time on 1 important feature of that country and really learn about that. For example, in the Amazon countries of South America we did most of our study of the animals and habitat of the Amazon. In Argentina we studied the Pampas. In Africa we studied the African animals. In Australia, we mostly studied marsupials. In Italy, we studied painters, sculptors, and Astronomers etc... Hope that helps! This is so helpful. What atlas did you end up using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 You could easily do this secularly...just don't get Considering Gods Creation or really the missionary books either. I would get the cookbook, an atlas, and the Galloping the Globe guidebook. Then I would just use the book list to get books at the library. Most of the books on the list are secular. The mammal book listed in the bundle package is not secular. Thank you. I'm definitely going to take a look at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemongoose Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Oops I said Exploring Creation Science in my first post....I meant Considering Gods Creation. I had Apologia on the brain!:blink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewel7123 Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 We are thinking of doing this next year. I found this awesome site that looks to be helpful http://www.homeschoolcreations.com/Geography.html Thanks for the link! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALB Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 GTG looks so fun! We already do some FIAR, but I'd really like more of a geography focus before we start SOTW later. My question is, is the actual GTG guide worth buying? I have the Around the World coloring book and Children Just Like Me, and was thinking of getting flag stickers and a passport from RR. Would the GTG guidebook itself add much to that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyP Posted March 28, 2010 Author Share Posted March 28, 2010 GTG looks so fun! We already do some FIAR, but I'd really like more of a geography focus before we start SOTW later. My question is, is the actual GTG guide worth buying? I have the Around the World coloring book and Children Just Like Me, and was thinking of getting flag stickers and a passport from RR. Would the GTG guidebook itself add much to that? The more I look, the more I wonder the same thing. I am thinking that you pay to have some work done for you (printing off flags, maps, etc.) Otherwise I see no reason why someone couldn't pull this together themselves.:confused: Any thoughts on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daybreaking Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 The guidebook gives list after list of books to read that relate to each country. For me, that alone was worth the price of the guide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homemama2 Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 I'm using GTG this year w/ my 2nd gr. and Ker. Honestly I don't use the guidebook a whole lot except for the flags and fact sheets that I copy for their notebooks (my ker just does the flag). My library doesn't have most of the books, so I basically did my own thing this year (I checked out a pile of multicultural craft/art/recipe books one weekend and planned those for each country, and my library has tons of books on each country so we just grab what looks best.). There's a GTG yahoo group that I'm in and they have 'passports' you can print off so we've done that as well. My Ker hasn't picked up as much as my 2nd grader, but he can name the continents and several of the countries we've studied. He also remembers alot of what they eat! lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 We used Galloping the Globe for a year-long geography study two years ago. I enjoyed it for the most part, and it was easy to use. 1. Is this appropriate for a young K'er - will be 5 in October? Yes! My boys were 6 and 4 when I used it with them. 2. How much time do you spend on this per week? Did you do the whole book in a year? We didn't go through the book from beginning to end. We chose the parts of the world in which the boys were most interested, so we spent a lot of time covering Africa and Asia, then bounced around the world until the end of the year. We covered Geography 2x/week, for maybe 20-30 minutes, including reading and mapwork or a project. We also made many of the recipes. 3. Is the bundle worth it? ?? Not sure. 4. Any likes or dislikes you could share would be appreciated. Like: The flexibility, the fun, it was easy. We liked making or coloring the flags from each country. It's a good resource to have around for fun, too. I still pull it out from time to time when we are talking about geography in other contexts (History, for example) and we'll do a project or make a recipe. Dislike: The only thing I can think of is, after showing our Asian exchange students parts of the China and Japan sections, I've got some concerns about accuracy. For example, in the Chinese calligraphy project the Chinese characters were close, but incorrect, according to our Chinese students. (They looked confused, then started giggling, lol.) Overall, it's a fun program and worth the time spent. :) Cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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