Tapestry of Grace Archives - Page 4 of 6

Teaching with Crafts

December 6, 2013Tracy

Confession Time—crafts and art are both my joy and my bane. I get so excited writing them onto the calendar and anticipating the experience, but then the day of the craft, it so easy to make excuses for not doing them.

I don’t have the right supplies.
We’re running an hour late in school.
Littlest is into EVERYTHING.
I’m going to be making most of the craft.
I have a splitting head-ache, and it’s flat time to end the day.

But then, when I do finally muster the time, supplies, and energy to pull it off, I never regret it. I never finish our craft time thinking “we should have just skipped this one.”

Part of the reason is that our crafts are tied into our learning. It’s not just busy work. These crafts either teach during the craft, reinforce the lesson, or encourage the kids to repeat the lesson over and over for “fun” (e.g. puppet shows!).

One of our recent crafts that was a huge winner was our Mezuzah crafts that went with our Story of the World lesson on the Jewish Dispersion or Diaspora. In fact, for all of the above reasons and a few more, I’d actually put this craft off for nearly a week. But the kids kept begging. And of course, I had all of those empty Nerd candy boxes that I’d been saving. Thus, we finally pulled it together, and I’m very glad we did.

First note, the instructions said to use matchboxes, but since I had a plethora of Nerd boxes after Halloween, I figured those ought to work just as well.

I hot glued the boxes together and wrapped them in foil. The kids cut out the shema and memorized it, then we stuffed it inside our boxes before gluing them closed. Then, the kids decorated them. With blue sticky tack, I hung them on their bedroom door frames.

For the rest of the day, as the kids ran in and out of their rooms, I heard them shouting the shema “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” (Deut. 6:4)

What I didn’t count on was Littlest, watching his big brother and sister, insist on touching the box before I carry him to bed each night.

So when the next craft time rolls around and I have all my excuses handy (and good excuses at that), prayerfully I’ll remember just how life-changing craft time can be.

Celebrating the Year’s End

May 31, 2013Tracy

We’ve managed two “unit celebrations” this year, one at mid-year and one now at the end of the year. I may never be able to manage more than two in a year, but it’s definitely been worth the effort.

I’d intended to have the party nearly 2 weeks ago, but things didn’t turn out as planned and our party got postponed indefinitely. So, rather on the spur of the moment, I figured it was now or never; and we declared it party-day.

The kids have had their projects done for awhile, waiting for me to declare the day. And we’ve been reviewing our flashcards each morning with a new app I’ve tried out and really like (flashcards+).

We served up chocolate chip cookie-cake and popcorn. I let the kids have free rein with the icing.

Then, we set up our display and the kids gave their presentations.

Middlest is sharing about Roman clothes with her paper dolls and diorama. — Middlest shared about Roman clothes with her paper dolls and diorama.

Oldest gave a dramatic retelling of the Punic Wars.

We watched a short video “yearbook” with clips of our memory work, and then it was time for the trivia game.

The kids talk smack with their dad for weeks before the game, and the hype is huge. The game is mostly between Dad and Oldest; I referee and give the questions from our flashcards; Middlest is on Oldest’s team and jumps in when she knows an answer.

Dad ended up winning this time, by 4 points. But even this was a great lesson on character rather than just history facts. This kids talked on and on about what fun they had, in spite of Dad’s big win. Especially for my super competitive and perfectionist son, it was great to reflect on how much fun you can even if you aren’t the winner. Plus, it keeps them motivated with their flashcards; Dad is tough competition.

Another wonderful plus about these little parties is the opportunity we get to bring Dad into our learning. It’s the kids’ opportunity for some show-and-tell, and Dad learns right along with us to be able to keep up with his fierce competitors.

And the most obvious reward is celebrating what the kids have accomplished. All the hard work over the past weeks and months gets recognized.

A few days after our party, a used car commercial came on announcing their end of the year “summer celebration” sale. Middlest lit up immediately, “We had one of those!” Mission accomplished: a year celebrated and a summer begun.

