SCHEDULING Trail Guides to Learning (Paths of Exploration/Settlement/etc)

[alisoncooks]

For those that use the Trail Guides for your history/geography, how are you placing it in the "grand scheme" of things?

 

(I *know* I am not the only one who roughly maps out our years ahead of time!) And I just am having a hard time seeing how I might would use this but still do some classical history (years for ancients, etc.)

 

So, if you don't mind sharing your history outline/schedule, please do!

(I won't hold you to it, if you change your mind on it! :D) I just want some rough ideas of how one might incorporate TGtL in our history plan.

 

(And my kids are young, so feel free to start at the very beginning!)

 

THANKS! :)

[Mallory]

I want to love this curriculum, but I don't see how it will ever match up with our rotation. :glare:

 

If I could start over I'd love to

-not do history for K-2 (or you could do ancients and Middle Ages) then

-use American history paths for grades 3-5 then

-use middle school for Ancents and Middle Ages (it would be especially lovely if the world history paths were complete), you could even do a year of geography if you wanted to

-then you could start your High School Great books study with the last two years of the rotation and save those espcially hard ancients and middle ages books for 11th and 12th grade.

 

 

So this year I have two littles (6yo and 4yo) not doing history, and two middle school kids doing Middle Ages. Next year we will start american for the older two and none of the Paths will really fit, but if I wait a couple years and try with the little ones, then they'll have had two years of overhearing mostly American History and I wouldn't want to do 3 more years of American History with them :001_huh: I did download the Columbus unit (when they were giving it out free) and we might sneak that in somewhere.

[fourcatmom]

I wish I had found this curriculum a few years back, History has been really boring and tear producing for to long in my house. This year has been different and my 10 yo has mentioned many times that she is enjoying it and we are able to get through lessons without the drama and tears.

 

I am using POE/POS with my 5th grader. I probably would have allowed graded 3-5 for this series had I know about it. I know 4th is State History here but I think you could do a few units on State History and be good, it doesn't really need a whole year, imo.

 

The recommended time for each unit is 6 weeks. Each book covers 6 units = 36 weeks. We are condensing each unit into 3 weeks and covering both in one year. We are mainly focusing on the Geography, Literature, Copywork, and some Art and Science as it applies or what she hasn't done already. So far, this has been a very manageable schedule. I personally think 6 weeks is to long to study one unit, so this works for us as well.

 

I created a post about this yesterday on our first unit,

Christoper Columbus.

 

I do really like the curriculum and think it's wise to plan a schedule now. :001_smile:

[amyrjoy]

I haven't figured out the history cycle, I guess. We've done a couple "units" of ancient history. I suppose we've focused on American History a lot, because of me liking this curriculum so much! We used POE last year and are using POS this year. I am not sure if I will use Paths to Progress next year. We may break and pursue Ancient History and Medieval life for a couple years. My kids are in 2nd and 4th this year, so waiting to do that third level of American History of PTP may be best. I think Paths To Progress is geared for middle school anyways. I haven't worried too much since my kids are in the elementary grades right now. I figured next year my oldest will go through maybe 2 good cycles. HTH.

[alisoncooks]

Thanks for all the replies!

I think I'll have to play around with my "plans" if I'm going to fit this in somewhere.... :)

[Berta]

Does anyone have the complete set for sale?

[fourcatmom]

I have some of the readers. I *might* have a set for sale but I wont know until next week. I did not buy all of the readers though.

[GTJo1996]

We also discovered Trail Guide this past year and we love it. My DD is a history addict and this curriculum has allowed her to explore things she wanted to delve into. My friend recently found an excellent reader for ancient history on the Veritas website. It is written like a story but is factually based. I think I will use this as a read-aloud which will keep DD thinking about the ancients while we delve into the 1700s with Trail Guide.

 

I can sympathize with the struggle of how to follow the classical model while utilizing Trail Guide (or any unit study approach). I think we will add Latin and this ancient history read-aloud, and I will feel like we followed the spirit of the classical model.

 

We only made it through 3 units of POE this year. Partly because of interruptions and partly because of my lack of drive this year. I am thinking about doing Daniel Boone this summer since we can incorporate some summer fun into that lesson. In my opinion, it would be hard to condense the units as a PP suggested. There are some things you can skip like the Nature Guide lessons, but those are fun! If you do the dictation/copywork, read, complete a few worksheets and do the vocabulary work, you've probably got 1-2 hours of work to do. If you condense the units into 3 weeks, you would be spending at least 3 hours a day on TG which to me is overwhelming. But then we are not structured, hardcore schoolers.

 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Pages-History-1-Secrets-Ancients/dp/1936648245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370952430&sr=1-1&keywords=history+pages

[Berta]

Michele, if you do find it and want to sell it let me know please. I'm pretty sure I can find most of the readers at the library.

 

GTJo, thank you for the review! My daughter is very much interested in history and this looks like it could be a good fit for us.

[fourcatmom]

I didn't end up using POE the way I had originally intended. We took the whole year to do POE but we also did not do every part of it. We really focused on the literature, geography, some of the nature and art and some science. We really just picked what we wanted and went from there. She did learn a lot more about history then she would have ever gotten out of a regular textbook. She still talk about Daniel Boone. I think that was her favorite. She was talking about his wife Rebecca in the car about a month ago. A dry textbook would have never made that impression on her. So, in that sense we really enjoyed it and I think it was a good fit. She also loved all the art and nature components to it and we did a lot of the copywork and some of the dictation.

 

We will continue with POS next year. I really wasn't sure I can "afford" that long on AH and I wished she had more of a good sense of it from the one year. I really feel that we have to keep going to give her that complete picture before we move on. I do feel though that for what we did study, she has a great sense of that time period and those events.

 

I am not sure about selling yet, PM me and I can let you know next week. :thumbup1: