Is Trail Guide to US Geography going to work for me?

[5LittleMonkeys]

I'm looking at using Trail Guide to US Geo. next year for my two oldest (7th and 8th), but I'm unclear on how it is structured. I see that they have the Eat Your Way..., and the Geography Thru Art books and wondered if you have to schedule these in or if the main book schedules them for you.

 

I ask because I really need something that is going to be pretty open and go without a lot of scheduling or running about gathering other resources. Is this program going to meet those criteria or am I going to need to look at something else?

 

If this won't meet my needs could you recommend something else that might?

[Tohru]

I have it...for sale actually ;)

 

It is a notebooking approach with 3 different levels of activities for daily drills and a variety of other things to do. It can be open and go, but you would need to do a little planning, like make copies if you want to use them.

 

You don't really need the extra resources unless you want to delve deeper into the area of study. They can just gather all their information from an almanac or internet.

[Irishmommy]

I just posted about this same program and so far no one has replied to me. I'm interested in hearing about this too!:lurk5:

[MaMa2005]

I'm using Trail Guide to World Geography and I don't like it. I feel like I am missing components. DH bought it at a homeschool conference last spring. When I was looking at it, I told DH he must have missed buying some of the components. So a couple months later, at another homeschool conference, I stopped at their booth to make sure I had everything, I did and they told me it was open and go. In my opinion, it is not. One of the few things that I have purchased that I really don't like, but am using it because I hate to see things go to waste.

[AmyinMD]

I'm using Trail Guide to US Geography with my 5th grader this year. I'm only having her do the mapping exercises because she is doing MFW already. US Geography seems to tie in nicely with the history she is studying.

 

The Geography through Art looks like it is scheduled in the manual. I don't see any mention of the Eat Your Way... in the manual. I haven't used either of those books so I can't comment beyond that.

 

Overall I don't particularly care for it. Dd does like it though. It is one of the first things she reaches for. It is very repetitious. We do 2 states a week usually. The numerous typos we've found in it is probably my main annoyance with it. Asking for things to be mapped that are in different states and that kind of thing. Dd uses the lowest level which is really too easy for her but we are just using it for her to learn basic mapping skills.

Edited January 14, 2011 by AmyinMD

[5LittleMonkeys]

MaMa and Amy, thanks for your replies. I was pretty sure I was going to get this but now I'm wondering if I should look for something else. It's so hard for me to judge something unless I actually use it for a little while, but once I buy something I feel as if I'm stuck with it because our $ for curricula is very limited. Off to do more hunting.:glare:

[Mallory]

My 15yo is doing World Geography this year.

 

She is using the Student Activity Workbook from Runkle and Trail Guide to World Geography. We aren't using the whole Runkle program, she is already doing a pretty hefty biology class this year, so we didn't want the science part of it (although I do think it looks good).

 

Every day, 4 days a week, she does the Geography trail for that day.

Then she does a project, map work the first day, then she picks one trail blazing or notebook activity on days 2, 3, and 4. Then she studies from Runkle (we using it so she can memorize all the countries and capitals).

 

She says not to forget about Seterra. It is a free download with geography quizes.

 

For Trail Guide- She does use the Answer Atlas every week, rarely the Almanac, and often The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide.

 

She likes it.

[5LittleMonkeys]

My 15yo is doing World Geography this year.

 

She is using the Student Activity Workbook from Runkle and Trail Guide to World Geography. We aren't using the whole Runkle program, she is already doing a pretty hefty biology class this year, so we didn't want the science part of it (although I do think it looks good).

 

Every day, 4 days a week, she does the Geography trail for that day.

Then she does a project, map work the first day, then she picks one trail blazing or notebook activity on days 2, 3, and 4. Then she studies from Runkle (we using it so she can memorize all the countries and capitals).

 

She says not to forget about Seterra. It is a free download with geography quizes.

 

For Trail Guide- She does use the Answer Atlas every week, rarely the Almanac, and often The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide.

 

She likes it.

 

Thanks for letting me know how this works for your dd. I actually looked at the Runkle this morning and I think my dd would love the science aspect of it. I'm still trying to gather enough info to be able to make a good comparison.

[Pegasus]

We tried to use the Trail Guides because I thought they looked great but we just kept getting bogged down again and again, and this was WITH the extra student books that they now sell that was supposed to make it so "open and go." Both DDs hated it.

 

We finally scrapped it for straight mapping - one continent at a time- filling in as many countries as possible from memory and then doing the rest with a reference. The same continent was done day after day until the whole thing could be labeled from memory. Then we moved on.

 

Now we are using Runkle with some supplemental materials and it is going very well (see other thread).

 

Pegasus

[shanvan]

I also would not call it an open and go curriculum. My kids did like it, but the approach felt too scattered to me. I also scrapped it and have felt bad about it ever since. Now I'm not feeling so bad after reading these responses.

 

Shannon

[Tohru]

We liked it, but just could never fit it in. It was the 2nd edition so maybe all the typos were fixed because I never noticed any.

 

For the Eat Your Way book - no, it's not scheduled in, but it's pretty obvious that you could cook a meal from the Eat Your Way book based on what state you're working on that week. Scheduling it in the Trailguide book actually seems kind of silly. As a side note, we found Amy Hout's Cooking Around the Country a lot better than Eat Your Way through the USA.

 

The Trailblazer information was always a lot of fun for us. I like curious tidbits of information though.

 

I still think it is open and go, but it's more like choose-open-go. You'd still need to read how the program was set up and how it works before you could actually use it. The initial instructional reading only takes about 15-20 minutes.

 

I'm sure there are lots of other great programs out there. Not every one likes the same things. I just wanted to add that we actually did have a positive experience and my son enjoyed it.