Reading Archives - Growing In Grace

Preparing Tapestry: our Fourth Year

August 24, 2015Tracy

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 be doing that in several other areas of our life; so homeschooling was off the hook. No massive revamping this year. With that said, preparing Tapestry for this year went really smoothly.

In summary, I love manilla folders. I keep 36 folders for our weekly “must-do” assignments like language and math and Latin. Then I keep a second set of folders for Tapestry that are labeled by Term (we do three 12 week terms) and by topic (I don’t cover everything; instead, I select the events and topics that will best suit my learners). All of our reading lists, media lists, and project papers are printed off and filed in these topic folders.

So here’s what it looks like. At the beginning of a week, I pull out two folders: the week we are in and the topic we are studying. Within the weekly folder, I pull out assignment pages and file into the kids’ daily pockets inside their binders (we use case-it binders with the accordion file inside). Within the topic folder, I look at my list all of the books and projects assigned for that topic and the number of weeks that I’ve guessed it will take us to complete (i.e. Titanic, 2 weeks). I then allocate those assignments that will fit with our week’s schedule. Last year, this method cut my weekly prep to about 30 to 45 minutes total! Both kids filed and ready to go in around a half hour. It was beautiful.

Reading Lists

Tapestry’s reading lists are copyrighted, so I can’t share the specific book titles that we are using. However, I will list a couple of other resources I use to compare and substitute book titles. SimplyCharlotteMason.com has a book finder feature that I love. Just type in the event or person you are studying, the reading level of your students, and a great list of engaging living books is listed for you. My second resource is my local library online catalogue search feature. Again, I type in the event or person, narrow it to children’s resources, and voila! I love my local library. It has an enormous selection.

I also use SimplyCharlotteMason’s Story of America and Story of the Nations ebooks as my core. These are not Tapestry titles, but the table of contents make it very easy to assign chapters that fit what we are covering. And the books are very engaging. We love them.

I select my favorites. Depending on how long we intend to study a topic, for each week I will select one to two read-aloud titles, one to two independent reading titles per child (depending on the length of the book), and the rest will be assigned merely as reference, as in “let’s look at more pictures.”

Media List

I love audios. Awhile back I scored Diana Waring’s history audio from Answers in Genesis‘ history program. We love listening to these on the way back and forth to karate and co-op. So, on the days we don’t get to our reading, we are still getting to our history. And this is another very engaging resource.

Netflix is also a resource where I search for related films to what we are studying. We don’t always get to this, but it is great for those off-days or sick days to already have this list compiled.

Projects

Homeschool in the Woods is not a Tapestry resource either, but we LOVE these projects. I use the Time Traveler activities. We make notebooking pages using both the notebooking and lapbooking project ideas. Especially since my kids are finally old enough to do their own cutting and pasting, these have been really fun activities to assign. They work on these while I read-aloud. It keeps their fingers busy but doesn’t distract them from the reading.

I generally choose the projects that fit what we are studying, our time-frame, and my kids’ interests. I spend one long afternoon printing all of my chosen activities and filing into my topic folders. This saves me so much time during the school year.

I also have the Draw Through History titles. My son loves to draw; my daughter loves to trace. And it gives them some ideas for drawing and enhancing their notebook with images of what we are studying.

Our Rhythm

I mentioned that I note about how many weeks I think a topic will take us. Last year, this was very fluid. We moved on when our books were read and our projects were done. And I found that in the end, things balanced out. Some topics took longer than I estimated, and some topics didn’t take as long. If we read everything in a week, we moved on. If it took us five weeks, because of interest or illness, we took our time and enjoyed it all. Sometimes, it was just a dud, and rather than struggle through 3 more weeks of something we were not enjoying, we covered the basics and moved on.

I’m also sensitive to my kids’ reading interests. There were some books that my son just hated, and while I realize that not all learning can be interest-driven, I think at the younger levels, reading should be. Occasionally, I’d make a call that he just needed to get through a book. But if I made that call, I ensured that I had a very tantalizing book as a reward when he finished. There were books we didn’t read cover-to-cover. (Pause for you to gasp in horror.) We survived, and were no worse for that decision.