Tapestry of Grace, after a year

May 29, 2013Tracy3 Comments

This year was our first (long-awaited) year for both classical education and Tapestry of Grace curriculum. And it was as awesome as I dreamed it would be. There definitely was a learning curve and lots of adjustments along the way, but the core of what I was looking forward to with Tapestry was definitely accomplished.

Tapestry of Grace is a classical/unit studies curriculum that covers the humanities: history, geography, art, writing/literature, and Bible/church history. It is full of read-alouds and hands-on learning. It is absolutely anything you want to make it to be, which is why there’s a learning curve. The choices are there for you to select from, but there is no lesson plan per se.

We’ve had a fantastic time with it, especially as I settled into a method toward the end of the year. I’m still tweaking, still learning. But it’s been a fantastic journey.

What I loved:

learning as a family

I have really enjoyed incorporating the Bible and church history into the world history and cultural studies of the time period. I’ve loved weaving the story and truths of redemption and contrasting those realities with the myths and false religions of the surrounding civilizations. I’ve loved seeing my kids light up when they see a name from history in their Bible reading. And I’ve loved having us all learn together.

What I’d change:

Tapestry gives tons of choices, but it sometimes felt that the flow of the story was sacrificed. We read about culture here, architecture there, government here, a biography over here, and Bible over there; and at the end, even I had trouble seeing how it all came together. The teacher notes helped, but those were so above my kid’s heads that I had to basically interpret and narrate passages to them. It just didn’t fit as nicely as I would have liked.

Mid-way through the year, I added a timeline study and some lapbooks, which helped tremendously. I’m still experimenting here and making decisions; it’s not exactly what I want it to be yet, but we’ll get there. And I can’t wait for next year.

How I’m planning:

As I prepare for next year’s study with Tapestry of Grace, I’m keeping pretty much the same approach as this year with a few variations. Next year, we’ll be studying the Middle Ages all the way up to the Revolutionary War. It’s a huge span of history, and an enormous selection of readers and projects.

Last year, just to get a feel for what would work for us, we purchased just about everything: DE (digital plans) and printed plans, Map Aids, Pop Quiz (audio and flashcards for Dad to follow along), Evaluations (test and quiz questions), and a Student Pak. This year, I only purchased the DE and the Map Aids.

I found the printed plans too overwhelming. I had two 3″ binders of plans, about 30 pages for each week of study. It was so much easier for me to maneuver through all of that info on a computer than to flip pages.
Pop Quiz was a great idea, but didn’t end up working well for us. I loved the thought of Dad following along with us. But so much of the time it seemed that the Pop Quiz questions were over extra details rather than the meat of the lesson. Since I had small Lower Grammar students, we often did not cover much more than the main emphasis of the week.
Evaluations I used only as a source for my flashcards, and this year I’m going to try something else with my flashcards.
I only ended up using a couple of activities from the Student Pak. The activities only loosely related to the stories and ended up largely being busy work that we just didn’t have time for.
Map Aids I loved and used extensively. I tried several different methods for our map work but always had these as the main resource.
As far as selecting a spine resource, a main resource to use through most of the unit or the year, I’m going to try out Story of the World this next year. It’s listed as an alternate spine resource in the Tapestry plans, and it has audios. My kids love audio books, and having someone else do the reading will free me up to do a few other things (like potty-train Littlest, Eek!)

As far as the reading selections, my first stop is always to compare the Primary and Alternate Resource List with what is at our library. And I’m getting much better at finding what we need at our library. Not only do I search the exact titles, but I also take a key word to search the person, event, or time period. This really broadened my search and narrowed my list of resources to purchase.

*Another lesson learned, last year I ordered a few different Upper Grammar resources, intending to use these as read-alouds. While my children are definitely used to having advanced stories read to them, it wasn’t the vocabulary or diction that posed the biggest problem. Many of these readers contained content that was just a little too mature for my little ones. Just an FYI.*

Another way I narrowed our purchase-list was limiting our reading. This was tough. But after this year, I have a much more realistic expectation of what we will be able to get through. I tried to pick one or two read-alouds per unit instead of per week. Then, I chose one or, in some rare instances, two books that Oldest can read either by himself or with a little read-aloud help from me.

