sahm99 Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 (edited) I am busy working out a schedule for our coming school-year...and am missing those "extra-2h-a-day" more than ever;). We are planning on starting with Latin (8-9), then Math (9-10), followed by CW and French (10-12ish). Afterwards lunch, until 2 pm. That leaves two hours, four times a week for TOG (from 2-4, while the baby naps). 8 hours per week for TOG (plus additional reading in the evenings for literature...) sound fine, but looking at the things I want to get done this seems nowhere enough! Just answering the History-AQs and TQs will eat up Monday and Tuesday (and that is assuming that ds has done some History reading during the week-end...). Wednesday we would work on Geography and WA. Thursday would be for Literature SASs... Friday could be "Discussion-day"... All fine, but when could we ever do a project:confused::confused::confused:? Lap-Books??? Or prepare a unit celebration? Or have some wiggle-room for other "extras" (which would include Church History Readings, with this kind of plan!)? Also, I want to somewhat "schedule" the People- and Vocabulary-Glossary...and the Pop-Quiz with Dad...?!?!? I am looking forward to hearing about the way your plan and schedule TOG! ...I know it is a "buffet":), but the items I have scheduled are really all essential imo... Thanks! Edited July 28, 2011 by sahm99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankcassiesmom Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 8 hours a week for your age kids is more than enough. Honestly you'll have more than enough time with 8 hours a week! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan in TN Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 (edited) This might not be what you're looking for, but here's how we arrange our week: Friday afternoon - around 3pm is where our "new week" really starts. We have a TOG meeting to read the weekly introduction and go over the assignments for the coming week (this is mostly important for my D and R students so they can do some reading over the weekend.) Monday afternoon - mapwork (I'll read bits from the teachers notes sometimes), vocabulary, timeline (D&R students), read history and/or lit. I have a Writing Aids 'meeting' with each student to discuss individual assignments, talking points, dictation, etc. Tuesday afternoon - more reading history and lit. Wednesday afternoon - help youngers with literature activity pages, history discussion w/ D & R students, writing Thursday afternoon - lap book (UG & LG), finish up any reading, work on writing assignments, lit. discussion w/ R student Friday after lunch - hand in writing assignments, look over literature activity pages, do evaluations. (TOG meeting around 3pm) Fridays at dinner Dad does Pop Quiz. -------------------------------------- My D & R students read some history and some literature every day. They seem to find it easier to keep up. You may have planned this already, but have your D student read over the AQ and TQ a couple times before reading. Then have him answer the questions as he does the reading. TQ may have to wait until after sometimes. I pick and choose from church history. Sometimes we do the church history reading during story time. We've rarely done unit celebrations or hands-on activities or group activities. Sometimes my younger ones will latch onto a project to do themselves, but I don't plan or focus on these at all. I'm just not a project kind of person. :tongue_smilie: My D student spends, oh, maybe a couple hours a day on TOG, my R student spends a good 3 hours - he's not a fast reader, though. Edited July 30, 2011 by Susan in TN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMom2One Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 8 hours a week for your age kids is more than enough. Honestly you'll have more than enough time with 8 hours a week! :iagree::iagree: Any more time than what you are projecting (other than extra time spent on planning a unit celebration or working on a special project), would be cruel and unusual punishment for young kids the age of yours. My dd started TOG at the age of 10, and we averaged 1.5 to 2 hours a day on regular assignments. Until last year when she started D level and took on a bit more reading, that remained the case. If you push too much on your younger students they may lose the joy of learning their lessons in history, geography and literature. My suggestion would be to build up slowly. My D student spends, oh, maybe a couple hours a day on TOG, my R student spends a good 3 hours - he's not a fast reader, though. I think this sounds about right. And I really like the looks of Susan's schedule. I may switch to Friday assignments too! Blessings, Lucinda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AuntPol Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 I found that it took my Dialectic kids more than 2 hours a day to do the reading and questions and maps. We never had time to do the fun projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankcassiesmom Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 I didn't realize people were counting all the reading in their official school time. My kids don't do all their readings during school time. They can read over the weekend, during afternoon quieter times, etc. They do have some time to read during the day but it's up to them to make sure that other time is used to finish any unfinished reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AuntPol Posted August 1, 2011 Share Posted August 1, 2011 I didn't realize people were counting all the reading in their official school time. My kids don't do all their readings during school time. They can read over the weekend, during afternoon quieter times, etc. They do have some time to read during the day but it's up to them to make sure that other time is used to finish any unfinished reading. I guess it depends on whether your child views reading, especially reading on subjects they don't care about, as "school." I have one who hates to read anything so any reading is school. I have one who loves to read but wasn't interested in most of the books so those were "school" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankcassiesmom Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 My 6th grader most certainly finds most of our history readings as school and not fun (no matter how great the book lol). It doesn't