How many hours a week spent on geography?

[Southwest Diane]

I am in the process of planning out our 5th grade year. It will be our first time using TOG, and my dd will be 10 (Upper Grammar, mostly).

I can already tell our school day will lengthen a bit, not only because of TOG but also because of other subjects we're adding in, and some of our current ones get a bit tougher next year, so they'll take longer.

In figuring out the time allotment, I was going to budget 30 minutes twice a week for geography, totaling one hour. But when I look at Go To Egypt, I see that the geography vocab alone will take a long time, not to mention the mapwork. Are the first few weeks uncommonly heavy, or should I allot 30 minutes *every* day for geography?

Thanks,
Diane

[Karen Twombly]

I would say about an hour per week is just what we spend on Geography. I don't do every TOG suggests though. We do the map in some form. I don't necessarily have them look up the words or even memorize them but we go over them together. My goal is that they have a working knowledge of geography and that they can point things out on a map.

[ReneeSuz]

I don't plan my school day by minutes/hours. I plan out what each child must complete that day. Some days it takes less time than others. I do try to make it somewhat balanced throughout the week

[Southwest Diane]

Whew, that's a relief!

Thanks to both of you. It makes sense to do a block of TOG. I'm not the type to say "from 10 to 10:30" we do such and such. The way I normally school is just do do a subject until the lesson for the day is done, and then move on. This has served me well through TWTM and Sonlight, but I guess I'm getting a little concerned about how full our day will look when we start TOG. My dd also will be doing 3 languages (and of course, English grammar) as well as math, science, bible, logic, art, music, vocabulary, science & Bible.

It isn't as bad as it sounds; most are done 30 minutes every other day, so the whole day is looking to be around 4-5 hours, and for 5th grade I think that is reasonable and realistic.

I just can't quite get a feel for how long TOG takes. I consider TOG to be: history, writing, geography, and literature. I know it includes Bible also, but I plan on a wonderful Narnia bible study that I've been waiting to use until my son was old enough to get it (he's 4th grade and has a few LD's).

ANYWAY, sorry I'm rambling when all I really wanted to say was "thank you"!!

[Southwest Diane]

ReneeSuz,

Thanks for your response. I, too, plan what each child must do, but I was wondering if that method will hold up with TOG. I'm happy to hear that it will; like any new curriculum I know it'll take me a few weeks to find my groove and understand how it will all work.

Diane

[Christine TX]

The first week is the heaviest BY FAR> I just finished Unit I. Most of the other weeks have a map that my children were able to do easily in 20 to 30 minutes and some weeks had no map work at all. I have 2 boys in 7th and 5th and a girl in K. Every week is SO different. Sometimes there is no geography...sometimes no history just Bible...other weeks just history readings no Bible. So we just plan things out week by week. I have a TOG block and we just plan out what we need to do as we go.

Christine