The last thing that was a little different this year was that I felt a little freer to customize. Last year, I wanted to follow as closely to Tapestry as I possibly could until I knew what it had to offer. Now, I’m feeling confident enough to use Tapestry to fit our family, to mold it and select from it, and even to deviate from it slightly. For instance, Tapestry of Grace didn’t emphasize the Reformation nearly as much as I’d like to, so I’m straying from their recommended resources for those weeks and selecting a few of my own to fit our needs.

Also, I’m going with the Story of the World activity book rather than the various activity books that Tapestry recommends, for a couple of reasons. For one, I’m looking for simple this next year (did I mention potty-training is on the horizon?) Many of the recommended activities within the Tapestry resources were very involved and required supplies I don’t usually have on hand (terra cotta clay, metal washers and wire, etc.) The activities are really cool, but very hard to fit into our school week. I needed something that the kids could make with scissors, colored pencils, glue, and toilet paper rolls. Know what I mean? Story of the World has, at the very least, coordinating coloring pages; sounds perfect. My second reason was that my library as an excellent selection of these types of books, not always the exact titles but definitely comparable. If we really felt the itch to do something extra, I could check out my library for the really extreme crafts.

With a year of Tapestry under our belt and another year’s planning nearly done, I’m thankful to report that this curriculum is the perfect fit for us, especially since we get to make it a custom fit.

Making Memory Work Memorable

April 17, 2013Tracy1 Comment

I love homeschooling. And one of the things I love most about it is getting to play with my kids (that’s right, we play!) But we play with a purpose.

We make art, we sing and do chants, we read stories, we solve puzzles—and we learn. And while I prescribe to the classical idea that young children are equipped for an amazing comprehension of facts, I don’t think all that memory work has to be dull drill. In fact, I think my kids would tell you that we have tons of fun.

As I’ve tried to actively incorporate memory work into every subject, I’ve also tried to actively vary how we do the memory work and repetition. For instance, we do have some flashcards—for math, for phonics, even for our history. But that’s not all we do.

Songs and chants

It amazes me just how much a child can learn when something is put to a tune or a rhythm. Last year, they memorized tons of countries they could barely pronounce simply because they loved the music. This year, we’re following the same concept. As much as I can, we sing what we want to learn, finding most of our music on either iTunes or youtube.

Hand Motions

When we aren’t singing, we’re moving (and often, we’re doing both). Hand gestures help to anchor the word pictures and concepts we are memorizing. We use hand gestures for Bible memory, poetry, and our history timeline. And I don’t come up with all of them on my own! Often, I’ll recruit their help to find a motion that will help them remember the ideas.

Flashcards

Okay, so it’s not all fun and games. But even the drill can be fun. For instance, sometimes I’ve taken our stack of flashcards outside to our favorite spot on the bridge. Sometimes, I let Middlest’s favorite monkey answer for her; we check to see how much Monkey has learned. Then, there’s the motivation that Dad just might “whup up” on them at our next unit celebration; after all their Daddy is a smart Daddy.

Lapbooks

I’ve also embraced lapbooking over the last couple of months. I resisted it for awhile because it’s messy, it takes some advanced planning, and it takes some space to store all of those projects. But I’ve also really liked them for a few reasons: lapbooking is a fun way to review memory work (who doesn’t like a flap book?); lapbooking allows us to get the big picture from all of the little facts we memorize (i.e. we can see the whole human body coming together as we memorize one organ and system at a time); lapbooking provides a means for me to begin teaching concepts of display and presentation for when they get older (think poster boards, display boards, and science fairs).

We lapbooked the kings of Israel and Judah. I wrote the names on popsicle sticks, and they matched them to the list in their lapbook. We also incorporated chant and rhythm as we recited our list. We didn't memorize the whole list, but they became very familiar with which kings were good and which were evil. — We lapbooked the kings of Israel and Judah. I wrote the names on popsicle sticks, and they matched them to the list in their lapbook. We also incorporated chant and rhythm as we recited our list. We didn’t memorize the whole list, but they became very familiar with which kings were good and which were evil.

