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August 15, 2008
Week 1 - What are we doing, again?
Week 1, folks. Yes, we've started back to school. This year I am teaching first, second, fifth and seventh grade. And the first grader is mightily resistant. Mightily.
But, we're back into it. Every day the older two did math, Latin and Greek. Every day the younger two did math, and either phonics, copywork or grammar.
There has been one little change. We've decided to try something new. I haven't been happy with history since my oldest finished all of Story of the World. Yes, he can do history independently, but 1) I like it better when we do the same topics at the same time; and 2) his independent work was becoming something easy to dash off, which was not my goal.
So we're trying out - and these are the words you thought you'd never hear on this blog - we're trying out Tapestry of Grace.
(Shhh! Don't tell anyone!)
For those of you who aren't homeschoolers, or who have never heard of this, Tapestry of Grace is a history-based curriculum plan for teaching one topic of history at a time to various levels of children. It's a very nicely laid-out plan. It is both meaty and flexible, and leads the older children to deeper and deeper levels of analysis.
So why would I say that you'd never hear of me using it? Well, it is heavily Christian. Heavily. It is called Tapestry of Grace, after all. The teacher's notes and many of the questions for students assume a Biblical worldview. If we continue to use this program, I will have to toss out their entire philosophy component, and at least half of Year 1, as unusable for us. Some of it contains so much Biblical worldview that we're not going to be able to pick it out or overlook it.
It is also an all-encompassing curriculum. It can take up your whole week, every week. i don't want to spend that much time on history. On the other hand, it is time to ramp up the difficulty for the oldest, and TOG's plan seems to do that for me nicely.
It also moves really, really fast. This one week covered what, with Story of the World, we would have taken six weeks to do, and we'd have had more world history thrown in.
Still, so far, I like the plan, I like the questions, I like the way it all comes together. I can always slow down when I want to, and take advantage of those times when we will not be able to use the TOG material.
It does feel odd, though to be using it. So, stay tuned to see how a pagan family uses Tapestry of Grace. I bet the publisher will love it.
So, we did week 20 of unit 3, year 2 (in TOG-speak that's Y2U3 Wk. 20, for LG UG and D), which covers the first English settlements in America. TOG recommends large amounts of reading and for some reason, my kids did it all. I'm flabbergasted. Usually, I assign and they weasel. But they read it. All. Connor even gave written answers to questions about the readings (in his usual, concise, way). And we did those nifty maps. Everyone read different books, but they were all about the same topics. We were all able to talk about the same events and people, with each kid having slightly different information.
I was not planning on using TOG's literature component, but it turns out that they schedule many of the books I was going to use anyway. I'll just throw out the ones I don't want to use, and add in others.
So far so good, but I remain skeptical and open to chucking the whole thing. It does have decent resale value.
I bought Writing With Ease to use for my two little boys. However, did I mention the youngest one's resistance to all things school? It will take some time to get into a rhythm with them. Which is fine.
Along with all the TOG reading, Connor is reading the Iliad this year. We're going to watch videos from the Teaching Company to supplement. We've got all year. If this turns out to be doable for him, we'll read the Odyssey, too. If not, if we take all year to do the Iliad, that's fine.
Hmmm. It felt like we did a lot. Now it doesn't seem like so much. We still had time for a day with Grandma and Grandpa, and we only did review today. Today we also did some science (gasp!), and art (gasp!). I know. We're just crazy, aren't we? And we watched a NOVA about Galileo.
Meanwhile, Connor discovered Asimov, and Aidan discovered Heinlein. We are proud parents. But, er ... it is kind of tricky finding Heinlein that is going to be, well ... I'm not sure about a 10 year old reading Stranger in a Strange Land. He found Starship Troopers, and fell in love, but I steered him towards Have Space Suit, Will Travel after that. Connor is reading the Foundation series. Did I mention that I'm thrilled?
Posted by lynx at August 15, 2008 9:05 PM
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Comments
How much planning did you have to do (with TOG)? I imagine that I'd be taking the useful lessons out of the guidebook and whatnot and putting them into my own planner. What exactly does TOG provide: readers, read-alouds, projects and discussion questions?
Posted by: Rose (dragons in the flower bed) at August 16, 2008 8:16 AM
I'd love to hear more about how you're using TOG. That biblical worldview business always sends me away from it, so I'm intrigued.
True confession, though -- when I clicked on your blog in bloglines I thought I was reading KathyJo's blog. After all, homeschooling 4 boys ... math, Latin, and Greek, blah blah blah ... then I got to the line about being pagan. What? I didn't realize KathyJo is pagan. Since when?
Posted by: GailV at August 16, 2008 1:43 PM
Hey, I coulda been a pagan. Ya know, except for the whole believing in the Divinity of Christ thing. :)
I'm also looking forward to hearing how y'all do with TOG. I've considered it a number of times, but I never buy it. At the last minute, I always remember that I'm lousy at following someone else's schedule, and I don't mind if the boys are studying different topics.
Sometimes, I think it might actually be easier for someone of a completely different faith to use some of the Christian curricula out there than it is for some of us Christians. When you come across the Biblical bits, you can roll your eyes and move forward. But if it conflicts with our understanding of the Bible, then we end up having a theological discussion that I may or may not be prepared for.
Posted by: KathyJo at August 16, 2008 7:00 PM
IIRC, ToG is Somerville's book. He's no longer with HSLDA, so you haven't completely crossed over to the Dark Side.
Posted by: Daryl Cobranchi at August 17, 2008 5:55 AM
Hey, if it works... :)
Posted by: Becky at August 17, 2008 9:24 PM
We used TOG for awhile. Don't try to do everything for every week. We just ignored the religion part, and I modified the questions where I needed to. We are Christian, but TOG wasn't quite our...um...tradition of looking at the world.
Posted by: Anne at August 23, 2008 12:53 PM
Well, THIS should be interesting! We're coming from radical unschooling to homeschooling (though I've always used Sonlight books as our library when we have no library access) but WOAH! This should be a ride! :)
I'm very intrigued by TOG mainly due to the much-hyped discussions but maybe we have "good enough" discussion all on our own. I'm not at all interested in a schedule; maybe I'll just pick the best books between AO, TOG and Sonlight.
Would a relaxed, multi-level, 4 year rotation, no tests or assignments, no schedule curriculum be too much to ask for? :)
Posted by: kathy at August 23, 2008 4:57 PM