Tapestry of Grace Archives - Page 6 of 8

Finally—a new 2013 routine

January 30, 2013Tracy

Finally, and it definitely feels like finally, we are getting into a groove around here. After many failed attempts at setting up a schedule for myself and our homeschool, I think I’ve finally settled into something that will work—as in, we’ve been able to successfully stick with this one for a couple of weeks now!

Being flexible is a definite strength of mine, but my strength can also be my weakness. I can be so flexible that I have no shape or structure at all. And I hate when that happens. So after a year and a half of being flexible through late pregnancy, giving birth, and adjusting to life with baby #3, “finally” is no overstatement.

Welcome to a day in our lives…

6 a.m. My alarm goes off, and I stumble out of bed (or try to shortly thereafter). I pour my cup of coffee with cream and an 1/8 cup of sugar, and yes! It’s finally caffeinated coffee! I get out my Bible study journal, Bible, and prayer box. Sipping on my coffee, I pray and then journal through a book of the Bible (finishing Hebrews right now).

7 -7:15 I finish my study time and begin getting dressed for exercising.

7:15-7:45ish I exercise. FINALLY, I’ve found a time and workout to fit my “life with littles” day. Awhile back I’d purchased these “10 minute solution” exercise videos that offer five 10 minute segments. I can piece together a workout to fit the time I have. My goal is for 30 minutes, but if life happens and duty calls I can easily adjust my workout. Love it!

8-9 Everyone is up by now. The kids make their beds and feed the dog before eating breakfast. I empty the dishwasher and begin making breakfast for everyone and a bottle for Littlest. I’ve also started filling one sink with some soapy water. My intention was that the kids could throw their oatmeal bowls into the water to keep the oatmeal from crusting before I could wash the dishes, but Middlest has decided that she loves washing dishes. More power to her! I got her a stool and let her have at it. She rinses in the soapy water and puts them in the dish washer.

Once the kids finish breakfast, they dress and begin morning chores. Oldest wipes the bathroom counters down; Middlest sweeps the crumbs from under the table with a small broom and dust pan. I finish feeding Littlest his oatmeal and apple sauce mixture and scarf down a few nourishing bites for myself. We say “good-bye” to Daddy, and I inspect chores.

9 – 9:45 At 9 the alarm sounds for school and the kids are learning to be ready for that sound. I start them off with what we call their “pocket pages,” independent work pages that I have placed in their notebooks at the beginning of the week. I explain directions for the different pages, and they get to work. Middlest works at her desk in the schoolroom. I’ve moved Oldest to his bedroom with a timer for this particular task; he seems to work much better without the distraction of his little sister. Littlest goes to his playpen for a little independent time before his morning nap. And I get a shower, dress, do my hair and make-up, etc.

The “alone” time they have is not really that long, long enough for me to shower and dress (about 15 min. or so) and then I check to see how everyone is doing. I leave them to finish my hair and make-up but am available for questions during that time.

9:45-10:20 We all meet back up in the schoolroom (except Littlest—he’s napping now) for “Assembly Time.” During this time, we do our pledge, sing the national anthem, and go over our calendar. We review our Bible memory work, our timeline of history, our history flashcards, and our science facts. Each day I’ve been adding just a couple of minutes of science, reading a short paragraph and going over our memory work (more on that to come). Depending on time, we may sing a few songs together as well.

10:20-10:40 Oldest sets to work on his phonics flashcards, new history facts, and his spelling list. I work with Middlest with her reading and math.

10:40-11:00ish Middlest chooses an activity (playdo, shape puzzles, or a computer program) while I work with Oldest. After several months, she is doing MUCH better at not interrupting us during this time. She will curl up in my lap to hear the story that Oldest is reading or join us to see what new math concept he’s learning; I allow her to come and go as she wants as long as she doesn’t distract. Oldest and I work on his reading and language concepts, then transition to math. For reading, he only reads the A Beka reader if I don’t have anything else for him to read. Otherwise, he will read a title from our Tapestry plans or read the Bible story that is part of our Tapestry lesson for the week.

11-ish to noon This time is approximate because there are days when Oldest needs a little more time from me to understand a new concept or to work on problem areas. But around 11 or 11:15 we usually finish up, and we all begin Tapestry together. Littlest will sometimes join us around this time as well. During this time, we work on maps, lapbooking, or read our history titles from Tapestry.

We finish up around noon or 12:15 everyday. It feels so good! I make lunch, the kids play, we eat, the kids play, I finish up my chores and feed Littlest. We have a little play time together, and then the youngest two go down for naps. Oldest begins his quiet time, and I either finish my tasks or have an hour or so for computer work, blogging, etc.

4:30-10:30 I begin supper prep and our evening routine begins. Bedtime is the one aspect of my routine that I really need to work on. 10:30 is my goal but one I rarely meet right now. I’ll be honest that sometimes it’s 11 or 12 before I make it to bed. And yes, that makes the next day much more difficult. I am working on this.