So while we have a ton of memory work incorporated into our day from math, phonics, history, Bible, and science, it honestly just feels like a lot of playtime, which is exactly what I was going for—memory work that makes for fun memories.

Fun with Maps

April 10, 2013Tracy7 Comments

We’ve done a lot of experimenting this year as we’ve launched our first year of classical curriculum. I knew that would be the case, which has helped me to keep an open mind when things haven’t gone as well as I had hoped. Map work is one of those areas where we’ve done a lot of experimenting, trying to find the best method for learning our maps.

I love map work. It is a definite kinesthetic activity to add to a history study, and there are lots of different ways to explore them. I know, because I’ve tried several.

First, I made labels for the kids to stick to the maps as we learned the different areas. That worked okay, but I wasn’t thrilled. It was hard to review everyday, and they only got to put the stickers on once a week (not to mention it took a lot of label making).

Then, I put the map for the week in a page protector and had Oldest trace it each day with a dry-erase marker. He enjoyed that, but I wasn’t convinced that he was really learning all that I wanted him to learn. And it did demand a little bit of fine motor skills.

So we’re on our third attempt. And right now, I’m thrilled with it. I keep the answer key map in a page protector in his assignment notebook for him to review (we also review together during our read-aloud time). Then, I have a blank version of the map magnetized to the side of our file cabinet. I made “labels” (strips of an index card with a piece of adhesive magnet tape on the back) for him to stick to the map as he reviews.

Each day, I have assigned three or four new magnet labels for him to find on his map and label on the blank map. He adds his new magnets and reviews the old magnets each day. The activity is pretty independent, as he has the answers in his notebook. He has to find the sea or the city or the island name, etc., on his own. Of course, he loves to show me his work, and I review with him once he’s found the places.

It’s an activity that he is enjoying doing over and over again. After all, what kid doesn’t like to play with magnets. He’s really learning these locations from all the review. And though it takes a little more time for me to prep at the beginning of each week, it doesn’t take as much one-on-one during the week.

I also am going to be more selective with my maps and try to select maps that build a broader view each week, rather than skipping around the region. That way, I can reuse and review the magnets that I have made, and Oldest will get a better view of where his maps fit in with the big picture.

So far, it’s been a big win all around.

Celebrating Success

February 27, 2013Tracy1 Comment

I’ve mentioned a few of the changes we’ve made to help Tapestry of Grace work for us, and I mentioned my ideas for our upcoming unit celebration. Well, this is an update on how all of that came together for us.

We celebrated our first “unit” celebration which actually incorporated two different units. The kids had been working hard on flashcard facts, timeline chants, our Bible memory, and lapbooks. All of that was on display for our celebration.

Knowing that they would be battling it out with Daddy during our “Tapestry Bowl” trivia contest, the kids were super motivated to memorize their facts. They recited things like the three stages of the mummification process, the three Patriarchs, the definition of a covenant, the definition of a civilization, the definition of an empire, the 2 cities of the Indus River Civilization, the 4 dynasties of ancient China, etc.

Our Tapestry Bowl consisted of three rounds plus a final round, with each round getting tougher and worth more points.

We had a show and tell time, where the kids took turns sitting with Dad and showing off their notebooks, lapbooks, report cards, etc.

And of course, we snacked. There was no ethnic food or elaborate costumes involved. Just comfortable jammies, some popcorn, gummy worms, and mint Oreos (yum!) Yet, it was a perfect reward for all their hard work, it allowed us to unite as a family in what we were learning, and it gave the kids a chance to review and recite all that they had learned.

Mission accomplished!

Learning Curve

January 23, 2013Tracy1 Comment

I read on many blogs and in many different places that there is a definite learning curve with Tapestry of Grace. Many even named it “the four-week fog.” I’d say my first four weeks were great; my fog came a little later in the process.

