You've bought the curriculum, you've ordered your books or are planning on putting them on hold at the library, you've read through the Loom documents, and you have a good handle on what you'll be teaching this year. You've even made yourself a bit of a "schedule" for the week. So, now you're ready to start some printing and plan the details of your school year.
First, you'll need to get some notebooks (at least 1.5-2 inch binders) for yourself, and your children. Also, be sure to get some dividers and lots and lots of blank paper. I have printer paper, lined notebook paper, and I love the paper that is blank on top for pictures with the bottom half lined so a younger student can write a couple of sentences about the picture that they have drawn.
You'll have to decide what works for you; but, these are the sections that I have for my children - Maps, SAPs, Writing Assignments, Review and Vocab Sheets, and Quizzes. The notebook is empty, other than dividers, at the beginning of the school year.
***Note, I have, in the past made pro-click binders, with all of the papers collated for the year. This past school year, I found that I was still printing stuff out during the year, that I would find that I had forgotten something, and it was obnoxious to have to open the binder to add sheets. We didn't, so often times the sheets got lost. With a binder, you can add and subtract at will.
For my own teacher notebook, it's divided by week plan. I have one unit at a time in my notebook.
I personally have the Digital Edition and this is what I print out for my own notebook - Reading Assignments, Writing Assignments and any Supplements, Fine Arts/Geog Assignments, General Information page, and my own personalized "Assignment Sheet" that I made to help me schedule everything that I want to do for the week.
I also print out all of the worksheets for the children for the year. I divide them into 4 folders, 1 folder for each Unit, and I hand out the worksheets as we go through the Unit. In the folders are all of the maps we'll need for the year, the SAPs for their literature books, and any additional projects that I've found or printed from the TOG links pages or from the Story of the World Activity Book. This year, I added a few other things to the folder as well. I made neat matching worksheets, flashcards, quizzes, etc. from http://quizlet.com/ for the vocabulary words. I've never been very good at doing the vocabulary, so it's one of the things I'm trying to add in this year. We'll see how it goes.
Also, in Year 3, the States and the Presidents take a front seat. I have printed out the Supplement, available on Week 1 of Unit 1, for us to do the President Cards as we work our way through each election. For the States, I decided to do something a bit more fun, and I made pro-click binders of all of the State worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler's "Road Trip USA" Geography Study. This way, the kids have a fun coloring page they can work on while we go over all of the fun facts about the State, and they don't just have to write it all down. I printed off all of the State sheets, and then rearranged them into the order they entered the Union. Confessions of a Homeschooler has them in order by Region. Here is the link, if you're interested - http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/u-s-geography
The final step, is to do the actual detail planning of your first week. I begin by figuring out what my oldest child is going to read, on his own. I divide that out over Monday through Wednesday, following the advice that we Read-Discuss-Write. Each day, my Upper Grammar student will read his selections on his own. When he rejoins me, we'll do an Oral Book Review where I'll ask leading questions and we'll talk about what he read. At times, I do read ahead, the night before, so that I know what he's reading; but, for the most part, I just skim the book, as we're talking, and pick things out and ask him about them, on the fly. That might not work for everyone. Fortunately, I am blessed with a prolific talker in my oldest son. It makes having a discussion very easy, he gushes all of the information back at me.
By Wednesday, we'll start talking about his Writing Assignment. We'll go over any Supplements, make a plan, jot down some notes, make an outline, and then the Rough Draft will happen on Thursday. We'll clean it up and have a Final Draft done on Friday. Then, the week will begin a fresh on Monday.
For my Lower Grammar students, and also really my Upper Grammar too, because he joins us in our Read Alouds...he loves History, we break out our reading over Monday through Wednesday. I like to leave Thursday as our day to do our Story of the World spine text, from the Alternate Resources page, and any Fine Arts Activity or craft that we might be doing that week. On Friday, we'll do any Church History, there isn't much at the Grammar level, our Vocabulary reviews, take an oral quiz to be sure we understood and retained the main threads of the week, and wrap it all up in our notebooks.
I have thoroughly enjoyed being such an integral part of my children's education, and learning right along side of them. Is it work, absolutely, I'm not saying that it isn't. What I do hope and pray is that this series of posts has helped you, if you are considering using Tapestry of Grace, or are feeling overwhelmed right now and just don't know what to do. I hope that you can see that it is a doable curriculum, and that with a bit of forethought, some prior organization and printing on your part, that you'll really enjoy your trip through the school year, studying HIStory and all of the ways that we've seen God's hand in our world.
Truly, if you have any further questions, feel free to ask me, or I can direct you to one of the many other moms that have walked this journey before me. I pray for peace and His wisdom as you decide what curriculum you will use with your family this coming year.
"But the wisdom that comes from Heaven is first of all pure; then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." James 3:17
I wrote an "update" and have more pictures of how we do things now, with a Dialectic student in the mix, in this blog post - http://whateveristrueandnoble.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-bit-about-scheduling.html
Here is my most recent update, adding in a Rhetoric student.
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