Tapestry of Grace Archives - Growing In Grace

Middle School Homeschool Curriculum Favorites

June 28, 2020Tracy

This homeschool year, I have two of my kids in middle school—6th grade and 8th grade. To say I was nervous about these transitions would be an understatement. Though I definitely miss the lower elementary years of crafts and messy projects, adventurous learning and cozy read-alouds, these years of growth and independence and deep conversations have been a blast as well. I actually love homeschooling my middle schoolers. And while settling on homeschool curriculum for middle school has been a little bit of trial and error, I’m pretty happy with how our year has wrapped up.

Second Grade Homeschool Curriculum Favorites

May 15, 2020Tracy4 Comments

This homeschool year, my youngest began second grade. It’s hard for me to believe that after all these years, I’m done with rainbow counting bears and letters of the alphabet. I’m savoring every moment of these younger years with him; they are some of my favorite in the homeschooling journey. These are the years of enthusiastic wonder, and lots of energy! I love his boyishness and his sense of humor, and how these characteristics play a part in all of his learning.

He has his own set of struggles, working through some mild dyslexia and dysgraphia. And with a family full of ADHD, it’s hard to tell right now how much is second-grade boyishness and how much is his own potential ADHD presenting. He’s my clown and a regular performer, and often after our once a week class at a local charter school, I was informed of his frequent interruptions. When I questioned him about one of those incidents, he answered so matter of factly: “It was interesting and I had lots of questions!” I have no doubt he did, too.

So here’s what it looks like to homeschool a second-grader like mine and the homeschool curriculum favorites that worked well for us this year.

Tapestry of Grace DE or Stages: a review

April 12, 2019Tracy

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 or learning levels solve some of the confusion I sometimes ran into when planning?

Our experience with Heart of Dakota (pros and cons)

February 21, 2019Tracy

This past year, I decided to break from the curriculum we’d been using from the very beginning and try a few new things. I was trying to find relief during a particularly busy stage of life, and trying to wrap my head around my son’s 7th grade year and his changing academic needs. So we took a detour from Tapestry of Grace and tried Heart of Dakota for a few months.

All in all, we used Heart of Dakota (three different guides) for about 14-18 weeks, one child going a little further than the others. I dropped my youngest’s guide first: the pace was just too slow. Months into the program, and our Pilgrims still hadn’t left Holland. Compared to what we were used to (Story of the World and Tapestry), it felt like a snail’s pace, and my voracious first grader wanted more. So did I.

I hung on a little longer with the older two, trying to adapt the guide and make changes that fit us best. But the Heart of Dakota guides really aren’t made for the kind of customizing I was wanting. The changes made the guide confusing; it was just too restrictive for our style. So here’s a little more about Heart of Dakota, and why we ended up right back where we started—with Tapestry of Grace.

3 Reasons your Homeschool Curriculum Fail was the Right Choice

January 24, 2019Tracy

It’s a terrible feeling, to sit around a pile of curriculum—beautiful curriculum you paid good money for—and to realize there’s no way it’s going to work. To realize that all this effort and investment is one big homeschool curriculum fail. And failure of any kind often feels personal. It’s tempting to look at the pile and think, “I’ve failed.” Yet, there are three good reasons why your homeschool curriculum fail might have actually been the right choice.

Recently, I left our tried and true curriculum to try something new, only to realize that shiny new investment was the absolute wrong choice for us. Or was it?

When is it time to change your homeschool curriculum? 5 ways to know

April 23, 2018Tracy

For six years, I’ve used the same core homeschool curriculum with my three kids. For six years, I’ve loved it, promoted it, recommended it, and blogged about it. Then this year, we hit a wall. Navigating my daughter’s dyslexia, increasing demands on my time, adding another child to the mix of homeschooling multiple ages, graduating my son to a higher level of learning within that curriculum—there was a perfect storm of reasons. But bottom line, what has worked for so long absolutely wasn’t working any longer. I dreaded even opening the lesson plans, much less planning the weekly assignments. My son was in tears over the reading. I was constantly overhauling the curriculum to make it work. And we were all tired.

I’m extremely loyal by nature, so leaving a homeschool curriculum I had used for so long felt a little bit like betrayal, like giving up on a relationship. Even looking at other curriculum options felt a little bit like cheating. Saying goodbye was bitter sweet.

But when I finally made the leap, closed that curriculum for the final time, and made the next purchase, there was a huge sense of relief. For all of us! I hadn’t realized just how heavy and burdened we’d all felt by plodding through a curriculum that was no longer working. The difference was night and day. My kids enthusiasm spiked, and my relief quickly converted into increased energy and enthusiasm as well. As hard as it was to break up with our homeschool curriculum, it was definitely time.

