Planning for Tapestry of Grace Year 1

This is our first year using TOG and I am super excited to have found this program. It is so thorough and engaging for the entire family. The book selections are fantastic! They are colorful and entertaining and hold my boys attention longer than 5 minutes. I have one boy in Upper Grammar, one in Dialectic and one in preschool that will listen along with us.

As a new user of TOG, I feel completely overwhelmed by the amount of papers involved. I am one of those people that reads everything and then writes notes and reads again. Good thing I love history or I would drive myself insane. I made myself a Key Discussion Outline so that I can take notes as I read. I keep this in front of my Master Binder so that I can glance at it as needed.


TOG Key Discussion Outline

 

 Tapestry of Grace Master Binder

This is my working binder and where I keep all of the papers I need for the weekly lessons.

1) I take the entire weeks section from my big binder and transfer it to my working binder.

2) Book list.

3) This section contains the weeks vocabulary words and our review cards. I type all of the vocab words into Quizlet then print out and stick a copy in my binder and each of the boys binders. For our review work, I select 4-5 things that I want them to remember and we paste the info onto index cards. The boys review these each week and we use them for review games.

4) Reading List - I highlight each boys reading selections in different colors and make notes about any corresponding notebook pages to complete.

5) Writing List - I highlight the weeks writing assignment for my UG son.

6) This is the glossary that I printed from the Loom CD. It has all of the vocabulary definitions and gives descriptions about the important people.

7) Notebooking Pages - this section holds my Table of Contents for my notebooking pages from History Scribe and Notebookingpages.com so that I can quickly scan for narrations.

8) Evaluations and Tests - I place copies of these for the entire unit and pull out as needed.

9) Maps - this section holds all of the maps, both blank and answers, for the entire unit. I pull them out at the beginning of each week and add to the boys binders.

That is my TOG Master Binder and for now, it is working great. But this is our first year, so I am sure it will be tweaked as we go along!

 

 

Organizing the Boys Tapestry of Grace Binders

We have always used binders for our history work and as much as I love the bound notebooks that a lot of others are making, I feel the boys will do better if I keep it consistent and stick with what has been working for us. So here is a look at how I organize our Tapestry notebooks.

 

I place their student assignment page at the front of the binder.

 

The next tab contains the notebooking pages that they use for narrations. I place these in there as needed for the lesson.

 

The maps are next. I place the student geography sheet opposite the map so they can see them side by side.

 

The vocabulary section comes next. I print the vocab from Quizlet and then we review these orally every day.

 

This section contains their projects. I add a copy of the activity sheet and highlight their choice. If the finished project isn't on paper, then we take a picture of it and put it here.

 

This tab is for the Review Cards. After I pick the things we will memorize and review, I print out pictures for them to paste on an index card and they write a short summary.

 

The last section is for the timeline. They have a binder timeline for them to use individually and be creative with. I also print timeline figures for them to cut and paste to our wall timeline or their binder timeline.

And that concludes this weeks lesson on the TOG binders :)

My goal is to plan one unit at a time. I will use my discussion outline to plan out the week in detail and then make all of my needed copies at once. I put the current week into the binders and file the other copies in my crate, which holds my folders that are labeled from weeks 1 - 32.

This post is written by Janeen from www.sproutingtadpoles.com

A Whole New World....for us!

    Nearly three years ago I attended my first homeschool convention and I learned about Tapestry of Grace.  I had a four year old at home.  My little Katie was ahead, but I knew she wasn't ready for a massive curriculum like Tapestry.  The more I read online about it the more I fell in love with it.  I hated history as a kid.  It was not relevant or interesting.  I found it boring and dull.  As an adult I have a completely different view of history.  Teaching my child history and paralleling it with the Bible is exactly what I want.  It gives history purpose and value.  It gives the Bible validity in this lost world.  Tapestry of Grace is a beautiful way to introduce history to my daughter.  I'm so excited to learn right along side her.  One day my son will join us too!

Last year my son was born.

Now having a new baby may not slow you down, but it slowed me down.  As I looked towards the fall of 2012 I just wasn't confident I could do a whole lot more than language arts, math, light social studies and science readers, and a foreign language.  Although busy, the year was successful and I started dreaming of what was next.  I started researching.  Type in homeschool curriculum in your internet search bar.... Yeah you will be looking at curriculum for hours and be even more confused by the time you finish.  Homeschool conventions are similar.  Lost in a sea of oooh's and ahhhh's.  It is truly exhausting.

    So, how do you choose curriculum? Well, think about your style, your philosophy of education for your home, and your kids.  What are their ages? How much time DO you have? If you have several kids and very little time I bet TOG would work for you!  If you have a few kids and plenty of time I think it would work for you too!  I know there are folks out there just couldn't use the program and maybe it's my newbieness (Ha, a new word!)  BUT, come on!  This curriculum is so rich and deep.  I realize that I will have to read the teacher's notes and plan out my weeks, but no matter what I use I have to plan.  Right? Right!  Why not plan an amazing year? I look at Tapestry of Grace and see the big picture.  Lord willing, my kids will go through the program 2 or 3 full rotations.  In the end, I hope to  have kids with a solid foundation in history, geography, literature and the Bible.  They will know how to accurately and competently communicate historical facts and biblical truth after going this curriculum. Will this come easy? No.  It will not be easy for them and it won't be easy for me.  My heart longs for them to be successful.  I'm fully committed.  This is a season.  A short season, where I have the honor of setting the stage and building a firm foundation for my kids.

    A friend of mine just can't get past the scary planning part of Tapestry.  I'm grateful that she has found curriculum that will work great for her family.  We've struggled with this next step in our homeschool journey as friends.  We enjoy our girls doing similar things, but at some point you really have to do what speaks to you.  There are SO many programs out there I really don't see how you could go wrong.  Unless you pick what your friend is doing and that curriculum doesn't work for you and your family.  We need to trust God to lead us as we make these choices.  Then trust that He has a plan and will accomplish it this year in your family.

    Let me assume you are on the fence about TOG and you need a push one way or the other.  I can't tell you what will work or guarantee that TOG is your perfect fit.  However, let me ease your mind.  You will get teacher's notes each week that tells you all the wonderful things you "could" do.  There are books, maps, writing assignments, lapbooks, and projects.  You get to customize what you do.  This is where the planning part comes into play.  You can't just open a book and go.  You must thoughtfully choose what you want to do and can do each week.  There is just not enough time to do it all.  Cycling through the years should ease your mind a bit too.  Your child will see this information again!

    My planning has been so exciting.  I'd like to explain what I have done so far and I pray that it will help you....

    First things first, I purchased and printed from my DE version of TOG.  I printed only the pages I needed for my teacher notes.  I started with the first 9 week unit.  I also printed the quick guides and any other helpful documents.  I put all these pages in a binder for quick reference.  When I have time I pull it out and read a few pages.  Learning along with my daughter looks like so much fun!  Seriously, you'd think I was about to start school!

    Next, I skimmed over the books for unit one at Bookshelf Central.  There are a lot of fabulous and intriguing books.  I checked the library to find out which books they did NOT have.  Then I compared online prices and bought some books.  I decided to purchase books we would use for more than 2 weeks.  I think about half of the books should be available at our library.

Recently, I printed the maps we will use.  I just purchased a ProClick Binder and soon I will be able to make a TOG notebook for my daughter and a planning book for myself.  That is my next step.

   Starting Tapestry next month has consumed me.  I am just SO excited!  Join me on this journey.  I intend to share authentically about our first year.  Perhaps like me you want to start this in a year or two.  I hope you can learn from my experiences.