The Best Laid Plans...

This week I have opened up my calendar and have begun the process of seeking a vision for our school year. I have already chosen my core curriculum so now it is time to sit down and think about how I will implement my year. Ironically, Pinterest has been a real help for me as I try and figure it all out.

Homeschool Board

One of the first things I wanted to do was envision the "end product." What do I hope to accomplish with my children? Our family is entering a new phase. I am 50% done educating my children! Can I get a Woo Hoo? I know that I will never achieve perfection but I do find myself pondering what I could have done better with the older two. This is also my second and even third go-around teaching some of these subjects. That is a strange feeling. When I first started out, I quickly realized how little I knew and invested a tremendous amount of time myself reading, researching, and just enjoying the journey. So here I sit ready to enter this new phase.

As I go through this week, I will be preparing lesson plans, but more importantly I will praying for vision, revisiting my goals for my children, and yes getting organized!

So what's on my board? Well...

• Teaching Natures through the Sciences - This one came to me through A Holy Experience. What appealed to me was the idea of my 3rd grader making his own nature calendar. A thought I have is to find some kind of collection-shelf-thingy (and yes that is the technical term for it) hung on his wall and post the original next to it. Then he can display his treasures for the month.
• Sketchbooks - Each year I end up using these more and more. I love the idea of each child creating their own "textbook" for different subjects. I have done this in the past and have loved the outcome. This year my high schooler will be making a Book of Centuries, but we will be using the Century chart as our timeline.
• I would also like to use a sketchbook to make a biology notebook for my 9th grader. A few years back I dabbled with this idea with my 2nd child. There is definitely a learning curve. Things I liked about it was the ownership of carefully recreating drawings and labeling items. We chose a couple of different spines to help us stay on course and never really loved any of our choices.
• Biology 101 DVD by Wes Olsen  - We are going to try a different approach for our spine and will be adding this to my ever growing arsenal of biology curriculum. I will have to get back to you on my opinions. ;-)
• A Commonplace book - This idea has intrigued me for a very long time. As I look over my own bookshelf I realize that I have several of these and honestly, isn't blogging a virtual form of a Commonplace book? With that said, I would like to introduce the idea to my two remaining students. For now, it will be simple. Mostly just about creating a habit and hopefully this will evolve as our school year progresses. On a side note, child #2 started a Commonplace book without any nudging or introduction from me. She didn't have a name for it but when sharing with me one day I realized that yes indeed that is what she had started.
• The Well-Planned Day and The Well-Guided High Schooler - What can I say about my favorite planners that I already haven't said before? They truly are a blessing at helping me keep our home and school organized. I love the articles. I love the perforated shopping list, I love the meal planner, and I love the scriptures & catechism questions but mostly I love that it is all neatly bound up and looks so pretty I just can't wait to open it and work in it. (yes I am an organizing nerd)
• School pictures - This is an area that I am neglectful. At the end of each year, I do collect the best photos of the year and digitally scrapbook our family. I even take the time to journal our year in review. In previous years, I scrapbooked yearbooks for my older children so that they would have tangible memories. This was a compromise since we would not have yearbooks. I like the idea of taking the photo and adding fun facts about the child on the photo itself. This will be a fun challenge but I do plan to start.

TOG: Training in Liberty...

Tapestry of Grace | Training in Liberty from Tapestry of Grace on Vimeo.

TOG: Spiritual Encouragement for Moms

Tapestry of Grace | Spiritual Encouragment for Homeschooling from Tapestry of Grace on Vimeo.

Education is a Life...Mornings

As I continue to meditate on Organized Simplicity, I find myself seeking more intentional schooling. I can look back over the conferences I have attended, webinars I have participated in, and books I have read I see that this is what God has been preparing in me for a while...intentional schooling! With that said, I thought I would share the evolution of our typical school day.

This is mainly what the later half of our week looks like. On Monday we host a co-op here in our home and I try to stick to the idea of the schedule but am realistic enough to know that things happen and that my schedule is meant to be my guide not my dictator. On Tuesdays we are out of the home for a different co-op and after school activities.

