Tapestry of Grace Tuesday {book review - God's Names}

I would love to share with you, every now and again, about the lovely books that we come across within our curriculum. They are simply too wonderful not to share! I will pick out different ones, and also explain which area they relate to in the curriculum, as there are several different categories and levels involved. However, you don't need to use Tapestry of Grace in order to use these books.  I CAN tell you, though, that it is jam full of lovely titles. If you want to see the full book list for yourself,  you can go to the Bookshelf Central site, and search according to year group, unit, learning level and topic. You won't find specific details about which weeks they are actually used, but you can certainly see which books are used in a general sense.

Today, I will begin with one that is suggested as a read-aloud, for the lower 3 levels. When this book arrived, and I had a flick through, I was instantly excited about what I saw.

It's called "God's Names", by Sally Michael. It is published by P&R Publishing and endorsed by Children Desiring God.  Recommendations come from John Piper, to Tim Challies.

This beautifully illustrated book begins by encouraging the child to think about the significance of name. Why and how it is given to a child, and the different types of names you can have. It then goes on to explain that God is given hundreds of special names in the scriptures, to reflect the many facets of His person. This book covers 24 of these, as well as a chapter about how the child can know God personally, in salvation.

It covers many aspects of who God is and what He does for His children. Each name weaves in a Bible story which applies the attribute involved in the name. Many Bible stories are used to illustrate these truths, in a way that a child can relate to them. The language is simple, yet engaging.

Each story concludes with a scripture passage you can read to emphasise the truth, and also questions to make the child think more deeply, and are perfect as a springboard to further discussion. Sally Michael, who wrote the book, has also given suggestions for activities to reinforce the truth in the heart and mind of the child.

Today, we read the introductory chapter, which covered the theme of names. The activity was for the child to write their name out, and what it means. They were also to ask if they were named for any special reason. It was a lovely opportunity to explain why we chose their names.

This book ticks all the boxes for me. Excellent content. Engaging for the child. Beautifully illustrated. Spiritual application. What more could you ask for in a book?

It potentially has many uses, really. It could be used every Lord's Day, as a read aloud and Bible study tool. It would see you through half of the year, used like that. It could be used as a Unit Study, where you could dig deeper into the Bible stories used for each name, and learn about various aspects of life surrounding the characters in the lessons. For example, one story relates to Gideon - you could learn about torches, light, how animals drink, pottery, and many other things. You could turn each name into an element of a lapbook. There are many free lapbook templates available online, and you could even try and choose shapes that somehow relate to the story. You could write a mini-book on the names of God, giving a brief description of each name, and maybe thinking of other Bible stories that could relate to the name you are writing about. The possibilities are endless!

Above all else, it's simply a lovely book to share with your children, and to encourage them in the ways of God, and learning from His Word. If you want a quality book to add to your shelves, get this one.

As it says on the back cover,

"God has left his names with his people so they can know him...and through these pages your children can know him too".


(Whenever I write a book review, I will add the name of the book to my Children's Books page on the blog. You will find the tab for that at the top of the blog. It will link back to the post where I reviewed the book. I hope these reviews will be useful, and I will try and cover a wide variety of subjects and book types - from reference to fiction - Bible-based and secular.)

Organising your Home schooling {Blog Hop Week}

Can we hear an "awwwwwwwwwwww"?

It's the last day of our blog hop! I truly hope and pray that these posts will have been a blessing and encouragement to many ladies, and perhaps help them along the road to being more organised in at least some parts of their lives.

Now, I know that this may not seem to be relevant to those who do NOT home educate their children, but you may well discover that some of the practical ideas of how to organise in THIS area, may carry over to others.

The topic of organising home schooling could cover quite a few different areas - simply because it is such a varied topic, with so many elements involved.  There are supplies, books, papers, curricula, stationary, schedules, shelves.  LOTS of things that COULD be organised.

Maybe you are an educator who is so laid back that you think that being organised is not important.  Hats off to you, but I have found that I can NOT home educate my children, WITHOUT being organised.  Some people can manage without a curriculum, for example, but I just would be lost without any!

There are a few areas, regarding home schooling, that I find helpful to be organised about.

