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April 2012 Newsletter

Greetings!

April is here with an early spring and you may be looking longingly at the beautiful weather outdoors and desiring to have lessons under the canopy of a shade tree or have outdoor picnics to break up your day. We don't blame you! The weather here is beautiful and we hope that it is pleasurable where you are as well. While it's easy to get spring fever and let schoolwork go by the wayside, we encourage you to keep your eye on the prize and finish up strong, even while allowing your students some freedom to study out of doors! "At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. ... Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary" (Galatians 6:9) and probably be glad that we persevered as we look back from the summer months.

New Customer & Expert Reviews Available

We have just finished building a brand new section of our website that we think you will enjoy; it's our Customer & Expert Reviews! This has a number of useful tabs that we have designed with the new customer in mind. If any of your friends are exploring Tapestry of Grace, we suggest that you send them here!

For our seasoned customers, here you will also discover loads of helpful blog posts that were written by moms just like you! You may find refreshing new ideas, or simple inspiration just by viewing them. If you would like to add a contribution to these pages at any time, simply email your blog entry (that must contain at least one photo) to Sharon Land at sharon@tapestryofgrace.com.

We want to alert you to one special tab, entitled "Alumni." Here, we are posting accounts from homeschooled high school graduates who used Tapestry of Grace. We've asked them to share the ways that Tapestry has impacted their educations, and/or prepared them for later life. If you have graduated any students from your high school, please encourage your son or daughter to write a brief offering and send it to Sharon Land at sharon@tapestryofgrace.com.

Winners of the "Love TOG Blog" Contest

Much of the content of our new Customer & Expert Reviews section has been sent in as part of our "Love TOG Blog" contest. We are excited to announce the winners!

TOG Unit Celebrations:

• First place: Tina Jobe from North Carolina
• Second place: Ella Embree from Arkansas
• Third place: Heather Coffman from Michigan

TOG with Grammar stage kids:

• First place: Lisa Law from Virginia
• Second place: Tina Jobe from North Carolina
• Third place: Sarah Armstrong from Maryland
• Honorable Mention: Ella Embree from Arkansas

TOG with Dialectic and/or High School Students:

• First place: Tina Jobe from North Carolina
• Second place: Heather Henriques from Alabama
• Third place: Kesha Grant from Georgia

Hands-on with TOG:

• First place: Tricia Hodges from Georgia
• Second place: Lisa Law from Virginia
• Third place: Tina Jobe from North Carolina
• Honorable Mention: Heather Coffman from Michigan
• Honorable Mention: Jennifer Woods from Arkansas

TOG Books and Bookshelf Central:

• First place: Tina Jobe from North Carolina
• Second place: Tricia Hodges from Georgia
• Third place: Kesha Grant from Georgia

Many thanks to all wrote blogs for our new Customer & Expert Reviews pages! Feel free to send more such posts to Sharon Land at sharon@tapestryofgrace.com for additional inclusion! We know that your blogs will encourage others who are still making decisions about whether Tapestry is right for their families.

Buying a Used Copy of Tapestry?

It's that time of the year when many of you are considering purchasing a used copy of a Tapestry year-plan. We support such sales! But, because there are different versions of Tapestry of Grace, we want to alert you to some commonly experienced pitfalls that have in the past led to disappointment and hard feelings.

• Lampstand Press sells three different versions of each Tapestry unit: 1) A print-only version that has a physical Loom disc accompanying it, 2) the DE version, which is wholly made up of electrons but from which pages may be printed by the user for her family's personal use only, and 3) the Print + DE version, which has both paper and digital components and is also printable. Only the first of these versions should ever be offered for sale used.
• DE Tapestry of Grace cannot be sold and transferred to another computer. You should not be offered a used digital version of Tapestry for any reason.
• Pages printed from a DE (or DE + Print) version of Tapestry are also not resaleable. To distinguish these from Print Only copies, we have placed a watermark (small copyright notice that goes vertically in the inner margin of each page) that will show up whenever pages are printed from this version. You'll want to make sure that the printed pages you are purchasing are not watermarked with the notice: "not for resale."
• If someone owning a Print Only copy of Tapestry decides to upgrade to a companion digital version (DE), we have made it easy and inexpensive. To take advantage of our generosity, those who upgrade must surrender their physical Loom disc, which is then converted for them to a non-transferrable, digital Loom. The paper copy becomes non-saleable, but of course it does not bear the telltale watermark notice. Thus, you can distinguish legal or illegal sales of printed copies lacking a watermark by the presence or absence of a physical Loom disc. All resalable year-plans come with a Loom CD, which you'll want to make sure is included, as it is not for sale separately.
• If someone offering Tapestry for resale claims to have lost their Loom disc, do not buy that copy. It cannot be replaced and is essential for using Tapestry of Grace.