Mornings:

We begin our morning with dictation.
I use the Well-Planned Day for our choices.
I do love that planner!
After dictating the selection, we read over it again and punctuate the sentence.
This is where we briefly discuss grammar. We will get more grammar during writing.

This is my youngest's handwriting book.
He copies an English proverb in cursive and then practices saying & writing phonograms.

In order to give our hands a break, we switch gears and read aloud a lesson.

After our Thinking Toolbox lesson, we pull out our respective math lessons and work quietly.

Sometimes I will turn on a Pandora playlist depending on our mood!

Then on to my favorite subjects.
Honestly I could spend hours here and try really hard not to be overwhelming.
I let Tapestry of Grace "drive" the subject.

We read a variety of books and work in our Century Charts or History notebooks.
In this picture, my youngest is reading Story of the World while listening to the CD

Once again, Tapestry of Grace is my resource for Literature study.
I find that the pace is a little ambitious for our family so we do slow things down a bit.
Planning helps in this area.
I have also been having great success with the Go!Chart and like pulling this out on occasion.


Afternoons:
One area of weakness I have is science.
Knowing this about me, we have chosen to seek co ops that offer the sciences.
During the week, each one works on the reading and labs and/or activities are done in co op.
This has been a great help

This is the core of our year. We have languages, music study, art study, etc. but these are not daily activities and so they are interspersed throughout the week.
We also have books we read and our Bible study time before school or in the evenings.

Each year our typical day looks a little different as our needs and schedules change. Only recently have I been able to turn over the responsibility of driving the older ones to their work and activities. This has certainly helped to keep the atmosphere of our day in order. I try very hard to guard our calendar and truly pray over our long-term commitments. Each year has different priorities and goals. I am enjoying our mornings quite a bit more but a huge part of that is being prepared myself. It is not enough to say you want to live simplistically. I think the other part of that must be organization. When things become crazy I still have a plan. I still have a system that I can rely on with minimal effort. I am truly enjoying seeing all the threads of my life weaving together and am finding great peace in knowing the God has been the one behind it all. I am finding great joy in my mornings!

School Musings...

I must be insane! Today we are concluding the first semester of the school year, Christmas is fast approaching and I am already looking ahead and trying to figure out how to make it better. It's a sickness I tell you. I truly love being a child-shuttling, home-schooling, stay-at-home mom. So with that said, I thought I would jot down my thoughts here and maybe make some sense out of all of it.
Handwriting
Ironically this one has evaded me. Cursive? Print? Neatness? Copywork? Workbook? Each child has done it differently and I am plain stumped. The youngest's handwriting is awful. The youngest is also a boy. Does poor handwriting and the male gender go hand in hand? Recently I went back and visited Donna Young and liked her posts on copywork. She suggested using a composition book and writing a sentence for the child to copy down x amount of times on the right hand side of the paper. On the left glue a sample of the handwriting using either the cursive or print font found on her website. The left hand side is also used for practicing problem letters. This sounds fairly simple and yet focused.

Grammar
I am not opposed to a workbook in certain circumstances. Let's face it, there are days where saying, "Turn to page so-and-so" is just what the doctor ordered if you intend to keep your sanity. However I do not want this to be my primary teaching tool. We have been doing oral dictation using the Bible verses and quotes from my favorite planner and that has been going fairly well. The youngest is required to sit beside me so that I can keep an eye on his work and we have tweaked the process a bit from the example I participated in at the Childlight conference. We have added the step of silently raising a finger if there is a word they are unsure how to spell. Then I use fingerspelling (from Spell to Write & Read) of the word and allow them to copy the work correctly in their book. At the end of the dictation one child reads the whole passage and then I ask for punctuation. This is a gentle way to introduce grammar. They are getting better and finding the natural breaks in a sentence so we will see what fruit this particular seed bears. Finally we may take a moment to talk about the passage. I don't do this all the time because I fear it will become too forced and that is not my intention. If they are expressing an interest or asking questions we may pause and discuss.