Curriculum
I am not someone who can manage without a curriculum.  I need all the help I can get, in structuring my children's schooling.  Having a curriculum does that for me. We switched curriculum almost 4 years ago, which I blogged about here. When choosing what is right for your family, I think there are several influencing factors, to help you organise your thoughts.

1. What is your family structure?
If you have only one or two children, your needs will be quite different.  If you have lots of children, like me, you may want to look at something that helps you include your children together, to make things easier for you as the teacher. Perhaps you have special needs children you have to consider, and you will need add in particular elements to accommodate that.

2.  How are you, as the parent, at planning and organising?
If you are not very confident at planning things out for yourself, it's better to go for something that is very parent-guided, and makes life easier for you.  Perhaps you even need a workbook type curriculum, which has everything planned out to the nth degree, and which requires very little input from yourself. These types of curcciula are also good if you are on the go a lot, or are just starting out, and are not very confident about the how's and wherefores of home-ed. You have to be happy, as the teacher, with whatever you choose, ad be comfortable knowing you can facilitate your children's learning to their best potential, without feeling stressed out or out of your depth.

3.  What styles of learning suit your children?
Some children are fine with workbooks, which are more "fill in the answer" types.  Some need more art and craft stimulation. Some love having their nose in a good literature or reference book.  Some like lapbooking, or notebooking. They all have ways which they naturally learn better.  I would suggest taking the time to observe how best your children learn, then trying to incorporate that into your curriculum choices.  That, by the way, is why i love Tapestry of Grace.  It covers pretty much all learning styles, and you can adapt it to suit each child in your family, whilst all covering the same content! Win-win


It's not very detailed, but those would be my main pointers for how to initial choose your curriculum, and organise that initial aspect of what you are DOING!


Planning/scheduling your days
This is an area that I have some amount of structure in, but it could be improved.

We have a schedule that we follow every day, which allows me to fit in my 1-1 time with any subjects that require it.  We always have maths, grammar, spelling and writing int he mornings. The older children do it in whatever order they like, but I do spelling and grammar with them.  Before break, I do 1-1 with younger children, and the older ones get on with any independent work.  after break, I do writing with Daniel, then, Beth and Josh, then spelling likewise. Thankfully, with Josh being a boy, and Beth being a younger, but, erm, enthusiastic girl, they work together on things.

Afternoons we work together on our other subjects, with the children working at their appropriate level on things.  At the moment, science, music and art we do all together. We also, in  the afternoons, do most of our Tapestry of Grace work.  That is done at the child's level, and can be very different for each child. It includes map/geography work, literature assignments, writing assignments, arts and enrichment, or lapbooking. I often read aloud to them, too, and we spend time discussing what we have been reading. It's a very inters ting time, and we learn a lot, chatting together like that!

Something else that's involved in this area, is deciding what OUTSIDE activities you commit to. Some manage to be out a lot, and still get book work done.  We just find that if we go out a lot, we can't get it all done.  We have our co-op once a month, and the odd trip out, but otherwise we do a 4-day week, and stay at home. We don't have any clubs, sports etc.  To some, they are important, and need to be scheduled in, but it's not something we consider vital.

What I plan to incorporate, when we begin our new year of Tapestry of Grace (we work January-January on that), is to allow the oldest one or two to be more involved with planning out their own week, and scheduling their days.  I think it will be good to give them a level of accountability and learn time management skills a bit better.

I also want to start using planning grids, so that the children can see better what they need to accomplish in a week.  It will also help me to think ahead a bit better, and not be so lastminute.com with making sure I have all the bits and pieces we need throughout the week.

There are multitudes of free, printable planning grids available.  I have looked and looked, but I think i have concluded that I need to make my own, to suit our own schooling subjects and needs.



Organising supplies

My main tip for this, before diving into explaining how I do things, is to make sure you have a home for everything.  If everything has a place that it belongs, then you, and your children, will know where everything needs to be put BACK!  It's a key to keeping tidy! Our last house was a struggle, because we had a lack of space, but now it's a lot easier to keep tidy.

