TOS Homeschool Crew Review~ Lampstand Press/Tapestry of Grace (Print Edition)

Lampstand Press is the name of the company that has produced Tapestry of Grace (TOG) Classical Christian curriculum. Let me quote them on exactly what TOG is:

“Tapestry of Grace is a homeschool curriculum: a plan of study that helps parents provide a Christian, classical education using a guided unit study approach, with the history of the world as the core organizational theme. From Grades K–12, all students cycle through world history every four years, with all ages studying the same slice of history each week, each at their own learning level. Detailed lesson plans and discussion outlines enable parents to be their children’s primary teachers and mentors and shape their students’ biblical worldviews.

Tapestry covers the humanities: history, church history, literature, geography, fine arts, government, philosophy, and writing & composition. Tapestry does not include a phonics program, science, math, grammar, spelling, or foreign language. Lampstand Press does, however, recommend complementary logic, spelling, and grammar programs.

Week to week, Tapestry integrates all subjects: people, events, and movements are studied in the time period in which they were most influential. Lessons are presented from all modalities: visual, auditory, and tactile. For younger children, a variety of hands-on ideas are provided each week. A range of educational options are presented, from which students and parents choose the best content and quantity for their unique families. Although the teacher is in control of the students’ assignments, rich weekly studies are always provided for each individual family.”

Does that sound like a lot? Well it should. It is. I had actually looked at TOG’s website a few times over the last year or two, but because there was so much information on the site, I abandoned the effort. I’m going to try to keep you from doing the same by asking you to stick with me while I review this great curriculum because after getting the chance to try it out with my own family and personally making it through that notorious TOG “four week fog”, I really like it and I think it would be a shame for a large family with a Classical Christian orientation to pass this one up. Fair warning though, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I can be quite the rambler. ;) I’ll have to split this review up into two blog posts, one for the TOG unit itself and one for Writing Aids, the supplemental product we reviewed.

The lovely people at Lampstand Press offered each member of the entire Crew  our choice of one unit of their new Digital Edition (DE) plus our choice of one of their supplemental products that help to enhance the Tapestry experience. Lampstand Press offers several optional choices in the “extras” department: Writing Aids- TOG’s own writing guide, Map Aids- outline maps custom designed for TOG by Terri Johnson of  KnowledgeQuest!, Evaluations- that’s just what it sounds like, an optional product designed to test your child(ren)’s knowledge of what s/he learned. Pop Quiz- a neat way to bring Dad into the mix after work and enhance the children’s learning, Lap Book Templates- a way to incorporate more hands-on learning for the littles. There are a couple more supplemental products available on the site as well. Some of them are a one-time purchase for the entire four-year cycle but most correspond to each year and sometimes each unit. All these and much more can be found at the Lampstand Press online Store.

By some grand miracle of God, my girls agreed on not just the unit, but also the supplement. Halleluiah!! They chose to study Year 1, Unit 3- “Preparing the World for It’s Savior” and the supplement they chose was Writing Aids. 

When I attempted to download the Digital Edition there were a few glitches because the DE had very recently been launched at the time of our review, so that meant we were able to test Lampstand Press’ wonderful customer service and tech support. After a few emails, phone calls and technical support sessions, it was pretty clear that the Digital Edition was not going to work on my computer so those sweet, sweet people sent me a dinged copy of the unit in print! I was floored at their generosity as the print unit is a $60 value and they’d already agreed to send me the Writing Aids book and CD, a $50 value. Oh, and if you’re worried about downloading the DE onto your own computer, don’t. Once all the major kinks were worked out on their end, they sent the whole Crew a link to download one of their free 3-week curriculum samples and downloading it is now as easy as falling down. I very much encourage you to try one of their Free Tutorial Samples for yourself and get a feel for the curriculum. 

