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Next Year Plans 2015-2016

May 20, 2015Tracy1 Comment

I must confess, planning for this next school year’s homeschool curriculum was much less difficult than it has been in the past. We had so much success this year that I had little to research and change. And while it was very nice to have those decisions pretty well made, I kind of missed the search-and-find part of the process. I’m thrilled that we’ve found the pieces that fit just right for us. It’s been a great fit this year, a perfect balance. So, here is our master list for next year’s plans, our homeschool curriculum in 2015-2016 (4th grade, 2nd grade, and preschool).

Plans for Grade 4:

Christian Light Publications Grade 4 Math

Alpha Omega Grade 4 Language Arts

Easy Grammar/Daily Grams 4

Spelling Power, 1st edition

Visual Latin 1 (second half)

Legends and Leagues geography (North, South, East—one for each school term)

My State Notebook, A Beka

Tapestry of Grace year 4, Upper Grammar (with Draw through History and Time Travelers Pak activities)

Plans for Grade 2:

Christian Light Publication Grade 2 Math

Logic of English Foundations D

Legends and Leagues (original book and workbook)

Tapestry of Grace Year 4, Lower Grammar (with Draw through History and Time Traveler Pak activities)

We’ll also be studying Norman Rockwell and Kandinsky for art, as well as jazz and Louis Armstrong for music.

Plans for “Preschool” (3 year old)

Nothing heavy here, trust me. But I have to plan something to keep Little Man out of trouble. And he loves “plojects.” Honestly, I’m aiming for exploration. And while I don’t have anything finalized, I expect to use a lot of Pinterest ideas, some resources from Letter of the Week (COAH), and some inspiration from The Homegrown Preschooler. I also want to implement a lot of Montessori activities with him.

Littlest is such a sponge. He does a lot of counting, can recognize a few different letters, and knows his colors pretty well with absolutely no formal instruction from me. He’s too little to have a learning style just yet, but he clearly loves to explore rather than pursue anything structured. I’m really okay with that for now. I love setting out the supplies and letting him explore them on his own.

We do have a “summer school” schedule that I’ll post more details about soon. And I can’t wait to get into that learning mode. In the meantime, I’ll have to satisfy my curriculum-hunting instincts by delving into some preschool pinterest boards.

Update on our Tapestry changes

April 23, 2015Tracy2 Comments

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 Tapestry changes been a roaring success. Amidst all of this year’s challenges—our ADHD diagnoses, potty training Littlest (for the third and last attempt), and my husband’s second back surgery in roughly a year—homeschool has still happened somehow, and we’ve actually learned quite a bit. In spite of our many challenges, there has been so much to love. And our Tapestry changes were a huge part of that, allowing us the margin for life.

I’ve loved the freedom of studying by topic, moving on when our books are read and our projects are done. It was a little scary to remove the deadlines and assignment dates. There was a fear that we would not get everything done. But what happened was that some topics didn’t take as long as I planned, while others took longer, and in the end it all worked out. And I loved the freedom of never being “behind” in our work.

I loved working in 12-week Terms rather than 9-week Units. It gave me the freedom to plan our breaks when we needed them, and to plan them for as long as I needed them to be. It also gave us margin, the white space to catch up on life when we needed it. For instance, we took the whole month of December off. It was lovely!

And I love feeling like we’ve finished when I need to feel that way. Any homeschooler will admit that February/March is the hardest time of year. It’s burnout time. It’s the time when you are ready to be done; mommy and kids feel it. To have that last term totally different is absolutely a breath of fresh air. And it’s time to get out in the fresh air. The weather is getting beautiful and there’s an itch to be out in it. I’m embracing that itch.

What else has worked well?

Relaxed mornings and hard-core lessons after lunch. Around 10:30 or 11 we meet for our read-aloud and projects, break for lunch, and start on math and language arts after lunch. We finish at 3 or 3:30. On co-op days, karate days, and other busy times, we skip the read-alouds and just tackle our core subjects. Even so, we’ve read everything on our list, completed every project, and finished both Terms on schedule. This schedule has been a life-saver. When mornings are totally over-run with parenting and “character training” (if you know what I mean), I don’t feel behind for dealing with hearts and having those long, unplanned-for conversations.