The bane of my life, in the tidiness department, is PAPERS.  Loose papers.  Where to put them.  How to file them. How to stop them migrating around the house. How to stop them multiplying, because they do, don't they?  They breed, like rabbits. So, my plan for THAT, is to use ring binders better this next year.  Having a binder for each child, with any loose papers being filed under a separate tab, per subject.  I think, with so many children, it's one of the only ways to keep on top of it all.  Plus, training the children to file their OWN papers, and NOT leave them lying around.

Then, there's books.  I LOVE my books.  I LOVE getting new books.  I LOVE them looking tidy.

(Sadly, that part doesn't always happen.)

Now, my messy house has prevented pictures in some of my posts this week, but because I organised my shelves earlier in the summer, and only a few boxes needed to be moved to photograph the shelves, I HAVE PICTURES!!!

Having now looked at them, I bemoan, once again, my camera.  But, they will give you an idea of what I do.

This is a general piccie of my bookshelves. This one is organised the best, and I am really pleased with my re-organisation that I did. Let me break it down for you.

The shelf here is all my phonics related books. These are what I will use with my newest pupil, Abi (eek, can my FIFTH child be starting school next week????), and Susie and Daniel are still using some of the readers on the left. It's a combination of Jolly Phonics and the Oxford Reading Tree set, about Biff, Chip and Kipper.  I can't wait to start using these again.  

These shelves show SOME of Tapestry of Grace books. You can't see very clearly, but I recently colour dotted them, with the correct colour for each year - red, gold, green and blue. I plan to cellotape over the top of the dots, as they look like they want to come off. I have them put them into alphabetical order for each year, so they are easy to find and put back.  Now to train the children to do so - huge lesson in alphabetical order coming up.... The top shelf has the bigger books, the one underneath has smaller ones. There are other shelves with TOG books, both to the right and to the left. And, there will be more!  OOOOH, so exciting! 

The bottom shelves, on all 3 bookcases, have bigger, reference books. Things likes atlases, history books and things like that. 

Right, this is my shelf to keep manipulatives for early years and phonics.  Lacing cards, puzzles, matching activities. I just thought they needed to be all together, instead of all around the house. There are a lot of fun things on that shelf.  Well, I think so, anyway!

On the top 2 shelves here, I have literacy manipulatives, of various types.  This includes the things we need for our spelling curriculum, and for phonics. 

The shelf underneath has the things we use from day to day - maths books, grammar books, etc.  

This is a close-up of the files, which are arranged by subject.  I bought these cardboard files from Ikea, but they are really not strong enough for ones being used all the time.  Tip - but sturdy magazine files if you will be pulling them in and out every day!

    

This shows what is on TOP of the shelves. Don't be afraid to use the tops!! These are all things that I either use infrequently, or I don't want the children to touch - paper trimmer, comb binder, and the like. (bag of percussion = noisy, unless supervised = top of shelves.....)

This, my bloggy friends, is what the rest of my school room looks like just now.  

Yikes.

And we start back school next week?..... *whistles*

The other thing that I want to show you, I can't take a picture of just now.  It's in front of the wall map, in the picture above.  It's blue.  It's hiding behind a stack of empty storage boxes.

I use this to put all the books we need for the week, for Tapestry of Grace. It means the children always know where to find them, and where to put them back. Then, at the end of the week, I can file them back on the shelves, with the other TOG books. It's made it a lot easier to keep tidy, and for the children to find what they need.  Not that they ALWAYS go back where they belong, I hasten to add...

All my stationary, of the paper type, is in cupboards, or in my old favourite - Really Useful Boxes.  

Another one which I can't quite decide how to keep organised, is my pencils and pens.  I have a tried various types of pencil cases for each child, as well as various types of general storage - boxes, pots and random containers. I had wanted to make a carousel, of sorts, that would hold pens, pencils, erasers, etc.  But, I feel it may take up more room than is necessary.  I am also pretty sure I don't want pens kept at child level. I have learnt that lesson.  

So, any great tips on how you keep these, would be MASSIVELY appreciated. 

I want to finish (because, I could go on forever.....) on the note of my favourite gadget for helping organise papers and school work.

We all have a "pet" gadget, right?  Well, every normal home school Mum has, anyway... 

Mine is my comb binder!!

I LOVE my comb binder.