So let me try to explain pricing:

One year of TOG costs $225 in print or $170 for the Digital Edition which you’ll only ever buy once. TOG Digital Edition will automatically be upgraded when revisions are made. All you have to do is regularly check the website for updates. And if you’re one who likes to resell your curriculum, you’re out of luck. Reselling DE is not allowed and with TOG’s Lock Lizzard software, you’re only granted one license per family. You can arrange to put it on multiple computers within your household by calling the company, but that’s it.  You’ll have to factor in the cost of printing to the DE, whether you want to take it to an office supply store to have them print (Which may be a problem when having to deal with Lock Lizzard, and it really is best in color which can get pricey.) or you want to print it off yourself on your own printer, but beware, even one single unit (1/ 4 of a year) is about 400+ pages, so keep that in mind when making your decisions.  You also have a few more options if you’d like to get both the DE and the print version or if you want to pick up a couple of their supplemental materials. Here’s the link to the store page. Also, you need to know that the prices I listed above do not include any books. As stated above in Lampstand Press’ description, it is just the “plan of study” plus the Loom CD (a guide for the whole year) and this price does not include any of the books needed. But,  Bookshelf Central.com, an online store once operated by Lampstand Press carries just about all of the titles needed to complete your study of TOG, or you could find as many of the resources as you possibly can at your library, or a combination of both. What’s great about Bookshelf Central is the search feature. You can select the specific year plan, level, unit and subject you’re working on and it will list the title, price subject, and length of time the title is used in your TOG studies.

I found most of my book titles at the library, utilizing both what I could find on the shelves and inter-library loan, which costs 50 cents per book at my new library. Yes, I’m whining and grumbling. I apologize. I was horribly spoiled by the amazing library I had in Minden, but I'll be quiet about it now… Anyway, my mom very sweetly offered to purchase one title for us while she was out shopping, which was nice because the girls really liked God King.

I believe many families choose to us a combination approach when finding books to accompany TOG, electing to first buy titles for the oldest student in the house as funds are available, especially those in the rhetoric or dialectic stages who would be able to benefit from the worksheets and discussions provided in the teacher’s notes and the Loom CDs that are designed for use with the history, literature, church history or read-aloud selections listed in the TOG curriculum.

Another nice option when purchasing TOG is the choice to buy TOG by the unit. DE units are $45 apiece and print units are $60.

I have to be very honest here and say that I would spend the extra money to have the printed editions, particularly if it was my first time around using TOG because while TOG is much simpler to use than you might think at first glance, using a curriculum as thoroughly laid out as TOG on a computer screen would be too much for me. My eyes would go crossed. Like I stated before each unit is over 400 pages long, and while I’m sure a TOG veteran could probably figure it out on a computer screen, I experienced major confusion trying to figure out the printed version. I can’t imagine what I would have done if I’d had to figure it out on the lap top.

I also have to mention that sometimes the book selections TOG chose made me feel a bit uncomfortable. When talking to the other Crew moms, there was mention of nudes being presented in the study of art and our own reading selections had some wrong attitudes displayed by the characters in the stories, but most of the time, these issues, at least in my own personal experience with the unit we chose, were confronted head-on in the teacher’s notes and the students were asked to tell why those attitudes were wrong. So again, I encourage you to try out the free samples of the curriculum to see if TOG would be right for your family.

Now, let me tell you what I liked about TOG for my family. My children are 15, 10, 5 and 18 months. With 15 year old Ninja who hates to work with slow pokes like 10 year old Tink and myself, it would solve the problem of Ninja having to wait for Tink and me to figure everything out every week. I simply meet with them both, hand out their printed copies of their assignments, have them highlight the ones I choose for them to do and Ninja’s off working on her own. Tink, on the other hand gets to learn at her own level, which sometimes gets bumped down to lower grammar, yet she never has to feel bad or that she’s behind because she’s still learning the same subjects her older sister is but it’s never too challenging for her. And the Dude (5 years old) and Baby Princess (18 months) enjoyed being dressed up by Tink after she made them crowns during our study of King Solomon’s time.

Even the writing assignments were fun. Once again a miracle occurred and both girls chose to write a mock newspaper, chronicling the time period they chose to study but Tink got to work at level 4 (approximately 4^th grade) and Ninja worked at level 7. Walah! No fighting, no arguing, I just printed off their own level-specific instruction sheets and graphic organizers, read them out loud, and they both went happily off to do their own assignments.

Reviewing TOG was a real eye opener. While I love learning history and very much want to fill in the gaps in my own education, I never saw myself as a mom who could teach classical curriculum to my children, especially since they’re either high maintenance or special needs, or both. I finally felt that just maybe I could pull off giving my children an excellent education and have fun at the same time. I didn’t have to worry about teaching three or more different areas of study in order to teach to all my children at their own level effectively.

Please be sure to read what my fellow  TOS Crew members have to say about their experience with Tapestry of Grace and don’t forget to read my next blog post about TOG’s Writing Aids writing curriculum.