change the fact that he has to do reading over the weekend if he didn't get it done before or at other times during the day like quiet time. Note that he HAS to do those things. But I certainly don't schedule multiple hours during school time for him to do all the literature readings, etc. I want him to learn that there are times that he needs to sacrifice other times to get done what needs to be done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnandtinagilbert Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 (edited) I'm assuming you have 1 dc in Dialectic and the others in grammar stages. WELL, if we do everything....and I mean everything...in the grammar stages, we spend about 7-8 hours total for the week...Here is what our week looks like this week. Keep in mind, italics mean independent work and underlined means on the computer. This is for a K, 3rd, 4th grader for week 1 of our school year. Monday 2 hours together ☺Vocabulary Intro. – read through vocab pages/show picture ☺Core Read Aloud – SOTW 4 Ch. 12 ☺Mapwork: world map major rivers major deserts (the LG just did continents with me while the other 2 labels Rivers) ☺Veritas Cards ☺Assigned Reading - Five Children and It (one month + book report on this) Tuesday 1 hour (Totally independent on most days for personal reading time) ☺Assigned Reading - Five Children and It 1 month + book report 65pgs. Per week ; Read Aloud: In Coal Country 10pgs (wk ½) ☺Mapwork daily practice w/ maps in plastic sleeves ☺President’s Song YouTube ☺Quizlet: Learn practice vocab words ☺Assigned Reading - Five Children and It Wed. 1 hour together ☺Read Aloud Core/Literature The Wonderful Wizard of Oz pg. 1-33; Albert Einstein ☺Mapwork ☺ Quizlet: Scatter ☺Veritas Cards ☺Assigned Reading - Five Children and It Thurs 1-2 hour (mostly independent, but some working together for notebooking, which is individual time while the other read) ☺Assigned Reading Trial and Triumph Ch. 40; Albert Einstein ☺Mapwork ☺President’s Song ☺Quizlet: Space Race ☺Notebook Key word outline ☺Assigned Reading - Five Children and It Fri. about 1 hour together and however long (up to 45min--- 1hour independently taking tests). ☺Map Test ☺Vocabulary Test ☺Literature Worksheet ☺Veritas Cards ☺President’s Book - Read then add to project Roosevelt pg. 34-36 ☺ Famous People Book pg. 40, 94, 52 ☺Assigned Reading - Five Children and It Other weeks will include a special project and that will stretch out our Fridays. I choose long term projects for Unit Studies like the President's booklet and Prez. Song. We use memorization for Unit Studies, too (Veritas Cards). We always do food at the unit studies..that doesn't take much prep, really. We read papers/narrations/summaries and have book discussions of an agreed upon book for older children. This allows for "Discussion Fridays" where Dialectic and Rh. students to have 1.5 hours (D) and 2-2.5 hours ® on Fridays for discussion, then complete or alter their answers. Long Fridays for me, but allows them time to get their work done. Because of the amount of reading for each level, I'd say the D and R students spend 2-3 hours daily on TOG...but remember, my kids do Every.thing. Loads of reading. Loads of writing/notetaking etc. Here is the D activities we complete: o History □ Literature □ Lit. Analysis o Discussion □ Church History □Mapwork o Vocabulary □ Famous People □ President Cards o Activity □ Note taking o Summarization □ Timeline All read from each category and the Rhetoric complete the same, but they also read the government. We only hold discussions and answer questions for lit and history. We'll do Philosophy in year 1 and government as a Dual Enrollment in the local college. I still have them read gov't documents and I make sure they understand the political scene, but I do not require written questions. It takes them about 3 hours per day. They also complete 1 or 2 big projects per unit, which are displayed for celebration. Often times, instead of the suggested read aloud, I read the church history book at lunch time. Yes, it's a lot, but I always see TOG as Humanities...which covers so much more than just history! This is also why the younger kiddos do each language art 3x/week, not 5x. We get enough done in every category and also have enough time to apply what we learn. Edited August 2, 2011 by johnandtinagilbert Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadeOrchidSong Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 After reading how much time you put in TOG, I wonder if you find enough time to do science, or other things you need to do? Looking at it stresses me already. I have always planned to use TOG in a couple years, but I am scared of how much time it takes to plan, to print sheets, to track down the books. I hope I can do it without the burnout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnandtinagilbert Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 After reading how much time you put in TOG, I wonder if you find enough time to do science, or other things you need to do? Looking at it stresses me already. I have always planned to use TOG in a couple years, but I am scared of how much time it takes to plan, to print sheets, to track down the books. I hope I can do it without the burnout. We do get it all done. When you have a D and R student, TOG encourages self-working, so they schedule their own time and get the work done. The "teaching" parts of TOG are done through discussions and lecture. They are becoming self-educated with follow up on my part. So far as planning, I got 11 weeks of total planning done for all my grammar stage and middle school kids in 2.5 working days. It's not as bad as it sounds b/c TOG is beautifully organized and allows one to plan effectively. Since I've used it for so long, I chose all the books for all 4 levels in one afternoon. Finally, Remember, I've used TOG for a while. We did not START doing all we do now. We truly grew into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankcassiesmom Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 After reading how much time you put in TOG, I wonder if you find enough time to do science, or other things you need to do? Looking at it stresses me already. I have always planned to use TOG in a couple years, but I am scared of how much time it takes to plan, to print sheets, to track down the books. I hope I can do it without the burnout. It's not bad at all. I hardly have to plan for