If you, like me, like curriculum that you can purchase in digital format, and then you need to print yourself, then you NEED one of these.  Ok, maybe not NEED, but your life will be tidier, more organised, and much happier if you have one. 

My writing curriculum, Writeshop,  is one which I print off each lesson - 10 for each year, usually at least 3 on the go at once. Having the comb binder makes them look neat and professional.    If you look back at my picture above, with the white magazine files, then you will see my Writeshop lessons bound in a red comb. I use it for grammar books, and also any printable worksheets for any child, which will require several sheets being printed at once, and then can be kept in booklet form.  

I will also be using it when I print off Heidi's Firmly Planted books.  *smiles*

I also love my laminator, but I will not begin to wax lyrical about that! 

SO, come on, last day, SHARE with us all!!! What are your favourite Pins on Pinterest, for orgnasiign school.  Your favourite planning grids or printables? Have you got hints and tips on what helped you get your school supplies organised?  Please either link up blog posts, or share in the comments section below.

  

Tapestry of Grace....our "main curriculum"

Right....*cracks knuckles, and limbers up for a major ramble*.

Let's get to it.  The main curriculum we use.

TAPESTRY OF GRACE

So, how did I find it?  We used to use ACE.  I will not go into the why's and wherefore's of why we stopped using that.  We decided it wasn't for us, but I had noooooooo idea where to turn next!!!  I had ALWAYS used ACE, but as much as it was patently NOT suiting us, I didn't know where to start looking for an alternative.  So, I thought about the way the children enjoyed learning.  I thought about the fact that I had 5, going on 6 children at the time.  I considered that cost was an issue.  And, I started looking.

I figured that, having heard about them before, unit studies may be a way for us to go.  I first of all looked into the Weaver curriculum, produced by AOP.  However, I just couldn't find enough detail about it, or examples of it online. (This may have changed now, but when I researched it, just over 2 year ago, this was the case)

I then went onto Cathy Duffy's Review Website, to look at other Unit Study type curricula.  It flagged up Tapestry of Grace.

I clicked on the link.....


And I was thrown into THE most amazing website for a curriculum, that I had found to date!  It was SO transparent. They were happy for you to see and understand EVERYTHING. It allowed me to download 3 weeks of the curriculum, to see what it was like, and get a feel for it.

 There were support forums.  There were people online who answered queries really quickly.  It was bright.   It was interesting.  And, when I downloaded Marcia Sommerville's Philosophy of Education (she wrote the curriculum) it made so much sense.  I cannot seem to easily find this online.  I must ask some fellow users if it available to read!

It is a 4 year, cyclical, multi-level curriculum!  In other words...it runs for 4 years.  Any level and stage of child can be doing it AT THE SAME TIME.  Once you have done the 4 years, you go  back to the beginning, but the child will be at a more advanced learning level, and will use different books, and study it all at a more advanced level.  History is a major backbone, and it runs chronologically.  Being a "Christian" curriculum, it begins in Egypt (as Moses wrote the first 5 books of  the Bible, and HIS life began in Egypt!), and carries on through the Bible times, and then into post-Bible history.  It has LOADS of different fantastic books that they use.  *POINT OF NOTE* - if you don't like to use any non-fiction, and certainly not any myths, legends or "fairy stories", then this is NOT for you! You could try and cut them out, but there are quite a few of them in there!  They DO teach, right at the beginning, what myths, legends and fairy stories ARE, and how you can use them to your benefit.  That aside, I LOVE the choices they use!

It is a "classical approach" to home schooling.  What IS that anyway?...

What is Classical Education?

The core of Classical Education is the trivium, which simply put is a teaching model that seeks to tailor the curriculum subject matter to a child’s cognitive development. The triviumemphasizes concrete thinking and memorization of the facts of the subjects in grade school;analytical thinking and understanding of the subjects in middle school; and abstract thinking and articulation of the subjects in high school. Subjects unique to Classical Education which help accomplish the goals of the trivium are Grammar, the science of language usage; Logic, the science of right thinking; and Rhetoric, the science of verbal and written expression. Classical Christian Education is further characterized by a rich exposure to the history, art, and culture of Western Civilization, including its languages (Latin and Greek), its philosophy and literature (the Great Books of Western Civilization and the Christian tradition), and the development of a Biblical worldview with Theology in its proper place as the Queen of the Sciences.