Tapestry provides resources for a week’s worth of history, geography, Bible, literature, and art. Especially in Unit 2, we cover a civilization a week! (My head is still spinning.) But as if that weren’t difficult enough to coordinate, I think I’m still trying to combine two different teaching approaches. I’m traditional when it comes to reading, math, and phonics, and classical with everything else.

How does that work? You ask. I’m not sure it does to be honest. And I think that’s why I’m in the TOG fog. For example, for literature/reading I’m trying to keep up with the Tapestry suggestions while still going through the A Beka 1st grade readers. See what I mean? traditional and classical. We’re trying to notebook our history every now and then while doing separate copywork and cursive writing practice. Hmmm. Are you getting a clear picture?

As a result of all of this, I’m not really satisfied with anything right now. Tapestry is an extra and not weaving in as beautifully as I’d wanted. (not to mention all the work to be done) We aren’t learning the “grammar” of these civilizations in the classical fashion, though the kids are still absorbing a lot (is that the Charlotte Mason method or just my own invention?). “Tapestry is the dessert at the lower level” is the advice I’ve often read. We’ve definitely enjoyed what we’ve done, but I guess I was hoping for a little more.

So what am I doing about it? Ah! That’s the question.

Believe it or not, I went back to the drawing board and looked at other curriculums, everything from Veritas Press to Classical Conversations, only to come right back to Tapestry. I do still love this curriculum. I love that all the humanities are combined. I love the book choices. I love the Biblical emphasis. But there are other things I like about other programs.

I like the idea of the Veritas Press timeline cards and required memory work in Classical Conversations. Tapestry has the children experiencing history and culture, and I’m thrilled with that but I don’t want it to be at the expense of memorization. Tapestry provides suggested terms and “threads” as well as some evaluation questions, but there isn’t a suggested method for teaching those facts. I’m on my own to figure out what I want them to know and how I want them to learn it.

I like the central storyline offered in Mystery of History and Story of the World. Though the TOG book choices for history are wonderful and engaging, it feels far from fluid; and right now, the provided teacher notes are WAY over my kids’ heads. So I need to find someway of connecting all the elements of Tapestry so that we don’t feel as random and sporadic as I do right now. Transitioning from one civilization to another has also been troublesome. It feels a little like a hop-scotch game right now: I’ve got one foot in India, then one foot in China, and next I’m jumping with both feet into Greece.

So what am I going to do about it? Back to that question again. Well, in my search through other curriculums over the Christmas break, I found some solutions that I’m starting to adapt.

For memory work, I’m experimenting with a two-prong approach. First, I scoured youtube videos for presentations of the Veritas Press timeline (here’s the one I chose). There are quite a few videos, actually, of teachers and students performing the very impressive history of the world from Creation to present day. I’m memorizing the timeline and gestures from these performances and in turn teaching the kids. No flashcards, just the hand movements and facts chant.

Second, I had purchased the Tapestry evaluations but decided not to use them because it would have been impossible to require knowledge of that information from the reading we have done, especially as young as my kids are. But, those evaluations have made a good source for finding flashcard information. I went through the entire year’s worth of evaluations and made 3×5 flashcards of the facts I want them to know. Then, I filed them in a 3×5 card holder under each unit. These flashcards will be the source of the trivia questions for our unit celebrations. The kids are pumped and very motivated to memorize the facts.

For the final solution, finding that common thread through our study, I’ve decided to switch from notebooking to lapbooking (you’re laughing, aren’t you?). In spite of my hesitation to do lapbooks, I have definitely seen the value of them with my kids right now. The lapbook allows all of those seemingly miscellaneous facts to come together into one project to tell a story. It does provide a completed picture that notebooking was currently accomplishing. The timeline, too, will help with this, allowing all the countries and all the stories to fit together into one history. And I found a tremendous resource of free lapbooking ideas that follow the Tapestry outline.

I’m definitely open to other ideas, and I’d love to know what others have done to encourage memorization at the Lower Grammar level. In the meantime, I’d appreciate your prayers for wisdom and discernment as we attempt to make this curriculum our own.