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I purchased Trail Guide to World Geography, by Cindy Wiggers, this summer to use with my 4th and 7th grader, and to let my kindergartner play along.
So far I have a mixed relationship with it. First off. Let me state that I dislike abbreviations. If a book title is so long that it must be abbreviated every time the book is mentioned then, it's just too long. I have many students/children doing many different curriculums. My brain is too busy to mess with TUG, OMB, and the million and three other references all constantly referred to by abbreviations.
You may have noticed I like to exaggerate. Maybe there are not actually a million reference books with this curriculum.
I somewhat naively thought that since I bought the cd to print out the children's workbooks that the workbooks would contain all the maps I needed for weekly work. I find it frustrating that I still have to print out maps that I can't stick in the workbook, since I had the workbooks spiral bound.
However. And that's a big However. I really, really, like the curriculum. I may even come to love it, once I feel more competent with it. I feel like my kids are learning a lot. I like the mix of different types of assignments. I like the fact that our geography conversations can include 3 children at different levels of comprehension. I like the fact that the kids have to search for answers.
Working for answers means they are retaining more.
I love that this curriculum can be used in many different ways for more than a single year. It's definitely a keeper. I'll continue using parts of it to support our history curriculum long after we have finished covering "geography."
By the time I finish schooling my troop of children I may even have all the abbreviations memorized.
I purchased Trail Guide to World Geography, by Cindy Wiggers, this summer to use with my 4th and 7th grader, and to let my kindergartner play along.
So far I have a mixed relationship with it. First off. Let me state that I dislike abbreviations. If a book title is so long that it must be abbreviated every time the book is mentioned then, it's just too long. I have many students/children doing many different curriculums. My brain is too busy to mess with TUG, OMB, and the million and three other references all constantly referred to by abbreviations.
You may have noticed I like to exaggerate. Maybe there are not actually a million reference books with this curriculum.
I somewhat naively thought that since I bought the cd to print out the children's workbooks that the workbooks would contain all the maps I needed for weekly work. I find it frustrating that I still have to print out maps that I can't stick in the workbook, since I had the workbooks spiral bound.
However. And that's a big However. I really, really, like the curriculum. I may even come to love it, once I feel more competent with it. I feel like my kids are learning a lot. I like the mix of different types of assignments. I like the fact that our geography conversations can include 3 children at different levels of comprehension. I like the fact that the kids have to search for answers.
Working for answers means they are retaining more.
I love that this curriculum can be used in many different ways for more than a single year. It's definitely a keeper. I'll continue using parts of it to support our history curriculum long after we have finished covering "geography."
By the time I finish schooling my troop of children I may even have all the abbreviations memorized.