(from http://www.classical-homeschooling.org )

So, to me, with many children, this approach made sense!  Having seen that different children have a different rate, and way, of learning, I decided this seemed a good way to educate.

Another winning factor for me...was that it is downloadable!  So, no expensive international shipping costs!  A few items DO need to be shipped, but the folks at Lampstand Press were quick and efficient, and overall the cost worked out so well, especially with the exchange rate! *grins, in a frugal, kind of Scottish, way*.  Since originally writing this post, there are more things that are now downloadable, including being able to access the curriculum from your iPad. (You have to get an extra license for that, which only costs an admin fee of $5).

The books that you need to use, are mostly available in the UK.  Many of them I COULD have got in the library, but as I LOVE books, and was still saving so much money, compared to the cost of ACE, I decided just to start buying them for myself.  Most of them have come from www.amazon.co.uk or from the Book Depository (the latter being the cheapest, the last time I bought!).  A few have been unavailable here, but I have just worked around it easily enough, so far!

The other thing to bear in mind...is that is IT American! So, year 2 covers a LOT that is VERY American.  I just supplemented with plenty of British History, whilst still covering the events in the curriculum.  On the whole it has a very broad world-view approach, and recognises that a lot of what has shaped history happened OUTSIDE of the US! ;-)

One of my favourite supplemental books, is....

Is is a great resource, and I love reading it myself!

I also used....

Being a faithful Scot, I didn't want them to miss out, despite them being half Sassenach! (and if you don't know what that is.....google it!)

The main structure is that for every year there are 4 units - each unit has 9 weeks. (For those wanting a longer school year than that, I added in review weeks...)  Your child will study at one of the 4 levels - lower Grammar, Upper Grammar, Dialectic or Rhetoric. (I now have experience with using the first 3, and by God's grace, and the amazingly supportive community out there, it's slowly working out fine!...).  There is a plan given for each week, with all the possible activities listed and suggested.  YOU then pick and choose what you want to do and what you will leave.  Maybe your child is more of a writer (WHAT is THAT like?!?!), and you will want to do fewer of the "hands on" activities.  Maybe you child learns by doing the "hands on" and you will have less writing.  Maybe your child struggles with reading - read aloud to them!!!  (Mine LOVE being read aloud to, even though the older ones love reading anyway!) WHATEVER YOU DO - do NOT try and do everything!!!!!!  YOU will become worn out - burned out - struggle to keep up.  Certainly, if you try and do it all when you start out.  Then you will want to give up.  But, that is not how it is designed to be used, so just do what suits your family.

I especially found the first year a lot of fun, and very interesting. It was very Bible based, and it tied in so much of the general world history, with what was happening in Bible times and eras.  Fascinating!

Undoubtedly, this is a parent-involved curriculum...and I don't just mean you set the work and mark it.  You need to be more involved than that.  If you don't want to be involved in learning with your child, again, this is not for you!  If, like me, you love to learn TOO, then it will be perfect!!!  I am sure I have learnt more in the last 2 years, than I did in a whole lot of my Primary Years at school!!!

There are just so many ways to learn, with Tapestry of Grace.  You are constantly reading and finding out answers for yourself (well, *I* do, too....but, I meant your child/children!).  There are assignments to go with literature - geography assignments (with maps available to use) - things to make and do - lots of writing suggestions (they have a whole writing program, called Writing Aids ) - discussions - spelling and vocabulary - a whole wealth of resources and links to tie in - and lapbooks, which are a lot of fun!


I have also written a post about the workbooks we now use, which I print and bind.  It makes everything far more organised here, and lets us easily see what the week has in store for each child.


I don't know if I have described it very well! I am sure I have missed things!! But, the best thing for you to do, is see for yourself!!!

If you go to this page, on their website, you can explore the curriculum, and see how it works.

There is also a forum you can go on, to ask questions, which you can find here.

So, there we have it!  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  Better still, look on the site...it will probably answer your question better than I can!

Whatever you use to homeschool, may the Lord bless you today and every day, as you seek to raise your children for His kingdom.