Our projects fit us perfectly; both kids love it. It’s easy for me to plan for supplies and print what we need. And Praise God! my older kids are finally at the age they can cut their own projects out. Hallelujah!

Not all my changes worked. And the ones that weren’t working were quickly scrapped. But overall, this has been a year of incredible grace as we found the margin we so desperately needed and found the learning pace that fits us.

Tailoring Tapestry of Grace to a Custom-Fit

November 6, 2014Tracy3 Comments

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. One of those questions: why had I loved Tapestry to begin with? My #1 reason wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t the book lists or activities; it wasn’t necessarily the whole family learning or the integration of subjects. I love many of those aspects, but at the top of my list was customization. Of course, you CAN customize just about any curriculum, but what I love is that Tapestry of Grace is designed to be customized.

I “customize” and find substitutes for a lot of the books a lot of the time. The activity suggestions I’ve almost entirely replaced; they just didn’t our family and my time-limits. I loved the Bible suggestions and world-view, but even those were merely a jumping off point.

Bottom-line, I’m not a curriculum-follower; I’m a curriculum-creator with not enough time to create from scratch. Tapestry of Grace allows me to customize, and I love that.

After learning that about myself and about Tapestry, I’m maximizing that possibility. I am customizing the curriculum to the point where some of you might not even recognize it. I’m tailoring Tapestry of Grace, and I’m loving it so far.

Tailoring Tapestry by Topics, not Weeks

Toward the end of last year, I found myself totally overwhelmed with keeping up with the week plans. Trying to accomplish the reading deadlines was throttling our joy of reading and learning together. I hated it. To survive, I tossed the week plans and studied by topic instead. We studied the explorers, the colonies, and the American War for Independence. We moved on when we were ready, when our books were read—and we took the time to enjoy our books.

This worked so well that I’ve implemented it from the very beginning of this year. I’ve selected the events we will cover (and we won’t cover them all; no history curriculum does) and arranged our terms by topic instead of by week.

I do have a rough idea of how long we will spend on each topic, but I’m keeping it rough.

Tailoring Tapestry by Terms, not Units

Tapestry is divided into four 9-week units. But I overhauled this, too. It became difficult last year to work our vacations around our units. Also, some units were very busy while others seemed pretty empty. By arranging our year by topics, I could smooth these busy times out. But then my units were all messed up.

Instead of units, I’ve arranged our year into three Terms of about 12 weeks. Tapestry, for the most part, will fit into the first two terms. (That’s right, 24 weeks instead of 36.) And the last term will be for science. Why?

To counter-act burnout. When spring hits, I’m ready for a change and so are the kids. Tapestry felt like it dragged on forever both years we’ve done it. When the sun comes out, I want to study outside and explore. Science seems like such a natural subject that time of year.

I’ve even rearranged Tapestry topics to tailor this. For instance, at different points in Year 3 we are supposed to study inventors and inventions. I’ve pulled these weeks out of place and arranged that topic for part of our science study in Term 3.

I told you, I gave Tapestry a massive overhaul. But it’s custom, and it fits.

Q/A:

What about maps?

I’m only using the maps as a reference point for our reading and discussion. We will be using the Classical Conversations dry-erase “Trivium Table” maps instead. And an old GeoSafari, for those who remember what that is.

What about chronology?

I’ve kept the topics in order for the most part. The only rearranged item were the inventors. I’m really wanting to free us up to form relationships with the people we are studying, something I felt too rushed to do in the past.

What about books?

I use Tapestry as a starting point and search my library by topic. I also do a lot of comparing on the SimplyCharlotteMason.com website. I’m pickier about book choices. We only have time for the best, living books. No dry fact summaries. And I’m not opposed to searching Netflix or my library’s videos. Liberty Kids was a life-saver toward the end of last year, and very effective.

What about activities?

