When we started homeschooling, we did school in a box, supplemented by some things I put together. That worked okay…to a point. As the years went by, things increasingly became more difficult for us. The daily assignment of read a few pages and answer some questions was boring DS and causing DD to wallow in a stagnant pool where her vocabulary and comprehension we bogged down. I used to fear; would anything pull her out of the bog? Like most curriculums, the one we were using taught a different era of history each school year. I was trying to balance New World history with one child while the other was doing Old World history. I was going nuts! Only reading a few paragraphs about historical events were soon forgotten by my bored ds. We never went into enough detail about any time period to fully understand anything. DS would ask me questions…why this or why that. Well, I knew it had something to do with Greek democracy…or the Roman Republic. He had never studied these before, since they were coming the next year. What little I knew never satisfied his curiosity, much less mine. Although we enjoyed the literature selections, we’d be reading a Greek myth one day, a Bible story the next and a Civil War story another day. Then the writing assignments in English were boring and had absolutely nothing to do with what was being studied in science or history. The occasional literature book report was canned, like most I’ve seen and boring. There seemed to be no room for creativity. I had a dream of going more in depth with history, but how? I spent time in prayer, asking God for guidance to help me find the proper tools to prepare my dc to grow up with the skills they needed to be fully used by Him for His kingdom purposes, whatever they were to be.

Then one day HSLDA sent me a daily e-mail from their radio program Homeschool Heartbeat about a classical curriculum. Tapestry of Grace author Marcia Somerville was interviewed. For the first time, I learned what a classical education entailed. Based on a child’s developing brain, there are 3 key stages: grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. Grammar focuses on hands on while learning the 3Rs. Dialectic reads, thinks and writes while making connections. Rhetoric analyzes original works while clearly commuting opinions and documenting supporting facts.

Tapestry of Grace studies all of history, starting from the beginning of time to the present, divided into 4 year periods. This sequence coincides with the high school student’s time frame, since that is critical in preparation for college. A student who starts homeschooling with TOG will get 3 cycles through World History at 3 different learning levels. Each time through, the history topics are studied at a deeper and broader level. In addition, everyone in the family is studying the same timeline of history together!

Obviously, studying the same history topics together makes a lot of sense. This frees up a lot of time and builds unity, as all are working together on assignments and projects. Tapestry of Grace even offers products for Dad! Pop Quiz is written and narrated by Scott Sommerville to key busy dads into what’s happening in the TOG homeschool week!

I liked the sequential aspect, because in our American history studies, we kept asking questions and would spend hours going back in time with our research...never fully understanding the causes of our history and never going back far enough. I loved the idea of learning history sequentially. Can’t miss anything that way! Now that we are ending our second year, and are about to study the formation of the Constitution, we are thrilled to learn American History again, through the lens of the past. Instead of being bored, key events are magnified with clearer understanding of their causes. We now see American history sharper and with more color. We are excited again about history!

We also like that TOG uses real books for history and literature; both are correlated. As we read literature, they line up in time with the historical period being studied. This aids comprehension skills and adds depth to our learning. The history books tell us how things were. The literature books allow us to experience how things were.

When we began two years ago, I had to decide where to put my 12yod and 10yos. Although dd functioned at an Upper Grammar level, I put her in Dialectic. High school would be two more years away. She needed to be prepared. I decided to help her however I needed to as she learned to work at a higher level of thinking. 10yos was technically an Upper Grammar level. However, he was born asking questions and seeking connections, in addition to being an excellent reader. I knew Dialectic would be a bit of a challenge for him, but I also felt this is where he would have the most growth. Once again, I would guide him as needed through the process. Actually, I found some Upper Grammar books and Dialectic books and laid them side by side. At this point in time, the only chapter books he was willing to read was the Boxcar Children. I put ds in those in first grade, because the readers were too easy. He adored trains and I thought they would be a hit. They were. One of the children, who shares his name, became his favorite character. Each day ds would regale us with all the information he had learned from his favorite character of the Boxcar Children. There had a to be a life after Boxcar Children. Yet I feared ds would not read these TOG books. I let ds see the UG and D books side by side; he wanted to be a D student.

Our TOG week usually looks like this. The dc read their history books on Mon and Tues afternoons. They answer their accountability and thinking questions, in preparation for discussion. Wednesday we have a Socratic Discussion. This is where I am learning how to lead the dc, through a series of questions, to make connections between historical facts. For example. when we studied Egypt, we read a literature book about a boy who was training in the work with gold. In our history books we saw pictures of beautiful golden artifacts. We also learned about the Hebrews. We reviewed how they arrived in Egypt and became slaves and how Moses led them out of Egypt. Now here’s one of my favorite connections from that series. When the Hebrews were in the Wilderness, building the Tabernacle, how did they know how to work with the gold? Hint: they will be the only generation of Hebrews capable of doing this. When the Temple of Solomon is built…they had to hire out. Why? After the discussion, the dc add key dates from the week to their timeline book of world events from Creation to the present. Then they do their map of the week. Next we pick a topic that we studied that week to assign as a writing assingment. Using IEW, they KWO the topic. Thursday afternoon they write a rough draft. Friday afternoon the final copy is due. Friday afternoon they also take a map quiz. The literature book is read every afternoon and we try to do a plot/character study discussion on Friday afternoons,sometimes during lunch.

My children like the hands on projects, so they work on them during free time and during story time. We culminate each unit, about 9 weeks of study, with a unit celebration.

We are very busy! We are learning a lot! We are having a blast! DS is no longer bored! He has also found an array of fascinating chapter books. He can’t pick a favorite. He loves them all. Now he regales everyone with facts from the historical era we are studying. DD has grown phenomenally in the last two years with TOG! Her vocabulary and reading comprehension have increased immensely. She is still learning how to hold her own with her db during the discussions, but she is contributing with better quality than she did in the beginning. She has also learned how to form an opinion. Both dc are learning how to think deeply and support their opinions with facts. Additionally, as busy as we are, the dc finish their work sooner than they did with the box curriculum!