Science
I will be frank here and share that I am not a lover of the sciences as I should be. Every year I try to get excited but honestly I struggle. I enjoy sitting outside on my deck or having my quiet time on a bench but this has yet to translate in to my school time. This is where I look for a wonderful co-op or friend to help me. :-) So how do I tackle this subject in a non-literary way and still capture the necessary foundations? I am thinking about trying our hand at journaling the second half of Apologia Physical Science. I just need to be more organized when it comes to the science experiments and more diligent in my prep-work....**big sigh**

Literature
This is a subject I think I need to tone down. Being a lover of language I find myself overwhelmed with all the books I hope to share with my children. I am really clinging to the "do not exasperate your child" philosophy and find myself saddened by the books being left along the wayside. I just remember seeing my father sitting in his chair reading. This was a powerful teacher for me and I am praying that my children will remember my love for books with similar fondness.

History
We are still building our century charts and have to admit that I am thoroughly enjoying this new tool. My hope is to build a Book of Centuries with this format as we begin our new history cycle next year. I do think my youngest is not quite ready for it though. He is not as patient with his drawing and this is something I would like to work in with great intention and purpose. He and I are still enjoying building his history book. We recently added two lapbook pages on World War II and it about wore me out. We did add a narration of the war after all our readings and that was enjoyable.

I think for now I will place these thoughts aside...to the best of my ability that is...and put my teaching hat aside. Next week we will be baking, singing Christmas carols, and enjoying some family traditions. Soon enough school will start back up and hopefully I will be prepared! Thanks for listening...

Fun Map Project...

One of the things I have loved about Tapestry of Grace is all the hands-on activities woven into the curriculum. We have played around with the ideas and come up with a good fit for our family, including my 8 year old's history book and the Century charts. One project I have been wanting to attempt in the coming years is the map overlay project.

Here is a wonderful blog on what that entails. I am really looking forward to restarting our history cycle with Year 1 and including the Map Overlay project. Maybe this will inspire you too!

Virtual Conferencing...

Virtual Conferencing Continues!



Our Virtual Conference Booth opened the first of May, and has been going strong. To our delight, hundreds of folks are downloading and benefiting from our two Tapestry Teacher's Training sessions – "Out of the Shrink-wrap" and "Lesson Planning 101." These helpful audio-visual presentations, hosted by Marcia Somerville, are like workshops that you'd expect to see given at state conventions, and we hope that, over the summer, you'll collect all eight sessions.

 Tapestry Teacher Training Sessions in June


Our Tapestry Teacher Training will continue in June with two great new webinars. They are again hosted by Marcia, and are entitled "Gaining Vision for Teaching High School" and "Teaching Grammar and Dialectic Students." These sessions are scheduled to be launched in early June, and are both priced at $7.

TOG Year 3

This has been nothing short of a challenging year for our family. With my husband's travel schedule vamped up (same amount of trips just less employees to share them) and my daughter's recent diagnosis I am honestly not sure how we survived. OK I do know...God's grace! ;-)

As I look back on this year I am even more thankful for TOG and all that it offers our family. I have always enjoyed creating lessons and putting things together for children but as they got older it became incredibly time-consuming to put in the research needed to suit their needs. This is where multi-level unit studies are a wonderful asset to our home school curriculum. I also believe in teaching history in chronological order. For us, it just makes the most sense. Since my children are so spread apart I can at any given year be teaching three to four different levels of education. At one point, I had preschool, upper grammar, dialect, and rhetoric levels. That's enough to make any home school mom misplace her sanity. But that is the very reason TOG appealed to me. While my oldest was reading The Odyssey my younger two were reading mythology from D'Aulaires Greek Myths and my preschooler sat on the floor soaking it all up. He even told his uncle his favorite king was King Agamemnon. :-) Another helpful tool for me were the detailed teacher notes and the discussion scripts for each week. Because of this we cultivated a love of history and a venue to discuss new ideas and measure them against God's Word. History discussion was my second favorite time of the week. As I have grown more comfortable with TOG I am more creative with our activities. This year my second grader built a Book of Centuries following the reading and history selections from TOG. This is a project I plan to continue in to TOG Year 4.