But to have the day running so smoothly is a huge, HUGE blessing. {Sigh of relief}

So what adjustments have you made half-way through the year? Are there any finally‘s that you are rejoicing over?

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.

Celebrating Egypt

January 16, 2013Tracy2 Comments

Tapestry of Grace encourages unit celebrations at the end of each nine weeks. It’s a time to review all that has been covered, display projects, give presentations, and celebrate what has been accomplished. Examples of some of these celebrations included inviting friends and family over to see the displays and hear the presentations, buffets of food related to the country or time period of study, etc.

Though it sounds awesome, I just couldn’t seem to pull anything together. The food thing intimidated me, the displays and presentations were a little more than what my kids are ready for at this age, and we don’t have family close by. How were we going to celebrate?

We didn’t. I finally gave up and made a couple of home videos and took some pictures of the kids all dressed up. They immediately went off to play “pharaoh” and our “celebration” was complete.

I’ve been rethinking a lot of what we are doing with Tapestry and making a few changes, one of which is to intentionally add some memory work. And thus came my brainstorm for what we could do as part of a unit celebration.

My idea is to have a Trivia Party: kids against Dad, popcorn and our favorite snacks (forget culturally relevant food—I figure let’s do what we like to eat), perform our timeline and Bible passage, and show off the kids’ notebooks.

Yes, it’s simple. That’s why it just might work. Elaborate plans will keep my procrastinating. Pure and simple will accomplish the purpose and motivate the kids to memorize their trivia facts (flashcards) to beat Dad. We’re all excited and gearing up for our first celebration at the conclusion of Unit 2.

Any other ideas to add to our celebration?

Marshmallow Ziggurat

November 28, 2012Tracy

We’ve been learning about Ur, Mesopotamia, Babel, and ziggurats over the last few weeks. One of our fun activities was building a ziggurat from toothpicks and marshmallows.

Though I did most of the actual building, the kids had a grand time stabbing the marshmallows onto toothpicks and having them ready for me—not to mention snacking on lots of marshmallows in the meantime.

I also taught Oldest about Venn diagrams as we compared pyramids to ziggurats. We compared their shape, their purpose, and their building materials. It was a great learning tool and made a nice notebooking page, but not nearly as memorable as our tower of marshmallows!

Eating makes learning so much fun.

Notebooking Egypt

October 31, 2012Tracy

Last year was our first year to delve into notebooking with our geography study. But this year, I feel like I’m really embracing the process—adding more lapbooking elements, letting the kids create, and weaning ourselves from pre-made pages.

The result has been beautiful, in every sense. My son has really taken ownership of the process, letting me know what he’d like to do. I still have narration elements for some of the more complicated ideas that I want him to remember. But overall, he learns, he creates, he remembers.

Two of my favorites lately have been his Pharaoh page, which he completed shortly after our double-crown craft, and “The 10 Plagues” that included a flip book he colored and cut out (totally his idea, I just folded the paper to help him cut it out evenly).

And I will add that I am now a huge fan of colored paper for notebooking.

Little Pharaohs

October 26, 2012Tracy1 Comment

Another fun Egypt activity that we’ve done was to make the double-crown of Egypt that represented the Upper and Lower kingdoms. (idea from Pyramids! 50 hands-on activities to experience ancient Egypt)

This was super easy: wax paper, construction paper, and aluminum foil (for the cobra). No patterns or templates. I basically free-handed the entire thing, which is why the cobra is not recognizable on its own without explanation. Though the project wasn’t difficult, it made a huge impression on the kids who instantly ran off to play Pharaohs. (I was later told that one of my daughter’s dolls had been selected to be mummified, and they were using the baby-doll cradle as a sarcophagus.)

Honestly, just to be open and vulnerable, I don’t always feel like making the mess and doing the crafts. But when I see how much the kids learn, and I watch their studies come alive for them, I never regret the sacrifice of time, energy, or orderliness. We’ll only have this day once.

Flooding the Nile

October 24, 2012Tracy

We’ve had so much fun with our Egypt geography. Some of our ideas have come from the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, and some we’ve added from other sources.

One goldmine of a source has been the book Pyramids! 50 hands-on activities to experience ancient Egypt which I picked up from our local library.

Since we’ve been studying about the importance of the Nile and it’s annual flooding, the idea of building our own Nile River and flooding it was extremely appealing. And anything that involves mud is high on the list of FUN at our house right now.

Detailed directions are provided in the above mentioned book, but here’s the gist. Find a pan, fill it with sand. Add black soil for the fertile flood plains or Black Land. Build a Nile River from aluminum foil. Wedge it into the dirt and weight it with stones. Add grass seed or other fast-sprouting green to the “Black Lands.” Flood regularly.