There’s nothing wrong with Tapestry activities. In fact, when I first looked at Tapestry, this was a huge selling point for me—making bricks like the Israelites did, making armor like the medieval knights wore, etc. But, life happened. And I realize that I’m just not up for that most of the time. I don’t happen to have rebar or cement or wire or washers on hand. Not to mention that I’m tired of feeling guilty for not fitting it in. It’s just not us. (Not that my kids wouldn’t love it. You are more than welcome to come over and stomp bricks with them in the wading pool. But I’m lucky to have supper cooked and laundry caught up.)

Oldest likes to draw and caption, while Middlest likes to imagine and execute her own craft ideas. We like paper-crafts with glue and scissors. That’s more our speed.

Why do Tapestry at all if you are going to maul it like that?

This is my own question asked to myself. And my answer is, I looked at all the other curriculums very closely once more. Tapestry still had the core of what I wanted, more so than all the others. I like the literature woven into the history, I like the discussions and world view highlights, I like the 4 year rotation and the classical learning divisions (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric). I like that Tapestry was designed to be customized.

So there you have it. A face-lift, an overhaul, or a demolition—whatever you want to call it, I call it tailoring Tapestry of Grace to a perfect custom-fit.

**UPDATE: Curious to see how this turned out for us? Check out my update on our Tapestry of Grace changes.**

The 2014-15 Curriculum Reveal

June 20, 2014Tracy6 Comments

Disclaimer: This post contains one affiliate link, which means that if you make a purchase through that link, I get a small compensation. You can read more in my disclosure.

So, I’ve been busy. Plotting, planning, scheming, conniving, imagining, dreaming, wishing, purchasing, drooling, planning some more, etc. Many of you can probably relate. And I’m finally—FINALLY—ready to share next year’s vision.

Are you ready for this reveal?

Here it is: our 2014-2015 School Year, in all it’s glory!

Tot Time

For my toddler, I’m mostly keeping him occupied. But I did pick up this super easy and cute activity book that I happened to notice at the A Beka Materials Display in our area.

Nursery Arts and Crafts

I loved that the activities were pretty easy, AND they were organized by week. Glory! Which made them very easy to file into my weekly file folder system. He’ll do 2 to 3 of these activities a week. And I’ll probably recruit Middlest to help him with what he can’t manage on his own.

First Grade

Middlest is entering first grade. I can’t believe it! Her curriculum is pretty simple.

Foundations C (Logic of English)

A Beka Arithmetic 1

When she finishes her phonics book, which she will probably do pretty quickly based on her progress this last year, I’ll either have her begin Writing with Ease or English for the Thoughtful Child.* (See my notes on this below)

Third Grade

The bulk of my time has been spent on researching third grade books. Oh, my goodness, the hours I spent on this! But I am happy with the results.

CLE Math 300 series

I’m switching from A Beka to Christian Light this next year. We did a trial run with a couple of the 2nd grade math books from this company, and we both loved it. My primary reason for switching was that I needed a curriculum less teacher-dependent. Even though many use A Beka as a student-led curriculum, it isn’t designed to be used that way, and I could foresee problems with that. What I loved about CLE is that it is very much like A Beka in content (it’s still very challenging), and yet it is designed for independence. The teaching instruction is included right in the student’s book. Oldest loved this, too. He always found the A Beka explanations to be too brief and confusing. As an added bonus, CLE is strong in geometry and critical thinking, two areas I always felt we were a little behind in with A Beka.

Visual Latin I (lessons 1-12)

Winston Grammar

A Beka 3rd Grade Cursive Writing Skillbook

English for the Thoughtful Child*

This link is not actually to EFTC book, because I found an older ebook version of the same text. It’s dated and not in textbook format, but I love the style. Not to mention, I love FREE! The name of this is actually Lessons in the Use of English. We started using this at the end of this year, just so I could see if I was going to like it. And I totally do.