In spite of all that flexibility, I was amazed by how much my kids retained and learned. A little went a really long way.

What about discipline and teaching kids to push through the difficult stuff? I split my subjects into two categories: our discipline subjects like math, grammar, spelling; and our inspiration subjects like history, science, and reading. This helped me define my objectives. My discipline subjects were challenging but in short spurts (no more than 15-20 min. per lesson/subject). My inspiration subjects were kept inspiring and interesting and often took closer to an hour or hour and a half (hands-on projects take awhile). But again, I watched my kiddos. If they were engaged, we took our time. If their eyes were glossing over, it was time for lunch.

Want to know more specifics? I’ve listed our specific curriculum choices here. Feel free to browse those links. Not sure what your homeschool style is? Be encouraged with my post about losing the labels.

I’m looking forward to another really great homeschool adventure, and I hope you tag along on our journey.

Learning to read (without tears)

December 2, 2013Tracy

We worked on reading all last year with little progress. It was strained; it was a struggle. Last year, reading was a cross between guessing and memorizing—with lots of tears in between. My oldest read almost without me teaching him; it was instinct. But my daughter struggles to hear the sounds and to blend them in order. She struggles to keep all those letters and sounds from flipping backwards and inside out in her head. My daughter is dyslexic, and so far learning to read has meant lots of tears.

But this year, we are finally seeing progress. Slowly but surely, she is reading, and she’s still smiling! She’s reading words that she sees during the day on packaging and store signs, not just during school with a required reader. I know a year makes a lot of difference in development and maturity, so some of our success could be due to that. But a huge part of our success has been the Logic of English Foundations curriculum that we are using this year. With this curriculum, the steps to reading are very incremental, taking nothing for granted. And the games make reading irresistible. She marches and jumps and twists and turns to learn her sounds. She plays games to learn how to sound out words and blend them back together. And with each game, we’ve inched closer to that final goal that has seemed so out of reach. She’s learning to read.

She earns blocks to build a tower by reading words.

She moves her game piece down her colored board by reading blends and words.

She races across the room and up the stairs in a reading relay.

And she makes her own books, cutting and pasting the right picture into the book after reading the page.

She’s just finished the first level of this program (Foundations A), and we are both ecstatic at the results: not just that she is reading, but that she is smiling, too.

A Foundation for Fun: a Logic of English review

October 23, 2013Tracy5 Comments

This review is purely out of love (I love this program!) All the materials in this review were purchased, and I received no compensation for my opinions.

Logic of English Foundations Phonics

This year, I made a very scary decision. I changed our phonics program to something new. I can’t tell you how many times I re-evaluated that decision and wondered if I were making the right own. We’re only a few weeks in to our new year, but I’d have to say—all my fears have been relieved!

Not only am I impressed with what Middlest is learning and the things I’m discovering about her in the process, but I am thoroughly convinced that the program must have been written with her in mind!

Logic of English Foundations teaches solid phonics and eliminates nearly all the exceptions and sight words. It teaches detailed awareness of sounds and how to make them. It teaches phonemic awareness and how to blend sounds. It teaches consonant blends and reading in a very logical, simple progression. But best of all, it does all of this in a way the child would never suspect because we’re having so much fun.

We explore sounds; we play guessing games (she “guesses” the word I’m sounding out to her, or I “guess” the word she’s sounding out to me) and scavenger hunt (she hunts for the word I’ve sounded out); we play phonogram hopscotch; we march, twirl, dance, shout, jump, and run.

And in the process, I’m uncovering problem areas before they become problems. For instance, in one lesson (the work page pictured above), Middlest was to stamp the picture that had the initial sound I said. When I said “ch,” she kept thinking the answer was the tree because she says “chree” instead of “tree.” And I’d never noticed before. We were able to correct the sound before it caused her trouble in her reading.

