High School Tapestry of Grace users..

[iteachmine]

I am considering using TOG next yr for my dd who will be in 10th grade.

 

Could you give me an idea how you use this program with your high schooler during a typical week? How much are you involved with the teaching aspect?

 

There seems to be quite a bit of information/assignments to cover. Does your child enjoy the program?

 

 

Any information regarding this program would be very helpful.

 

Thanks

[Karenciavo]

I am not involved at all with my son's week until discussion. He schedules his week and completes his assignments. If he has any difficulties he comes to me. We discuss government and philosophy day 3 of the week, literature day 4, history and church history on the last day of the week. He probably spends about 12 hours a week on Tapestry (6 subjects, but not all are full credit.)

[coopers5]

My daughter is 10th this year and I wish I'd done TOG sooner. Anyway, I am not involved too much in the week w/my daughter, either. Usually on Sundays or Saturdays, I print out the student activity pages and look over what will be going on the coming week. On Sunday or Monday, my daughter takes these and the reading assignment chart, which I will have marked w/which assignments we'll cover - also I mark on the student act. pgs which geography assignments I want her to do - and she uses a planner and divides up her work for the week.

(of course, she's figuring in her geometry, Latin, Spanish, chemistry from other sources - it's been good for her to learn to manage her time herself this year)

 

(We are doing a history credit, church hist.1/2 cr., and part of her English credit. I let the philosophy and government "roll" into the history, really, for now. Next year, I might count government a 1/2 credit, but am currently looking at an AP course online for her for that....just to get some AP things in...the rest of her English is some grammar work we keep up with, but the bulk is the literature and writing that is done through TOG.)

 

During the week, I read all the "teacher notes" pages, as my "assignment." Then on Thursday or Friday - depending on what kind of writing assignment she has to do that week - we have our discussion, and I follow the rhetoric discussion notes for that. ("History: Rhetoric discussion Outline"; "Literature:Rhetoric discussion outline," etc.) It is very rewarding, and my daughter has learned so much.

You sort of take a couple of weeks to "get your groove" and figure out how to cover the material and which things you will make a priority, etc.

 

Also, before we get into a week, or a few weeks ahead, I am making sure we have the needed books for her assignments. At the beginning of this year, I did already have the "spine" that is used - Spielvogel's West.Civ - and I tracked down several of the other things we needed. But there were a few things that I just left to get one by one, whether checking out from the library or whatever.

I also take advantage of the "Next week at a glance" notes which they place at the end of each week's pages to see what warnings there are from the publishers about reading material for the next week. Occasionally I've gone in and blacked out a few really bad words if the books were ours or I decided how to carry out an assignment differently, or sometimes (rarely) we figured out what we might leave out.

 

I mostly have bought books I didn't have from Amazon. But I noticed this year that Lampstand Press (publisher for TOG) sells the items for the Amazon prices - at least on ones I purchased from them, and they were fairly quick about delivery.

 

Does this help? Please ask me anything else specific you might be wondering.

Oh, and to answer you further, my daughter really does enjoy the program and it has given her a lot of confidence in talking about and thinking about literature, especially. She likes the variety of using books, mixed with going to the computer for some of the items that are on "the Loom" (some of the government documents and some of the standard literature documents), etc. She feels she's challenged with this and she's a really motivated kid, so she wanted that, for which I am thankful. I was looking for something to make the most of her reading ability, too, something to challenge her, and I truly feel I found a goldmine in this program.

 

Sincerely,

Jo