My Family

[-]

All Amazon links help support my church's mission fund.

We just began our third unit of Tapesty of Grace Year 2, which covers the colonial time period. This has been a year of change and experimentation for me as far as how I implement Tapestry of Grace (TOG). I decided to change the way we do mapwork by doing all of the maps for the unit the week before we begin. I think it will be advantageous for my children to see "the lay of the land" before encountering it in their reading, as well as during their reading. I am also hoping that they will have more time to do projects if we do the maps ahead of time - I am really bad with hands-on activities for TOG!

We took a week off between units to file and organize everything from unit 2, revamp our schedule, do some decluttering, and prepare all of the maps for unit 3. I wanted to do all of our timeline work together also, but we didn't get to that - yet.

I own the MapAids for Year 2, so I printed out all of the teacher maps and enough student maps for each child. We did the first one together, but I decided I would let everyone work on their own maps in any order they chose. I let them cheat and use the teacher's maps, but they had to include everything on the maps. We use maps often as a part of our studies. It has been my experience that my children learn a lot just by handling the maps, which is the reason I allowed them to use the teacher's maps. I might change my mind next time, so if any of my kids are reading this, it is subject to change! :-) I will be printing out some blank maps and doing testing periodically just to make sure everyone knows the most important information.

When everyone completed their maps, they bound them with the ProClick binding machine (hat tip to Angi at Peakmore Academy and Debra at Notebooking Pages), which I absolutely love! The kids are expected to refer to their maps during their weekly readings and check the geography assignments for extra labels or suggestions. So far, so good, although this is only the first week of the unit. The bound books of maps are the beginnings of their notebooks for the unit. We will be adding notebook pages, writing assignments, pictures and descriptions of projects, and any other pertinent assignments to it. I am hoping that we will also put together a fold-out timeline to include with each of the notebooks.

In case you are interested in trying this and don't have maps available, there are tons of free maps available online. I have listed some favorite map sites and resources in my Free Geography Resources category. TOG also offers links to geography resources for each year plan (click on the year plan to go directly to the geography links page): Year 1 (Creation to the Fall of Rome), Year 2 (Fall of Rome to the signing of the American Constitution), Year 3 (World History During the 1800s), and Year 4 (World History During the Twentieth Century and into the Present). These links would be helpful regardless of which history or geography curriculum you are using.

As I already said, this is subject to change. I think it might work out well for us, though. Everyone is already doing projects, and it's only the first week of the unit. Nathan has a huge project planned, but I won't unveil it yet. Allyson already completed what was supposed to be a unit-long project: a card game using figures and information from the unit. Now she and Kathryn are working on a medieval card game since I am so bad about getting to projects and we did very, very little for the middle ages! Jordan made this Jamestown replica from Home School in the Woods. I'll try to post pictures of projects and notebooks as they are completed.

~Andrea

I feel like all I have been doing this week is sitting in front of my computer going over assignments and scheduling schoolwork. Well, I guess that's probably because that is about all I've been doing this week.

A couple of my children asked for grades at the end of last year, so I decided I would try to figure out how I want to grade different subjects in Tapestry of Grace. This will be good practice for me for next year, when Nathan begins high school, so I am working hard at it. I know it will be much easier for me to assign credits next year if I "practice" it this year (weird, I know, but that's how I work best). I looked over the high school credit chart for TOG Year 2 to guide my "courses" for the year. I use Homeschool Tracker Plus, which is wonderful! I decided to enter lesson plans for each course because I can reuse them each year. This isn't a big deal for lower and upper grammar, but I know it will be helpful to have lesson plans already available for my future dialectic level students.

I decided on a point system for various activities (the points are pretty arbitrary - I just wanted to start somewhere). I'm not doing any weighted grading right now. Each student will earn points for activities, and grades will be determined by total number of points earned divided by total number of points possible for each course. I am including my point system, but I am an amateur at this grading stuff - I welcome input. I linked to the sample pages from TOG's Ancient Egypt Mini-Unit if anyone is interested.

History (history readings, discussion, timeline, map work)

• 20 points for each weekly history reading assignment
• 10 points for each accountability & thinking question - dialectic level only (some will be written and some will be oral - # of questions vary weekly - these are found in the dialectic and rhetoric levels of the student activity pages)
• 50 points for history discussion - dialectic students only (points earned to be determined by preparation, participation and attitude - also found in the student activity pages - the teacher's notes include the discussion outline guide for me)
• 50 points for map work (scheduled map work by level is found in the student activity pages)
• 25 points for timeline work - dialectic students only (dates are found in the weekly overview)
• 25-50 points for group supplements when scheduled (This Far By Faith Vol. I, What in the World's Going on Here Part 2, That's Why They Call it Grace)

English (literature reading, literature worksheet, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and writing)