Last year, consonant blends were nearly our undoing, but this year she is learning to blend orally before she ever sees it on paper. It’s a brilliant strategy that keeps learning to read a lot of fun rather than intimidating. Last year, she dreaded phonics time and pouted nearly everyday; this year she asks to do it first. Best of all, she’s sounding out and reading simple words all on her own throughout the day, before we’ve even introduced a single reading book. I’m ecstatic about the difference!

Logic of English Foundations Cursive

Although Logic of English Foundations gives you the option for cursive or manuscript instruction, cursive is recommended; and I must say, this is another aspect of the program that I have been most impressed with.

Just the like the phonics, the writing instruction is simple, methodical, and logical. It engages both fine and gross motor skills, and it’s creative. This is Middlest’s favorite part. Games are a big part of this instruction as well, games that get my child out of her chair and moving. For my little wiggle-worm, this is ideal. We write in the air with our noses, elbows, feet, and fingers. She writes on my glass door and on my whiteboard. She writes on the line size that she is most comfortable with, and then we each draw funny faces over our favorite letter she’s written.

And honestly, there are days when I wouldn’t be able to tell her letters apart from mine; she’s learning it so well! As a matter of fact, I’ve retaught Oldest a few of the letters using the LOE program because he’s had so much trouble writing the letters with our original program. The LOE cursive makes so much sense and actually helps the children to be less confused about letter-formation. It’s a-mazing!

Logic of English Foundations comes in 6 different levels (A-F) with about 40 lessons each, equivalent of K4-2nd grade. These levels can be used one or more a year, depending on the level and maturity of the child. We opted for two levels this year. Though I probably could have jumped to Level B (a kindergarten equivalent), I really felt that Middlest would benefit from a quick review with the Logic of English approach. We are whizzing through Level A at about a lesson a day, and the lessons are taking roughly 20-30 minutes for both phonics and cursive instruction. We’ll slow down when we get to Level B and take a couple of days per lesson.

I couldn’t be more pleased with Foundations, and highly recommend it over any phonics program I’ve seen or used.

I received the Basic Phonograms cards as a part of an earlier review of the Essentials program. Otherwise, the only other materials I’ve purchased for Middlest are the teacher and student copies of Levels A and B and the Doodling Dragons app on iTunes for $4.99. Teacher copies are $38 each, and student workbooks are $18.

If you are looking for thorough phonics instruction that will totally engage your child, Logic of English Foundations is all that and more.

Notebooking Suffixes

April 3, 2013Tracy

I scoured the internet looking for notebooking pages to help Oldest with adding suffixes to root words. In the end, it probably would have been faster to just make my own, especially since that’s what I ended up having to do anyway.

We’ve been learning how to add suffixes to root words, which has not come easily for Oldest. And though this helped to enforce his lesson, we’re far from finished learning this.

Click on the image to download the printable.

After cutting out our mini-books to go on our notebooking page, I worked with him to make new words from the word bank that followed the rules on his mini-books. He added those example words to the inside of the mini-books. Then, he had fun glueing his mini-books to the page.

It was nice to get away from the work sheets for a little while and review this a little differently.

What other fun ideas do you have for teaching this concept?

Letter Tiles Printable

March 29, 2013Tracy

I’ve been working a lot with Middlest on “glueing” and un-glueing” the sounds in her words to help her with her reading. As a part of that process, I made up these little letter tiles that I thought I would share with you as a free printable.

The tiles two of each of the consonants as well as three sets of vowels. Right now, I have marked the vowels in each set to help us with long, short, and silent vowels. For instance, one set of vowels, I marked as short vowels; one set I marked as long vowels; and the last set I marked with a slash to show silent letters.

Really, I’m currently using only the short vowels and the long vowels with silent e. If we are struggling with a word in her reader, I’ll let her build the word by selecting the correct vowel from our sets. She’ll then sound out and read what she has built. I’ve also had fun using the tiles with the “Read-Build-Write” sheets from Homeschool Creations.