Often families seek outside classes for their high school students for fear that they will not be as prepared as if they just learned from home. While I believe there are benefits, I enjoy the opportunities TOG offers its high school students. For me personally, I feel this is one of its strengths.

Milestones

Ok I am doing the happy dance right now! I am the proud owner of Tapestry of Grace Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, and now...Year 4

I have always loved the classical approach to history, studying in chronological order for four year cycles and layering that with literature from that same time period. I will never forget my oldest son (who we homeschooled in high school) saying that history finally made sense to him. The natural relationship between history and literature is often overlooked in the public school system and studying the ancients while reading about Greek & Roman mythology helped him better understand.

Because My World Would Be a Wonderland...

Just a quick post today.

As part of TOG unit 3, we have been reading Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and truly enjoying it! My youngest has been listening to a fantastic radio theater version and my daughter is reading a copy from my father's library. Can you tell that I am a relational person? :-)

I decided to try my hand at making my own copywork booklet for my daughter. Last year she we discovered that she has beautiful cursive but somehow she reverted back to printing. So we are bringing back cursive! I got the booklet directions from www.donnayoung.org and made a template. Now I am set to make copywork booklets as we see fit.

• Alice in Wonderland Copywork Cover
• Alice in Wonderland Copywork booklet

Amazing "Grace"

Two wonderful women sat with me on a floor, books and papers cluttered the carpet while a great discussion commenced. This was my introduction to Tapestry of Grace (TOG).  From there my adventure with Year 1 began and I was quickly in love with all the many aspects of TOG.

This week TOG is unveiling their new buying guide. The hostess mom, Grace, will walk you through the steps of putting together the Tapestry products that are right for your unique family. She's here to make sure you don't miss anything! Grace's guide is also helpful for those browsing TOG products prior to making buying decisions, since you can take a walk through the entire ordering process and then either save your cart for later once you've gained more understanding of your choices and of product prices, or simply cancel your order at any point and start over later, when you're really ready to make a purchase!

Lessons from my Father...

I have been contemplating adding a new "feature" to my blog but always seem to put it off for another day. So here in the quiet of an evening, itunes playing, I have decided to put my thoughts on virtual paper.

Education is an atmosphere

I don't think I truly understood how true that is. Nor did I appreciate how my parents raised me to be in constant pursuit of knowledge. I have so many memories of my father sitting in his chair with a book or with his Bible silently living out his beliefs right in front of me. This unit we are reading Alice in Wonderland and I can not help but think of one summer and his gentle guidance for me. Being a typical child, I wasn't too concerned with the how I spent my hours and so much of it was blindly wasted in front of the TV. One afternoon my father called me in to his office. At that time he had a built-in bookshelf filled with books behind his desk. There he sat behind his desk surrounded by literature. It is here that one of my life lessons began. In his calm way, he passed me a gold hardback copy of Alice in Wonderland and asked that I read it. He began to talk to me about the quality of what fills my time. Am I spending it doing something of value, something noble, something good? Or am I just allowing myself to be a passive participant in the gift of time God has given me?

Of course being young, I listened and even stored it away under "all the things my father tried to teach me but I'm not going to pay too much attention to right now." I am thirty-something years old and his words of wisdom still ring in my ears. There was no yelling. There was no "Shelley, you are wasting your life." Just a simple gesture to open my eyes to see that there is more to life than just being lazy. So how does all this tie in to the quote by Charlotte Mason, (Education is an atmosphere)? "The child breaths the atmosphere emanating from his parents that of the ideas which rule their own lives." volume 2

Year 3 Unit 3 List

TOG Year 3

Just thought I would share some of the choices we are using for this unit. Prior to starting a unit I try to explore the subject matter, look through books we already own, and search my local library. After that (and checking the budget) I go online to order books I think will enhance our study.