• 50 points for the weekly literature reading assignment
• 10 points for each question on the literature worksheet (these are found in the student activity pages - high students advance to literary analysis instead of worksheets, so this will be graded differently next year)
• 20 points for each grammar page done during the week - these will be scheduled as needed for writing assignments (from Easy Grammar)
• 50 points for weekly copywork, dictation, spelling or vocabulary work (copywork for Kathryn, Spelling Wisdom and dictation for Allyson & Jordan, Wordly Wise for Nathan)
• points for writing will be determined for individual writing assignments (I do have WritingAids, and I love it)

Church History (Year 2)

• 50 points for the weekly reading assignment
• 25 points for group discussion

Fine Arts

• 50 points for each weekly reading assignment
• 50 points for hands-on activity

That covers the basics for Tapestry of Grace subjects this year. I welcome any input on grading, as this is new to me. I am guessing that it will change as the year progresses. Hopefully, I'll have it pretty much mastered by next year.

~Andrea

Please note that many Tapestry of Grace links on my blog go through my Share & $ave account with Tapestry of Grace. I get credit at the Tapestry Bookshelf for any purchases referred through my links. My Share & $ave code is TOG4jp6 (case sensitive). Anyone who has ordered $300 worth of products from Tapestry of Grace is eligible to sign up for their Share & $ave program, so be sure to remember that if you ever decide to purchase from them!

I've been playing around with an assignment template for my dialectic students this year, and I'm going to try to make it available for download.

This is a very basic 2-page spread (Microsoft Word format) with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on the left side, and Thursday, Friday and a Notes column on the right side. I would be interested in opinions for improvements and changes. Just right click and select "save file as" or "save link as:"


Please let me know if you have any problems downloading it. I kept it in Microsoft Word format so that you can make changes. It does not open properly in OpenOffice, although I would be happy to re-format it so that it will. I will also make this available in PDF format if anyone requests it.

Please comment if you decide to use this - I would love some feedback.  This probably goes without saying, but please don't sell or redistribute it as your own. You have permission to make personal changes and adapt it for your own use.

~Andrea

I have been going over the booklist for Tapestry of Grace Year 2 Redesigned, and I recognized several titles that are available online for free. TOG Year 2 covers the Fall of Rome (450 AD) to the signing of the American Constitution. These books could be helpful for you if you are studying this time period with another curriculum (or your own). Many of these books are available online through multiple sources. Go here for a previous post listing several sources for online books.

Whether or not you are using TOG Year 2, check out their extensive links, categorized by subject. They would be helpful for anyone studying this time period.

Here are the TOG Y2 books that are available online:

• The Story of the Middle Ages, by Samuel B. Harding (there is also a free audiobook available through Librivox) - approx. 350 - 1500 AD
  
  
• Famous Men of the Middle Ages, by John H. Haaren & A. B. Poland - begins with some mythology, then 394 - 1471 AD
  


• The Story of Europe, by H. E. Marshall - 330 AD - approx. 1580
  


• Our Island Story, by H. E. Marshall (free audiobook: Part 1, Part 2) - fictional beginning of England to 1485 AD (book goes through 1902)
  


• Stories of Beowulf Told to the Children, by H. E. Marshall - Anglo-Saxon saga
  


• Foxe's Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe (NOTE: The edition that TOG recommends includes some updates and modernday persecutions, but you could probably use the original and Internet links for the modern information if you absolutely had to. The new edition looks excellent and is probably well worth the money, although I don't personally own it yet.) - online version is martyrdom of Stephen - approx. 1826 AD
  


• Men of Iron, by Howard Pyle (or here) - historical fiction set in the early 1400s
  


• The Awakening of Europe, by M. B. Synge - brief history of the Netherlands, then late 1400s - 1745 AD
  


• This Country of Ours, by. H. E. Marshall


• By Right of Conquest: With Cortez in Mexico, G. A. Henty - historical fiction, 1595
  


• Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare (TOG recommends this one.) -
  


• Henry V, by William Shakespeare (TOG recommends this one.)


• The Children's Shakespeare, by Edith Nesbit


• The Tempest, by William Shakespeare (TOG recommends this one.)


• The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (free audiobook)


• The Struggle for Sea Power, by M. B. Synge


• Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (free audiobook)


• Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself is available as a free e-book at Wowio, but you have to create a free account and give them a nonanonymous e-mail address (not hotmail, yahoo, etc).

Enjoy!

~Andrea

Please note that many Tapestry of Grace links on my blog go through my Share & $ave account with Tapestry of Grace. I get credit at the Tapestry Bookshelf for any purchases referred through my links. My Share & $ave code is TOG4jp6 (case sensitive). Anyone who has ordered $300 worth of products from Tapestry of Grace is eligible to sign up for their Share & $ave program, so be sure to remember that if you ever decide to purchase from them!