5 ways to know it’s time to change your homeschool curriculum

When the homeschool curriculum is failing you—even after adjustments

It’s not uncommon to run into some issues with even the best curriculum. Making regular adjustments is a part of the normal homeschool routine. But when you can’t find success, no matter how many adjustments you’ve made, it’s probably time to look for a new homeschool curriculum. I’ve made adjustments with our curriculum before and found a method we had all loved. But this year, no matter how many times I made adjustments, there just was no good solution.

When planning and using the homeschool curriculum fills you with dread

Homeschooling is hard. There’s no way around that reality. It’s hard work. It’s a full-time job. And just like any other job, there are going to be days and maybe even weeks when you just don’t feel like doing it. That’s normal. But when opening up that curriculum becomes something you hate and dread day in and day out, when it robs you of your joy and enthusiasm for learning and teaching your children, it’s time for something different. We cannot inspire our kids to love learning if we hate it. And our kids will ultimately pick up on our sour attitudes if we continue with something we hate. That doesn’t even mean that there is something wrong with the curriculum, but different methods and curriculum options work better with certain personalities and at certain stages of life. Find something that gets you excited about learning again.

When everyone begins to hate learning

We can all get into a rut. Especially around January and February, there is a period of homeschooling blues we all tend to go through. But when you and your child(ren) both hate and dread each day, it’s time for a change. Maybe it’s just time for a change of scenery or pace, but sometimes it’s time for drastic changes. What does this look like? When something you’ve loved becomes something you hate, it might be time to change homeschool curriculum. For instance, when my son, who is an avid reader, was coming to me in tears about the content of what he was reading, I knew something needed to change. When planning (something I usually enjoy) was becoming something I dreaded each week, I knew something needed to change. When we all dreaded the start of a new week, I knew something was wrong. I’d tried my usual tactics of making minor changes, but in my gut I knew we needed to say good-bye to our homeschool curriculum and try something new.

When you constantly feel like you are failing

I think we all battle “failure syndrome” to some extent. Life is hard. Parenting is hard. Homeschooling is hard. It’s not unusual to feel like I’m failing at something. But when I feel this way, I’ve learned to take a step back and ask: is there a tool I’m using right now that’s failing me? If I’m preparing a meal and I can’t get the knife to cut through my meat, I don’t instantly assume I’m terrible at cutting meat; I sharpen my knife. As a homeschool parent, we have to approach this feeling of failure the same way. I feel like I’m failing because this curriculum is setting me up to fail. For me, that feeling of failure came because I could no longer devote the hours of prep work it took to make the curriculum a success. Because I didn’t have the time to do it right, there was this constant feeling that I was missing things and leaving things out (because I was). I just couldn’t navigate the 50-80 pages of teacher notes each week to pull things together properly. It was time for a change.

When your homeschool curriculum no longer helps you to achieve your goals

Knowing what you are wanting to accomplish with your homeschooling, what your ultimate goals are, helps you to evaluate when something is no longer moving you toward that goal. If your overall goal is to inspire a love for learning—and your kids are hating school—it’s time for a change. If your overall goal is to build character and values through each subject—and your curriculum is presenting a worldview that doesn’t support your own—it’s time for a change. If your overall homeschool goal is college and career—and your child is scoring poorly on assessments—it might be time for a change. We all have different goals, and our goals may change. But the tools that we use within our homeschool should be moving us toward the goals we have set. Curriculum is a tool, not a master. If your homeschool curriculum tool is no longer working, it’s time for a change.

Breaking up with our Homeschool Curriculum

I love Tapestry of Grace and the years of fond memories we’ve had using this curriculum. But for us, it was time for a change. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been using Heart of Dakota as a family, and it’s been such a relief. We love our guides. I love the Charlotte Mason style, the Christian values, and the clear lesson plans already laid out for me. My kids love the books, the projects, and having all the directions included in their daily assignments. Opening our guides each week to discover what’s next is a joy, and I’m no longer spending all my free time trying to plan the next lesson. Deciding to change our homeschool curriculum wasn’t easy, but using a tool that was no longer working wasn’t easy either.

Sometimes, breaking up with your homeschool curriculum can be the best thing you do for your homeschool.

Our Homeschool Curriculum for 4th Grade (dyslexia-style)

June 29, 2017Tracy

My daughter made huge strides last year, progressing about a grade level and a half in her language skills. Though her dyslexia struggles still have her about half a year behind, I’m very excited about her progress and expect to see her continue to improve this year. She also struggles with ADHD and some learning anxieties, which create some challenges for us both. She’s my Dory (from Finding Dory). Honestly, that little cartoon helped us to empathize better with some of her memory-issues and accompanying anxieties and helped her to feel normal about those struggles; she identified immediately with that sweet, cheerful little fish. She’s very smart, very creative, very right-brained, and I love her unique view of life and everything around her. With that said, choosing her homeschool curriculum for 4th grade took me a little more time and research; but I’m pleased with the final result, and she can’t wait to get started—which is a really good sign! Here are our choices for next fall.