Grammar Level:

• Florence Nightengale
• The Story of David Livingstone
• Dover Cards Edgar Degas
• Abraham Lincoln
• Tom Sawyer audiobook
• Emily
• Classic Tales of Brer Rabbit
• Seabird

Dialect Level:

• Story of the World Vol. 4
• This Country of Ours
• Florence Nightengale
• Poetry for Young People: Emily Dickinson
• Alice and Wonderland

Rhetoric Level:

• Les Miserables
• Great Expectations
• The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn
• Gone with the Wind
• The Day Lincoln was Shot * (personal favorite)
• A History of the American People

My desire is to have lots of discussion within our home. Sometimes my older children are "eavesdropping" as I read aloud to the youngest while other times the youngest overhears conversations. I am constantly amazed at the desire and capability of children when there is furtile soil to grow and be nourished in.

Awards & National Recognition for TOG again!

TAPESTRY OF GRACE

Lampstand Press received the following Excellence in Education (EE) Awards by The Old Schoolhouse magazine.

• History curricula: 2nd place


• Literature curricula: 2nd place


• Writing curricula: 3rd place


• Best Overall Company: 3rd place


• Best Unit Study: 3rd place


• Best Classical Resource: 2nd place


• Friendliest: 3rd place


• Most Unique: 3rd place

Click here to read the entire article from The Old Schoolhouse magazine or use this link http://lampstandbookshelf.com/connect/jrox.php?uid=shelley17_1_eaid_6.

One small step for man...

Today has been one been one of those days...

As the children quickly ran off to all corners of the house to explore their more leisurely passions, my friend and I began exploring ours. Yes, I am a complete nerd. I love reading, planning, and discussing school. With laptops running, papers strewn across the table, and laughter filling the room we began the task at hand. This year we are using Tapestry of Grace (TOG) Year 3 and are now in Unit 3. As each child grows, I continue to tweak and improve in all areas. I feel an excitement as I read through the Unit synopsis and my imagination runs wild. I admit it...I can get carried away but I love learning!

Today's task to work with my friend on best adapting Unit 3 to our particular needs. I have heard TOG described as a buffet table. There are many choices and each family will have similar "plates" but not exactly the same. That is what drew me to TOG in the first place. It is perfect for many types of families. In our home, we currently have 3 of the 4 classical levels.

1. Rhetoric
2. Dialect
3. Upper Grammar

This can make teaching a challenge if each child is on his own individual plan. But using the unit study approach can simplify the process.

Today, I worked through the reading lists and began adapting. My youngest (7) has been blessed with growing up in a more Charlotte Mason friendly home. This year we are making a history book filled with maps, oral narrations, and pictures. He has enjoyed reading living books and then re-telling me what he has heard. So using my library's online catalog search and www.Amazon.com, I began building his reading list for this unit. My daughter (12) is my more literal child and so we searched for activities and reading that would help develop and excite her. For my oldest (16), we discussed the virtual co-op plans and went ahead and wrote out our exam questions Charlotte Mason style. I will post those in my next blog. What an accomplished day!

Exams...with a twist

This past week, my 11th grader and I have been preparing for exam week. She has been reviewing the quarter and I have been busy preparing the exams. This year, with the help of virtual co-oping, we have really been able to flesh out topics and create the much needed atmosphere of discussion. One of my goals is to teach my children to communicate (both written and verbal) eloquently their ideas and beliefs.

Here is a peek at her Literature exam

• Using the novel, Pride & Prejudice explain how the author catches and holds the reader's attention.
• Reflecting on the various poets you have studied explain how one poets artistry spoke to you.