April Sale at Bookshelf Central

Buy your logic program for 10% off during April! We have the Fallacy Detective, Thinking Toolbox, Introductory Logic, and Intermediate Logic. Bookshelf will also be at the Great Homeschool Convention: Midwest (in Cincinnati, OH) and at MassHOPE (in Worcester, MA) in April. We hope to meet many of you there!

This Month's Featured Freebie

Have you ever wondered why Tapestry is written for learning levels instead of grade levels? Watch this short 6-minute streaming video called "Stages, not Ages," to learn more about how Tapestry incorporates Classical Education.

2012 Conference Season

Conference season is under way and we are looking forward to meeting you and assisting you in determining which Tapestry tools will work best for your family. We are going to about 15 conferences this year; Scott and Marcia Somerville are speaking at several of them. As always, we offer conference specials along with great personalized attention and information at our booths. Check out our 2012 conference page to see if we are attending one near you!

Buying Guide Offers Volume Discounts

With the start of curriculum-buying season, we want to remind you that a variety of our products are always on sale through our online Buying Guide. As you draw near to the end of the ordering process, you'll note that the Buying Guide will offer you products that you did not initially select for purchase at a volume buyer's discount. This is our way of saying "thanks" for your order and, since the sizes of the discounts are based on the dollar amount of what's in your cart, the more you buy, the more you save.

Co-op Support

We have extensively expanded and updated our old page on co-ops! There are many new helps, including detailed advice for starting new co-ops of any kind, information involving licenses for Tapestry-specific co-ops, and new, helpful sample documents that you can use to manage (or start) your co-op! If you are starting a co-op, are part of an existing one, or are a leader, we think you'll glean lots of helpful information.

And speaking of forming co-ops, be sure to add your contact information to our Find-A-Friend page! We created this especially for families who desire to find others doing Tapestry in their local area, but don't just go there to see who else is near you. Add yourself, so that others can find you as well! Access this from the "Community" section on the navigation bar of our website.

If you're planning co-op classes with multiple moms for next year, we have a new chart for you! When you use Tapestry in co-op settings, you can run into significant differences between editions or versions because of these out-of-print book replacements. (See the information below about our Book Updates Charts—BUCs.) Because co-op leaders often are surprised by the differences between Tapestry printings of the same year-plan, we've summarized for you the major differences in a handy Major Variances Chart. We really hope that this will help you to know about differences in content before you plan the 2012-13 school year as a co-op! And, though this chart and the BUCs should help, please be advised that the easiest way for co-op members to reconcile their year-plans is for all members to own/upgrade to the Digital Edition; it's not expensive for an upgrade if you own a Print Only version. Call our Customer Service department at 1-800-705-7487 for more details.

Did you know that there is a special reserved section of our forum just for co-op leaders? If you are a leader of a co-op, we are glad to set up your account so that you can access this in order to glean information from others. Just send an email to Sharon Land at sharon@tapestryofgrace.com and include the number of families in your co-op and who the leaders are; she will help you get started.

Online Tapestry Courses

Are you looking for a new challenge for your dialectic or rhetoric students? At the Lampstand Learning Center, our courses include young, vibrant students from all over the world who are a part of dynamic weekly discussions. Check out the classes that we offer! Registration is now open and classes are filling up quickly. After visiting our website, please contact the Director of the Lampstand Learning Center, Barb Spanier, at bspanier@llc.tapestryofgrace.com if you have further questions.

If you are participating in the Online Classes, be aware that Bookshelf Central is offering special discounted book packages so that you are guaranteed that you have the right books for the right class! Check out the RACpacks to learn more!

Book Updates Charts

Lampstand Press and Bookshelf Central are committed to providing in-print resources for your year-plan since sometimes it is difficult to find books that have gone out-of-print. When it is necessary to find these replacement titles, it will affect your Reading Assignment Charts, and sometimes the Student Activity Pages, Teacher's Notes, Glances, and other pertinent pages. To that end, we have our Book Updates Charts that you can access to get either archived or replacement pages for your year-plan. At the end of the calendar year, we incorporate all of these into our "Global Updates" so that you'll have them right in your Digital Edition. Print customers will likely want to print up these pages and place them in binders in the correct week-plan.

Marcia's Blog

A change in perspective can make a good deal of difference as we attempt to be cross-eyed parents. When we are cross-eyed, we can love our children as God loves us. We then can have confidence to draw near to His Throne of Grace and look vertically to Christ for confession and restoration. Read Marcia's blog article called "Perspective Is Important" for encouragement in this area.

As always, we thank God for you and your efforts to raise a generation of children to the glory of God. Let's work together to throw off everything that hinders and run with perseverance the race that has been marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)