TOG Year 1 Week 1 Report

[Roxy Roller]

We just completed our first week with TOG, and I wanted to talk through some of the things we experienced.

 

1) I read all of the pages that were assigned in the Usborne book for UG, as well as the history core and in-depth spines for LG. I learned that this is too much. I have already gone through and chosen the Usborne pages that we will read next week. It will be half of what was assigned. Focusing only on the threads I want to cover in depth.

 

2) I found that I had to read the UG Lit book with my rising 6th grader, because she was glossing over the names and vocabulary that weren't familiar to her. I learned that this is going to take more time, but if I want to transition her to Dialectic next year, I will have to lay the ground work. I will also have to figure out how do add in the vocab work with each week.

 

3) Geography was great, but took a long time to do with my LG boys. I am not sure what to do here. I ended up doing the writing for my rising 3rd graders, because they were not writing small enough for the maps, and they were getting frustrated.

 

4) We did notebook pages. I wrote out 3 or 4 sentence summaries that they dictated to me and they copied them on to their pages. I was amazed at the quality and variety of output that they produced. They also did a sketch of something that peaked their interest. My DS9, who rarely draws or colors anything, did an elaborate drawing of King Tut's mask and colored it in gold and blue. I will be working to have the boys do their own writing by the end of the year.

 

5) We didn't get to any activity projects, because I only school 3 days a week in the summer. I know they would all enjoy these, so I have to try to fit these in whenever possible, but I have to give myself permission to maybe only attempt a couple a month.

 

6) I had my rising 6th grader do a one level outline on the corresponding SOTW chapter. This went okay. We have not done any outlining up to this point, and I want to incorporate it in. We will go to two level outlines after Christmas. I found that she wanted to summarize, not outline, so this will take some work.

 

7) I had a Dialectic discussion time with my rising 6th grader. I will be gradually incorporating more in-depth discussion times through the year, so that we will be ready for full Dialectic next year. This went well, but I realized I need to keep it light for the first little while.

 

I feel like we covered the basics of Ancient Egypt, and the kids learned a huge amount. Even the 5 year old was answering comprehension questions from our reading. I asked everyone if they liked doing history this way, and the answer was a resounding 'YES'! Now I just have to figure out how to schedule it in to our full school day for the fall, without letting it get in the way of the basics.

[RobinF]

Thanks so much for your review of the week. We are planning to use TOG year 1 in the fall.

[johnandtinagilbert]

What a great post! Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

We just completed our first week with TOG, and I wanted to talk through some of the things we experienced.

 

1) I read all of the pages that were assigned in the Usborne book for UG, as well as the history core and in-depth spines for LG. I learned that this is too much. I have already gone through and chosen the Usborne pages that we will read next week. It will be half of what was assigned. Focusing only on the threads I want to cover in depth. Great idea. It's so tempting to "do it all," but it really and truly redundant to do so, particularly at LG/UG levels. Great observation.

 

2) I found that I had to read the UG Lit book with my rising 6th grader, because she was glossing over the names and vocabulary that weren't familiar to her. I learned that this is going to take more time, but if I want to transition her to Dialectic next year, I will have to lay the ground work. I will also have to figure out how do add in the vocab work with each week. You may try to start your week off with vocab. Either together or independently or even a combination of both. Have her look up the words and you can decide on a definition together. You can also use a website like Quizlet.com for daily practice. If you don't think she needs the dictionary work, are you aware of the Vocabulary Glossary and Famous People glossary on the Loom? For my students who no longer need vocab. practice, I give them the list, so they can refer to it as they read. The list is in week order and is very easy to use.

 

3) Geography was great, but took a long time to do with my LG boys. I am not sure what to do here. I ended up doing the writing for my rising 3rd graders, because they were not writing small enough for the maps, and they were getting frustrated. I like having large maps on paper, posterboard, nice ones from Geography Matters and allow the children to either velcro or write in vis-a-vis on the maps. If they do this daily, they're getting the exact same practice, only on a larger space. You can also use PurposeGames.com and use maps there for practice on the computer. PG really increased our map mastery last year.

 

4) We did notebook pages. I wrote out 3 or 4 sentence summaries that they dictated to me and they copied them on to their pages. I was amazed at the quality and variety of output that they produced. They also did a sketch of something that peaked their interest. My DS9, who rarely draws or colors anything, did an elaborate drawing of King Tut's mask and colored it in gold and blue. I will be working to have the boys do their own writing by the end of the year. AWESOME!

 

5) We didn't get to any activity projects, because I only school 3 days a week in the summer. I know they would all enjoy these, so I have to try to fit these in whenever possible, but I have to give myself permission to maybe only attempt a couple a month. Indeed, permit :) There is a 5-day week on my blog for TOG. It may help you. You'll also find opportunity for multi-week projects as you go, so this relieves some "pressure" for you, too.