Over the past few weeks these questions have been part of our ongoing discussions. These questions were not meant to be a surprise for her but rather an opportunity to show layers of knowledge she has regarding the two topics. My goal was not to see if she could "guess" random facts about the material read but rather to build life long relationships with them. We never tire of the Bennett family and we never stop learning from them. They are familiar. They are comfortable. These relationships are not forced or contrived. For me, it is far better to intimately know the characters than to make a 100% on a shallow reading comprehension test.

In His Own Words...

This year my second grader and I are building a history notebook. In case it is unclear I am a HUGE lover of history. It is an unquenchable thirst and I hope I am able to pass along some of that to my children. One of our greatest challenges here is teaching elementary, middle, and high school to the best of my ability. Following the unit approach with Tapestry of Grace has been a great blessing but there are times I feel overwhelmed with trying to teach all three levels. In the decision making process I decided to follow the read-alouds for my youngest and read living books on the history topics. We bought a black sketch book and after our history readings, I write his narrations on the portion read. He adds pictures to the page after we are done. Sometimes we do a "picture study" and then reproduce it in our book and other times we simple cut and paste in to his book. I have also added maps to help reinforce the geography portion. In the end, he has a beautiful volume of history that I know I will treasure greatly because it is in his own words.

How Firm a Foundation

This year my youngest will be in second grade. It seems like yesterday that he was playing cards on the floor while we had our read-aloud time. I am not a firm believer in pushing our young ones but rather allowing them the opportunity to explore. As a result his education is the most pure. I am very blessed...from preschool to Sunday School he has been shown a living education.

The Foundation of Reading
From the very beginning he was exposed to true phonics. He simply sat on the sidelines, played games, and on occasion expressed a true interest. Still waiting for him to provide the pace, I read aloud great literature. Usually his literature was a living book that went along with TOG. We used magnetic letter, sandpaper letters, etc. to reinforce phonics. Then one day he came to me and said he wanted to learn to read. That night I discovered that he knew how to use his phonics to sound out words and shortly after that we began the Pathways Primer reader called First Steps. Along with reading, I continued to teach phonics by using Spell to Write & Read.

Exploring
Last year we made timeline cards to go along with our history readings. Again, I chose living books to accompany our TOG reading list and worked at a comfortable pace. I used the Avery postcard sheets to create the timeline cards. On the front side we found an image of the story and on the back I wrote a few sentences to help us (mostly myself) remember what the story was about. This year we are making a history book. Sometimes we cut and paste a picture and I write down his narration or he may chose to do a picture study of an image and then recreate it in his book.

Each year I am reminded that my desire is to install a strong foundation and a love for learning. We can stray from this basic truth but we wind up right back at the heart of the matter.

Step by Step You'll Lead Me...

Recently I have been contemplating "the quiet home" and what that means. I have this image of obedient children, soft-spoken words, dinner at six, bedtime stories, and constant laughter. Ideally we strive for such peaceful, loving homes and in my case still come up short.

This month, our book club, is reading Stepping Heavenward. What a lovely portrait of a young girl who strives continuously toward Christ. It is filled with mundane activity, sorrow, joy, suffering, friendships, and great blessings. Of course, for Katy, this journey is filled with the realization that alone she can not accomplish this. This has given me great pause in my own life. Am I stopping to find the joy in an afternoon of imagination instead of chores? Am I embracing struggles as times to show God's goodness?

These thoughts have lingered as I read. Then on Monday, I listened to a homeschool webinar (FREE...love that!) on "Tips for Teaching a Houseful" and there was that same idea...the quiet house...facing me once again. This has caused me to start examining our activities and discerning which will allow my children to grow and which will ultimately invade upon the peaceful atmosphere I am striving for. This has caused me to consider my teaching style and examine where I can improve. Prayfully, I am seeking what the rhythm of my new school year will be like. Last year was more like a jazz piece filled with excitement, activity, and transition. This year I am longing for something more simple and inviting. I will not always achieve perfection. In fact most days I am sure I will come up short. But I am beginning to understand that it is as much about the steps taken as it is about the final destination. Each serve a purpose. Each have the opportunity for growth. I pray my steps are heavenward as my destination is there with Christ.