Amount of planning time in TOG

[MyLittleBears]

I love what I've been reading about TOG. (the author being a history major, chronological 4 yr history cycle, bible, church history intergrated, etc...) This all sounds great, BUT I've also been reading about how much planning there is. Start planning in the summer. Yikes! How much planning does it actually take? How much time does it take during the day? Does it require 4 day a week or can we do 3 like biblioplan? I am currently using MFW ecc but I'm not crazy about the CtG year, especially the science. While I like MFW for the ease of use, I find myself wanting to tweek it for some of the subjects. I guess I love being told what to cover, but not to the extent of what to do for each subject for each day of the week. I feel as if I need to put check marks next to everything. My kids will be in K, 2nd, and 5th next year. Can anyone advise?

Edited February 15, 2011 by MyLittleBears

[boscopup]

I bumped the other post of yours in the other thread without reading this one first, so I'll bump this one for you. :) I'm curious how much time TOG really takes to implement.

[siloam]

I love what I've been reading about TOG. (the author being a history major, chronological 4 yr history cycle, bible, church history intergrated, etc...) This all sounds great, BUT I've also been reading about how much planning there is. Start planning in the summer. Yikes! How much planning does it actually take? How much time does it take during the day? Does it require 4 day a week or can we do 3 like biblioplan? I am currently using MFW ecc but I'm not crazy about the CtC year, especially the science. While I like MFW for the ease of use, I find myself wanting to tweek it for some of the subjects. I guess I love being told what to cover, but not to the extent of what to do for each subject for each day of the week. I feel as if I need to put check marks next to everything. My kids will be in K, 2nd, and 5th next year. Can anyone advise?

 

It really depends on the individual.

 

I like things broken down into daily pieces, I pre-print all the maps (and answer keys), as well as the vocab (which untill recently I had to look up because I was using Classic) and I pull timeline figures and print them out ahead of time, so by the time I use it all it is open and go.

 

But it takes time to investigate each piece, and decide if you want to use it or not. I think it took me a whole week to plan my first TOG week. But after that it got better and better. Now I do a whole quarter in a week. Most people don't need that much time because they don't break down all the reading into daily portions. They simply print the student activity pages, maps and other printable parts they want to use, then go.

 

It is the beginning learning curve that is hard.

 

Heather

[johnandtinagilbert]

I have 8 children, 7 in school. It will take me 2 entire days to plan the entire school year, in all 4 offered levels of TOG (lower grammar, upper grammar, dialectic and rhetoric). That's a little more than 3 units for 7 kids --- 40 weeks of school, all ready ahead of time.

 

Each week thereafter, I will spend from 45min--2 hours every 3 weeks learning through the teacher's notes so I can discuss and lecture with some understanding to the topic at hand :D Remember, 2 high schoolers, 2 middle schooler and 4 littles in my house :)

 

Here's a post about TOG's bad planning rap

and here's one explaining some recent TOG planning.

 

LOTS of TOG posts on my blog :)