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Tapestry of Grace

An integrated, classical approach to educating your children.

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Why "Tapestry"?

Our thoughts on:

Elementary Years

Middle Years

High School Years

Grace-Centered Schooling

Who really IS the best teacher for my kids?

How do I teach all my kids at once?

Teacher Development

Philosophy of Education: Who's The Best Teacher?

Perhaps my primary motivation for seeing this project through is my heart for home schooling moms. So many feel called to this great task of home schooling, but lack the faith, vision, and training to successfully complete it. Most of us especially seem to lose heart as we approach the High School years. I see this as tragic: our children probably most need our input and closeness during these crucial years, and are best poised to receive the worldview they will most likely carry through life. Who is the best teacher? Probably YOU! But, how do you teach all they need to receive for a quality education? That is what this plan hopes to help you with--the how and the what to teach.

First, it's time to get honest with yourself. Do you feel called to teach your child? If you answer "yes" then, I believe, you must be committed to learning along with your child. There's simply no other way to successfully impart a coherent worldview.

Your child needs your help to learn to think Biblically and process information, to learn what's critical and what's secondary in his reading assignment, to connect the dots between major threads in the tapestry. The problem for most of us is not desire, but time.

My desire and goal in writing this program is to teach you to teach. You really can give your child an excellent High School education! First you need to be told what to study, and how. Then, you need to be committed to learning along with him. This does not mean that you will have to read all the assignments your child does. I've done a lot of work to help you with that part. But, you will have to read extensive synopses and bone up each week on the basics of what your child is studying, and then discuss, discuss, discuss it with him. Read below to find out how!

Here are possible plans your could adopt to develop your knowledge base and teaching skills even as your children begin to use Tapestry of Grace:

Let's say your oldest child is in the Grammar stage:

You might read all his history assignments, either with (aloud to), or ahead of, him.
Each week, you can read all the Teacher's Notes, thus learning more facts than you will actually teach to your young child.
You might also choose to read as much of the High School level literature assignments for pleasure as you can. (It really will be pleasurable!) In Year 1, this process is extra easy, because the younger children are already reading simplified versions of High School literature selections, many of which are Scripture surveys. This changes in Year 2, where younger students read totally different selections from High Schoolers.

If you are jumping in at Year 2, and your oldest children are in the Grammar stages, be aware as you read the Teacher's Notes that the pace of Year 2 is by far the fastest.

The Rhetoric level Literature assignments represent a "survey" approach, not a "mastery" one.
However, the process remains the same. Read the Year 1 Literature and Teacher's Notes as you come to them in three years.
This plan holds true for jumping in at Years 3 and 4 as well!

IF you follow this simple process for four years, you will have covered all of history at an intermediate level, and read a lot of the High School "great works" once.

You'll have seen the "whole picture" by going through this material once, and when you begin again, you'll understand what the major themes of the story are. Teaching the material at the High School level will be sort of like seeing a movie the second time. As you go through the program again, you will NOT have to re-read the High School level material. Instead, you'll rely on the Teacher's Notes and your memory to lead meaty discussions. You'll work at finishing literature you missed the first time around, and you'll do an incredible job!

Each Year-Plan is packed with information and activities, so, another excellent alternative is for you to begin this curriculum when your oldest child is very young, and take two years to get through each Year-Plan. You'll be reading the High School assignments, but will have twice as long to read them. Then, when your child reaches High School, you can repeat all four Year-Plans in one-year time frames.

What if I’m not entering at the optimal time? Well, that's really OK. Are you starting this material for the first time in 9th Grade?

It's perfectly acceptable to read the Teacher's Notes each week and skim (or read aloud) the lower grade assignments (hopefully to younger children).
Reading and discussing lower grade assignments with younger students will allow you to learn enough of the nuts and bolts of the week's work to lead meaningful discussions with your teenager.
Literature will be more of a challenge. You'll need to read it (or listen to it on audiotape) with your student, or have him read Cliff’s Notes and other helps, to make sure he gets the main points.
Of course, the mere fact that he's studying literature in the context of history will add worlds of understanding that many High Schoolers never get.
Tapestry guides provide questions and answers for suggested literature assignments in the form of discussion scripts, and if this is all you get to, you will do more than many educational institutions ever dream of! I used the approach when the Lord was first teaching me the method I use in Tapestry, and my first-born children did very well on standardized tests. Now that I’m better versed, however, my second two should do even better!

Please don't be concerned if your student will be studying this material "out of sync." To some degree, the "Year-Plans" build on each other, but they are also "self-contained" in that each Year-Plan has themes that are explored, and then wrapped up for that year. Thus, to do Year 4 in 10th Grade and then begin Year 1 in 11th Grade is not a problem. Believe it or not, the questions mankind asked in the 20th Century are the same ones being asked in the centuries before Christ. Your student will be better able to appreciate early Years having studied later ones! Also, there is the coming "recalibration" unit that allows your family to skip Year 1 (by studying a condensed version of it over 10 weeks of the summer) and re-start your oldest children with Year 2 in the fall. (Click here to jump to the Overview section of our site where the Four Year Plan is discussed in detail.)

So, who's the best teacher? If God has called you to teach High School, or any level of home school, YOU are the BEST teacher your child can have. And, this curriculum may be God's answer to your prayer for help!

From this page, we suggest that you dive deep into a discussion of Classical Education, as it's been adapted to the Tapestry of Grace curriculum. You can read the whole discussion by beginning with the Grammar level (Elementary), or choose to dive into a discussion of the Dialectic level (Jr. High) or Rhetoric level (Sr. High) by clicking on these links.

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