Tapestry of Grace DE or Stages: a review

I have used the Tapestry of Grace curriculum with my family for nearly seven years and own all four years of the DE or Digital Edition of the program. We love it! I love the richness and depth of the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, and the ability to customize a weekly plan that fits our family and our life. So when their new Stages product came out, I was curious. What was different from what I currently had? Which product should I recommend to others interested in starting Tapestry? Would having my plans and teacher notes divided into the separate Stages…

Creating Tapestry of Grace Student Notebooks

We’ve used Tapestry of Grace as our core curriculum for going on 6 years. I love it, primarily because it is designed to be customizable. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, Tapestry presents a buffet of choices and ideas for reading, crafts and art, literature study, history discussion, and more. It’s perfect for customizing a learning plan that fits our unique ADHD/dyslexia struggles. But for the first time this year (as a solution to the enormous loose-paper crisis we experienced), I’m also customizing our own Tapestry of Grace student notebooks. While the option is available to purchase these in printed bundles, ready…

Tapestry of Grace Writing Aids: a buffet of writing ideas and resources

I’ve owned Writing Aids since we first started using Tapestry of Grace curriculum four or five years ago, but I’ve been too insecure to really lean into it as my complete writing program until this year. Writing Aids is a very different “program” from what you will find anywhere else, and depending on what you are looking for, I think Writing Aids will surprise you. What Writing Aids Is Writing Aids is a supplement product of the Tapestry of Grace curriculum that is purchased in addition to the main curriculum. Tapestry is a guided unit study approach to studying the…

Celebrating Progress: Tapestry of Grace Unit Parties

I love celebrating progress in our homeschool. I love to throw a party! So one of the highlights of our homeschool year are our unit celebrations. I use “unit celebrations” loosely. Our curriculum recommends celebrating after each 9 week unit. But I honestly can’t pull off more than 2 parties a year. So we usually celebrate midyear and end of year. It’s less work for me and yet still creates those special memories that I love about homeschooling. 5 reasons for celebrating progress with a “unit” party a chance to review and recap: This is our cumulative review, but so much…

Preparing Tapestry: our Fourth Year

We are headed into our fourth year of our Tapestry of Grace curriculum, which means we will have completed the cycle at the end of this year. (It also means this is my last year of all grammar level.) Last year, I felt like we really made Tapestry our own and found our rhythm, our stride. It felt good, like a fitted glove. Of course, when you end a year like that, it makes planning the next year exciting. I love the aspect of homeschooling where I trouble-shoot and research and find our answers, but the Lord knew I would…

Update on our Tapestry changes

While I love our Tapestry of Grace curriculum, I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I totally overhauled Tapestry. I arranged our year by topics rather than by week (think of the Unit Study concept); I arranged our year into 3 Terms rather than 4 units; and I only did history the first two Terms (our last term branches into more science and biographies of scientists and inventors.) With all of that going down, I wanted to check in and let you all know how our Tapestry changes turned out. The update is that, this year (drum roll………) our…

Tailoring Tapestry of Grace to a Custom-Fit

I re-evaluated everything last spring, even Tapestry of Grace, and asked myself some hard questions. I was disillusioned with it, to be quite honest. I had expected the first year fog, but the second year I thought I ought to have found my stride. Unfortunately, I still had some growing pains. The kids were fine; they’re fine with just about anything I do. (Bless them!) But my expectations weren’t being met, or at least, I was feeling insecure. I started looking at other curriculums (gasp!) and wondering if Tapestry of Grace truly was our match. I asked myself some hard questions.…