 

6) I had my rising 6th grader do a one level outline on the corresponding SOTW chapter. This went okay. We have not done any outlining up to this point, and I want to incorporate it in. We will go to two level outlines after Christmas. I found that she wanted to summarize, not outline, so this will take some work. I posted on my blog about outlining from whole to parts, backwards if you will. If she can learn to break apart her summary, she may have an understanding of the outline.

 

7) I had a Dialectic discussion time with my rising 6th grader. I will be gradually incorporating more in-depth discussion times through the year, so that we will be ready for full Dialectic next year. This went well, but I realized I need to keep it light for the first little while. We picked a couple of questions and I really had to paint the picture for my dc. It honestly took almost a year for the oldest and a full year for my dd, 5th grade at the time. One day, I just saw the lightbulb and it was good.

 

I feel like we covered the basics of Ancient Egypt, and the kids learned a huge amount. Even the 5 year old was answering comprehension questions from our reading. I asked everyone if they liked doing history this way, and the answer was a resounding 'YES'! Now I just have to figure out how to schedule it in to our full school day for the fall, without letting it get in the way of the basics.

What a great week you had! It's nice to see you're enjoying the program and I'm sure a great encouragement to so many. Thanks again, for posting.

 

BTW, our purple and green are so pretty together :)

[laurad1125]

We just completed our first week with TOG, and I wanted to talk through some of the things we experienced.

 

2) I found that I had to read the UG Lit book with my rising 6th grader, because she was glossing over the names and vocabulary that weren't familiar to her. I learned that this is going to take more time, but if I want to transition her to Dialectic next year, I will have to lay the ground work. I will also have to figure out how do add in the vocab work with each week.

 

 

I found the same thing with my then 5th grader last year. He's an excellent reader but some of the literature selections are tough. I plan to do a few dialectic assignments this year but still stay pretty much in UG for him....

3) Geography was great, but took a long time to do with my LG boys. I am not sure what to do here. I ended up doing the writing for my rising 3rd graders, because they were not writing small enough for the maps, and they were getting frustrated.

 

 

I print out the locations in a relatively small font for my boys (1 UG, 1 LG) We just tape them on. They still have to locate the places, but the writing isn't a problem.

 

Now I just have to figure out how to schedule it in to our full school day for the fall, without letting it get in the way of the basics.

 

That is a toughie. I schedule 1 hour a day for my UG to do his reading, writing and map work. We have a separate 30 minutes on Monday for planning and Wednesday or Friday for discussion. With the LG we spend 1 hour on 2 afternoons a week for read alouds, lap book and activities. During this time UG can join us or work on TOG stuff alone. We do what we can in this time frame and skip the rest....

[Guest ToGMom]

Thanks for sharing your first week with us...

 

Just wanted to mention something that MAY make Geography easier for you...

 

If you are a member of the TOG Year 1 Yahoo group, someone has uploaded a file of Geography labels BY UNIT. All you have to do is purchase the appropriate Avery labels and print the file....VOILA!!!...this was a HUGE time saver for my youngest child.

 

Happy TOGing!!

[Roxy Roller]

Thank you for the great comments and ideas!

 

I love the idea of printing out the geography on labels and just having them stick them in.

[Tracy]

Thanks for sharing your first week with us...

 

Just wanted to mention something that MAY make Geography easier for you...

 

If you are a member of the TOG Year 1 Yahoo group, someone has uploaded a file of Geography labels BY UNIT. All you have to do is purchase the appropriate Avery labels and print the file....VOILA!!!...this was a HUGE time saver for my youngest child.

 

Happy TOGing!!

 

Thanks so much for mentioning this! I was going to make labels, and you have saved me a ton of time!

[half-dozenroses]

Congrats on your first week!! It is such an adventure! Sounds like you are having a great time with it.

We have used TOG for 2 years - Years 3 and 4 ... starting Year 1 in the fall and excited to go back to the Ancients.

Great info on the labels - thank you for sharing that!!

We love TOG!

Edited July 9, 2010 by half-dozenroses

[dsmith]

Sounds like a great first week! Thanks for posting. I don't do anything with vocabulary except to print out the list with definitions from the Loom for ds to read over in the beginning of the week. I look to our Latin and Greek studies for vocabulary. We do notebooking pages too, as ds is not much of a hands on kid. We try to pick out one project a month, but I don't worry if we don't get to one. We also use History Pockets, but use a pocket divider instead of making a pocket. The pockets combined with the notebooking pages, maps, and other TOG work, are making a beautiful history notebook.