anything. You get into a rhythm. Printing sheets is just time. Spend a day and print the whole year's sheets. And with books I just buy the books that will be used for multiple weeks and spend an hour or so once a month watching tv reserving books online at the library. Really, it's not the time and organization hog you think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMom2One Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 I just saw it, and thought I'd share on this thread because it seems like it may be helpful to some. The article has a really great video where Marcia unpacks a TOG planning session. It would be quite helpful for anyone new to TOG and feels overwhelmed with how to put it all together, making those buffet choices and matching the right assignments and activities to each student. Here is a link to the blogpost and video. Blessings, Lucinda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelBee Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 After reading how much time you put in TOG, I wonder if you find enough time to do science, or other things you need to do? Looking at it stresses me already. I have always planned to use TOG in a couple years, but I am scared of how much time it takes to plan, to print sheets, to track down the books. I hope I can do it without the burnout. :grouphug: Remember...you make the program, it does not make you. Pick and choose what works for your family. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMom2One Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 :grouphug: Remember...you make the program, it does not make you. Pick and choose what works for your family. :) That is the exact point Marcia makes in the video I just posted about. Blessings, Lucinda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MGK Posted August 6, 2011 Share Posted August 6, 2011 Just answering the History-AQs and TQs will eat up Monday and Tuesday (and that is assuming that ds has done some History reading during the week-end...). Wednesday we would work on Geography and WA. Thursday would be for Literature SASs... Friday could be "Discussion-day"... All fine, but when could we ever do a project:confused::confused::confused:? Lap-Books??? Or prepare a unit celebration? Or have some wiggle-room for other "extras" (which would include Church History Readings, with this kind of plan!)? Also, I want to somewhat "schedule" the People- and Vocabulary-Glossary...and the Pop-Quiz with Dad...?!?!? Thanks! 8 hours a week will be plenty of time for TOG. I would tweak your schedule a bit: Monday - Geography and give the Writing Aids assignment. It won't matter how much reading they have done over the weekend. Tuesday - Complete reading assignments, begin A & T questions. Your younger children won't have these questions, so they could do vocab/people that day. Wednesday-Finish questions, work on timeline for your older student, youngers work on lap book if you wish. (hmmm...maybe vocab/people could be incorporated into the lapbook...knock both of those out at once) Thursday - Literature worksheets and discussion. You should have time for both. The worksheets really don't take that long, and neither will the discussion given your children's ages. Friday - all those lovely extras TOG is so famous for. Pick and choose! Some weeks the reading load will be light enough to do many of the extras. Other weeks are more rigorous. The curriculum tells you what to expect in the "week ahead" notes, so you'll know how many extras to fit in. Your children may not see the projects as "school" because they are fun, so they could be an evening/weekend activity if that works for your family. You won't be able to do everything - keep the extras enjoyable, and have fun learning along with your kids! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehogs4 Posted August 8, 2011 Share Posted August 8, 2011 This has been so helpful. We are starting this year, and I have the same questions. We are starting with a 10yo UG and a 6yo LG student, and with this program, it seems that there is no way to know but to just start. I plan to take the advice I keep hearing over and over and that is to EASE into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted August 8, 2011 Share Posted August 8, 2011 I just saw it, and thought I'd share on this thread because it seems like it may be helpful to some. The article has a really great video where Marcia unpacks a TOG planning session. It would be quite helpful for anyone new to TOG and feels overwhelmed with how to put it all together, making those buffet choices and matching the right assignments and activities to each student. Here is a link to the blogpost and video. Blessings, Lucinda I'd love to see it, but Safe Eyes (my computer filter) won't support vimeo and my hubby isn't around to override that--any other way of seeing it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAutumnOak Posted August 8, 2011 Share Posted August 8, 2011 I just saw it, and thought I'd share on this thread because it seems like it may be helpful to some. The article has a really great video where Marcia unpacks a TOG planning session. It would be quite helpful for anyone new to TOG and feels overwhelmed with how to put it all together, making those buffet choices and matching the right assignments and activities to each student. Here is a link to the blogpost and video. Blessings, Lucinda Thanks so much for this link!...I found the video helpful... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnandtinagilbert Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 The video was great and very encouraging for this long time TOG mom. I feel like I'm doing it "right" since I do it just like Marcia explained. WHEW! Permission at last. :lol: On the hand, after creating my own science unit studies this year and spending SO MUCH TIME doing it, I'm so grateful for TOG. It saves me hours and hours and hours of planning! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMom2One Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 I'd love to see it, but Safe Eyes (my computer filter) won't support vimeo and my hubby isn't around to override that--any other way of seeing it? I'm sorry Chris, I can't seem to find any other way for you to see the video. Hopefully your dh can help you override the Vimeo. Blessings, Lucinda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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