I laminated my tiles and am currently using them just like that; however, it would be easy enough to add a piece of adhesive magnet tape to have magnetic tiles or a piece of adhesive felt to use with a small felt board.

It’s been a fun, hands-on/visual activity to reinforce sounding out, spelling, and reading words.

Up Hill Battles

March 20, 2013Tracy

We’ve been struggling through long vowels with Middlest over the last several weeks. It’s a battle I remember having with Oldest, too, the mental struggle to separate short vowel words from long vowel words. Except Oldest was extremely motivated to learn to read, and Middlest? Middlest likes to play and to be fast.

After several teary lessons, I drew her a picture on our whiteboard, a colorful picture of a little girl at the bottom of a big hill. I explained, as I was drawing, that sometimes in life and in learning we have to go up big hills, like the hill in front of our house. It’s hard work. And sometimes, we have to take breaks. Sometimes, we have to look for other ways to get up the hill. We might have to get off our bicycle and push our way up the hill. But one thing we never do is give up and decide not to go up the hill at all.

Then, I went “back to the drawing board” (or rather, Google and pinterest) to look for new and different ways to teach her this concept. I also called my mom, who is an ever-present wealth of homeschool know-how. We pooled ideas, and I had an inkling of what I needed for Middlest.

I made up a few worksheets from the words in her reader that were giving her trouble. I also made up a few games from resources I’d found on the internet.

Long Vowel practice

Marking and reading her words (without pictures, so she can't guess) — Marking and reading her words (without pictures, so she can’t guess)

By the end of the week, she was making some progress. And by the next week, she was reading her story to Daddy and clipping along through her game, even after I added new cards. But I knew that we really had made some significant progress, when I saw a picture she was drawing at the end of that week.

Look who made it to the top of the hill!

It brought me to tears, folks. Those up-hill battles are totally worth it.

Core Tour: Keeping K4 Busy

February 20, 2013Tracy

This is post 2 of my short tour through our core subjects, what I’m using for phonics, reading, and math for my first grader and my preschooler.

Most of this year has been, in a way, free for Middlest. She has been using a great deal of Oldest’s left over pages from both K4 and the beginning review in K5. But she has absolutely flown through the material, which left me in a bit of a straight. Should I purchase new material and move her into kindergarten or push through this year with free pages I could find and print off the internet? We chose the free option.

So, my two primary sources of free work pages has been here and here. I’ve also made a few of my own when we’ve needed them and scoured both pinterest and the internet for other resources. Phew! It’s a lot of work and a lot of time, but it can be done. K4 has been virtually free of charge!

For phonics she worked through left-over pages in A Beka’s ABC-123 book and Letters and Sounds K5 (review pages). Now, she is working whatever I can find from the internet. Right now, we are working on long vowels in two-vowel words, silent e and silent second letters. I’ve googled both long vowels and silent e for activities and found quite a few resources. We’ve also used the little A Beka K4 readers.

For math, she used the left-over ABC-123 pages for this, too. Then whatever I could scour off the internet. I either look up kindergarten math (much of which she is ready for) or will search for particular concepts (time, pennies, beginning addition). For our time together, we count to 100, sing skip-counting songs that I’ve downloaded on iTunes, go through some flashcards, and maybe review a concept or two with clocks or money, etc.

Her day is not long at all. I probably keep her busy with handwriting (again, left-overs from K5 and even 1st grade manuscript books) and other worksheets for about 30 min. Then, we spend another 30 minutes together (15 min. for phonics and reading, 15 min. for math). She is my flighty little butterfly, and it’s really all she needs and all she is ready for right now. The rest of the time, she plays while I work with Oldest. She uses the ZooWhiz subscription that we got for free as a review product, or she plays at one of the activities I have pre-approved for her. She listens in on Oldest’s stories and lessons; she cuddles up for our Tapestry reading; and she memorizes our Scripture as well as quite a few of the history and science facts right along with Oldest.

Now, I’m really desperate to know—how do you keep your kindergarten-ready preschooler busy? Where do you go for free resources?