I also picked up the A Beka cursive book. This is a huge surprise for me because I have NEVER liked A Beka handwriting. But when I saw this book, it was everything I wanted to accomplish with our Charlotte Mason-style copywork, already done for me! This is a really amazing book. Short excerpts from historical documents; character traits, quotations, Bible verses; state information; short science sentences with an animal glossary to teach alphabetical order—it was a dream come true. And Oldest is stoked. He wanted to begin this summer, but I’m being mean and making him wait.

Combined Studies

We always have several subjects that we do all together. To help myself, I’ve divided all of our subjects into subjects of Discipline (math, grammar and usage, foreign language) and subjects of Inspiration. The Discipline subjects are grade-specific; but our Inspiration subjects are more relaxed and inclusive. They include history, science, art, music, poetry, reading, etc.

Tapestry of Grace, Year 3 (lower grammar and upper grammar)

Activity Supplements include Time Traveler pak Early 19th Century, Draw through History: Napoleon, and History Pockets Civil War.

Kinderbach Level 2

See the Light Art Class (affiliate link)

Artist Study: Frederick Remington and Winslow Homer

Ecology and Biomes (various library books and memory work from the Classical Conversations apps 1 & 2)

That’s our year in a nutshell. It’s always so exciting to start putting the pieces together and seeing the plan unfold. And I’m unfolding it a little differently this year, truly customizing Tapestry to the max. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Disclaimer: This post contains one affiliate link, which means that if you make a purchase through that link, I get a small compensation. You can read more in my disclosure.

Homeschooling Simplicity: Simplifying Tapestry

May 6, 2014Tracy2 Comments

I’m trying to achieve simplicity for the rest of this year and the upcoming year, to give my kids a quality education while allowing us to live life, the life God’s given us. I’ve been tackling several different areas of our homeschool where I felt the pressure getting a little out of hand, one of those has been our integrated history studies through Tapestry of Grace. Because Tapestry includes plans for all twelve grades and ideas for all the learning styles, it can easily become too much if you try to do it all. It’s meant to be a buffet, where you pick and choose the ideas and projects that fit your family best. Even so, I desperately needed to make a change: simplifying Tapestry has breathed new life into our homeschool day.

Simplifying Tapestry

I love that Tapestry will fit into the Charlotte Mason method well while still maintaining the tenants of classical education that I value. But I am changing the way we do a few things. I’m simplifying Tapestry of Grace, or at least how we use it, to fit our family and our needs right now. One of those chief needs is for short lessons.

Organizing by topic. I’ve begun to prep the unit by topic rather than by week. That means, I request the books from the library for the whole unit, arrange the order we’ll read those books, print off the TOG pages we’ll need to go along with those books and topics, and then close the curriculum and don’t look at it again until the next unit.

This allows us the freedom to maintain short lessons (the Charlotte Mason way) and enjoy the journey. I no longer worry that “I HAVE to finish a book in a single week because we have three more books to start next week.” Instead, when we finish one set of books, we move to the next in my sequence. Sometimes it takes more time, and sometimes it takes less.

Choosing an emphasis. I’ve also started choosing our emphasis rather than emphasizing every event in history, as I’ve done in the past. We don’t HAVE to cover the Pilgrims, Catherine the Great, the wars in Europe, and the British conqest of India all in one week. I choose our emphasis and allow myself the freedom to pick another emphasis on the next rotation of history. {allow me to take a huge sigh of relief here}

Simplifying mapwork. Last but not least, I’m simplifying mapwork. Rather than a new map each week, I’m choosing one or two maps per unit, depending on what we are studying. Again, I’m allowing us the time to make a relationship and form connections with the places we are studying. Not to mention that it makes my life a whole lot easier.

Let me give you an example here. We’ve spent 3-4 weeks on the map of the 13 original colonies. The first week, I gave Oldest the teacher map and sheets of tracing paper. Each day, he traced the map on the paper. Week 2, he drew his own map while looking at the original. Week 3 and 4, he drew it without looking. The result? That boy knows his colonies! He has a relationship with them; he’s memorized them just from this activity; he perks up in each of our stories when a particular colony is mentioned; he’s never taken more than 5-10 minutes a day on mapwork. Because we stretched this out, he’s had a greater depth of understand and stayed within our “short lesson” rule.