I began using Tapestry of Grace in February of 2006. We began with Year 4. I kept strictly to the curriculum until about June, when we began doubling most of the weeks through the summer so that we could finish before the new "school year," which we began the second week of September. There was quite a bit of reading to pack in by doubling weeks, but we were able to complete it by only doing TOG during the summer. I did not follow the writing track; other than that we covered all of the subjects included in TOG. I was able to find most of the recommended books for Year 4 at the library.

A friend lent me her TOG Year 4 for a weekend before I ordered it, and I spent several hours going through it and learning the "ins and outs" of the program. I think that helped me avoid the "4-week fog" because I didn't have a problem at all. Now that TOG offers their mini-unit on ancient Egypt as a sample, it would be really easy to try the curriculum out. This is also available on CD if your Internet is slow. Not only do they offer the main curriculum, but they have included ALL of the supplements for those 3 weeks (MapAids, Writing Aids, Lap Books, Evaluations and Pop Quiz)!

MapAids for Year 4 wasn't available at the time, and I bought Knowledge Quest's Blackline Maps of the Modern World after frustrating myself trying to find "just the right map." I even tried making some of my own! I also purchased Story of the World Volume 4 and its Activity Book partway through the year. I used Story of the World as a read-aloud spine to cut down on some of the reading. The Activity Book has some really awesome maps besides the activities. (Can you tell that I'm a map freak?)

We began Year 1 Redesigned in September. I purchased the MapAids CD, which is a great time-saver. I again followed the curriculum as written, adding in the writing track. I found some used Write Source books for great prices at Amazon. I really like them, but I did decide to purchase the Writing Aids because it was available in digital format at a cost that I thought was worth the investment. I was so happy that I purchased it! One advantage of the Write Source books, however, is that students can more easily teach themselves than with Writing Aids. That might be because I haven't done a formal writing program before this though. Of course, Writing Aids covers K-12, while you have to purchase several levels of the Write Source books. I had to purchase more books for Year 1 than Year 4, but I was still able to find most of them at the library.

The first year we used TOG (year 4), we did two Unit Celebrations, which the kids really loved. I have really slacked off on those, unfortunately. The only one who really enjoys doing a lot of projects is Allyson, and I felt like we were "cramming" in projects right before the Unit Celebration to prepare for it. I am going to try to have a year-end celebration this time and see how it goes. We do have a nice variety of projects that the kids have completed. These celebrations are definitely worth the effort if your family is more on top of projects than we are. It is so much fun for the kids to show off their accomplishments and explain some of the things they have learned during the unit! TOG gives you lots of unit celebration ideas for each unit.

Right now we are finishing up Year 1. I am now comfortable enough with the program to adapt it to fit my family. (I guess I really am eclectic; I can't seem to use any program "as is," no matter how great it is!)

I am using the Dialectic level "spine" as a read-aloud for everyone (Story of the Romans); we are all really enjoying it. I am using narration instead of the Socratic discussions that TOG recommends for the Dialectic level.

I let my children choose to narrate or do a literature page. If they really hate a literature selection (I think it only happened once), then I let them choose from an alternate literature list that I made (it doesn't necessarily have to be related to the history unit).

I am using the TOG writing assignments, but I am not using them as scheduled. I am having the kids do more notebooking assignments for writing right now as a change of pace and because it is so beautiful outside that I want to give them something they can accomplish more quickly so they can enjoy the weather! They also seem to enjoy the more immediate results of a completed notebook page. We'll focus on the writing track on the rainy days.

Here are some "extras" that I have used this year, along with some comments:

Year 1 MapAids CD
(I LOVE this - it's a big time-saver for me)

Story of the World Volume 1
(my upper grammar children didn't like the Usborne spine, so I decided to get Story of the World for them after the first half of the year - I didn't purchase the activity book)

History of Ancient Times Notebooking Pages
(these are great if you want to break into notebooking and don't know how to start)

Writing Aids
(I didn't use it as much as I thought I would this year, but I really like it and will definitely make worthwhile use of this investment)

What in the World's Going on Here?
(not necessary, but I am a big Diana Waring fan and already had it - I like to use this as an overview before, during, or after a unit, whenever we can fit it in)

So, now you know how we are using Tapestry of Grace. I am going to try to write posts for individual TOG subjects so that you can see how I am using them to fit our family, as well as areas that I need to improve. I will include teacher preparation and organization.

I hope this has been helpful. Feel free to ask me specific questions in the comments.

~Andrea

Update: I have a couple of newer posts with TOG info included:


Please note that many Tapestry of Grace links on my blog go through my Share & $ave account with Tapestry of Grace. I get credit at the Tapestry Bookshelf for any purchases referred through my links. My Share & $ave code is TOG4jp6 (case sensitive). Anyone who has ordered $300 worth of products from Tapestry of Grace is eligible to sign up for their Share & $ave program, so be sure to remember that if you ever decide to purchase from them!

Friends at HSB

[-]

Tapestry Blogroll

[-]

HOTM Blogroll

[-]

Family Friendly Blogroll

[-]