URGENT - Trail Guide for World Geography

[Lisa TX]

We are using Trail Guide for World Geography at Co-op for a high school credit. We need to make the most of the curriculum to justify a credit. We JUST sent out what should be purchased but are (at the last minute!!) rightly reevaluating what should be purchased by the family. Expense for families is an issue!

 

The once-per-week co-op teacher will be doing enrichment --- introducing the students to different cultures through food, guest speakers, reading of biographies/stories of missionaries, and more.

 

The co-op teacher will use the Trail Guide and other resources to ASSIGN work to the students to do at home. This home time will be the bulk of learning World Geography.

 

For the parents, who are overseeing the learning four days per week, and students to make the most of the curriculum, what do they NEED to purchase?

 

Do they need the Teacher Manual to check work and access assignments?

Do they need the Student Workbook to rightly do the assignments?

There are SO many other resources mentioned. Which of those are VERY necessary to make the curriculum effective in the student learning the material and spending enough time on the course to justify the credit.

 

Please give advice on how you have used it at home or in a co-op situation.

[Lisa TX]

If this hasn't been used and loved, what was used and loved?

[dkholland]

We bought the Trail Guide to Geography, the Ultimate geography and timeline guide, and the answer atlas. There are answers in the trail guide and you need that to do the course. A globe and atlas are pretty crucial too. If I remember right (we did this at home, no co-op for a ninth grade credit), there were extra mapping assignments in the trailguide that the student needed to go to the ultimate guide to do. These extra assignments were for mapping and more in depth detail of facts. We also bought the Uncle Josh cd of outline maps so we could just print off the ones we needed. I had my ds do all the mapping assignments in both books as well as some writing assignments listed in the trail guide. I would think you would definately need the TG book. There are answers in the back for the daily challenge questions. Does any of this help?

[Lisa TX]

This does help!

 

A follow-up question:

 

The Trail Guide is reproducible for a classroom, so could the co-op teacher send out everything that is needed by attachment to her class?

 

Lisa

[Joules]

You need the Trail Guide. It doesn't just have the answers, it has the bulk of the assignments, too.

 

I am really glad I bought the notebooking CD. The CD has all three levels, but it looks like you can download just the pages from the level that you need, now. All of the maps needed for the class are on the CD so you don't need to buy Uncle Josh's maps also. Template maps for the projects are included and the daily questions are all pre-printed worksheets.

 

We didn't get the Ultimate Geo and Timeline book. I hadn't heard good things about it, so I never looked at it.

 

I did buy the atlas that went with the program, but we really preferred the ones we had already. Of course, often we just went to the internet.

 

We did other things to flesh out the course. We use CNN Student News and other news sources each day. Discussing the geography of the area and how it affects the issues of the day can help students see the big picture. (You could also have them write weekly papers on geography in the news.) CNN Student News has maps for the top news stories each day. Ds memorized all of the countries of the world and their capitals, but that was probably overkill. We also did projects, cooking, etc., but that sounds like it is already part of the co-op.

[Lisa TX]

Thanks for the helpful info!

[dkholland]

That I don't know about, sorry. We just did it at home as one student and really enjoyed it.

[Lisa TX]

No problem. It turned out a friend in town has EVERY resource, so now we are able to evaluate EVERYTHING.

 

I'd still welcome anyone's opinions and experiences.