The beauty of Tapestry of Grace, one of the reasons I loved it to begin with, is that it allows for customizing to fit your family. I’m so thankful I’m finally allowing myself to maximize that benefit by simplifying Tapestry and how we use it. It’s been a breath of fresh grace in our homeschool.

Want an update on our Tapestry journey? Read about the benefits of using a literature-rich curriculum with ADHD/Dyslexia.

Unit Celebration: the Middle Ages

January 3, 2014Tracy

We’ve wrapped up about 10 weeks of knights, castles, vikings, Black Death, and Joan of Arc. And we’ve kicked off our year with our first fun-filled unit celebration. Our Tapestry of Grace curriculum (see my affiliate link in the side bar) recommends closing out each unit with a party, a celebration of all that the kids have learned. And while, yes, this means more work for Mommy, it also is a way for Daddy to connect with what the kids are learning and for all of us to reflect on exactly what we did accomplish over those hours and days and weeks.

What do we do?

While some families make costumes and reenact dramas, that’s just not our style. Of course, my kids would love to dress up. But I don’t sew. And if I tried to sew, they probably wouldn’t want to wear the result. So, we celebrate in other ways:

displays,
a trivia game with Dad,
and a home video of all their recitations.

My history backdrop, a huge fold-out timeline, produced by Answers in Genesis called Big Book of History.

We set up displays of history and art projects, science, and for this celebration, latin. We’ve been using Song School Latin, and Middlest wanted to create a diorama from the vocab she’s been learning. The kids notebooks are also on display.

Next, we play a game of trivia with the facts the kids have been learning. Daddy gets to look over the questions briefly before the game (which is all he needs; he’s awesome like that). This year, I’ve made a board game for our review, and it worked so well! It took the pressure off of the questions themselves, and allowed everyone to have a good time. The score was fun, but not the ultimate factor. In fact, it was so much fun, the kids were ready to play a second round!

Our homemade goblets, foil hot-glued to solo cups.

We enjoyed a meal of rotisserie chicken and green beans with bread, and the kids begged me to make “mead” (the unfermented version with water, orange slices, and honey). It was an authentic as we wanted to get. Oh, and the kids did decide to eat with their fingers, in true medieval style.

We finished the night off with a home video I put together of the kids reciting their timeline (Creation to Joan of Arc, woo-hoo!) and some catechism songs we’ve been working on. This was so much fun, especially because I let my kids be themselves in the videos with only a few interventions. My only requirement was that they be clear and understandable. So my hams really hammed it up. We laughed and laughed together.

It really was a celebration. And in spite of the extra work, it was well worth it to see what it is that we really do get done in a day’s work.

Free Board Game Printable

December 13, 2013Tracy1 Comment

We are gearing up for our first unit celebration of the year, and I’ve been busy plotting our fun. Last year, we made some very special memories playing “Daddy vs. the kids” using the flashcard facts the kids had been working on. I wanted to continue that tradition this year, with a few changes.

After much thought and tons of prayer, I’m excited about out new Board Game Review (Boring name, I know. I’m taking suggestions.) Here’s how our game works. I have our flashcard facts written on 3×5 cards to use as playing cards in a stack turned face down.

1. Roll the dice.

2. Draw a card and answer the question.

3. If answered correctly, move the number of spaces on the dice.

4. Write down the points for the space you landed on.

5. Progress to the end, repeating steps 1-4, and tally point totals.

Let me illustrate for you. Player 1 rolls a 3 and answers the question correctly. He moves 3 spaces and gets 3 points. On his next turn, he rolls a 1 and answers correctly. He only moves one space, but this time he earns 4 points (because he landed on the 4). On his next turn, he rolls a 6 and answers correctly. He moves 6 spaces to the space marked with a “10” and earns 10 more points.

I’m really hopeful about this version of our game because the point totals are not in direct correlation to the questions themselves. Plus, each player gets 100 points just for finishing!

Want to play your own version? Here’s your board game printable. Just make up your own cards, borrow some pawn game pieces from another board game, and roll your dice!