When do we do everything?

[djlmom3]

So we're into our first week and we like what we're learning. However, each morning I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants telling the kids what Tapestry work needs to be done that day. We didn't fill out a planner this week because I really wasn't sure how long each thing would take. I have spread out the reading assignments, but now I don't know if they'll get all of their reading done in time to schedule a discussion time. I'm wondering if most people schedule specific activities for specific days of the week. For example, do you front-load the week (Monday and Tuesday) with reading so you can have discussion time at the end of the week? Or do you spread each reader out with small daily assignments so they're reading a little bit of each one every day? When do you recommend having your child answer Accountability and Thinking questions, after all reading is complete or as they read? And would you recommend doing timeline work and map work after they've read about the weekly topic or would those activities be a good way to introduce the events and locations that they'll be reading about during the week?

So many questions! I'd love to hear about your different schedules so I can get some ideas about how to organize our week. BTW, I have one LG, one UG, and a D. Although my LG daughter may be moving up to UG for Unit 2.

Thanks so much.
Holly

[Renaissance Mom]

Holly,

Boy, do I remember having these same questions years ago when we first became a Tapestry family! The best answer to your question is: "It depends on what works best for your family." Doesn't help much, does it? http://tapestryofgrace.groupee.net/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

This is our fifth year using Tapestry and every one of them has looked a little bit different as far as scheduling goes. My D child did her own scheduling for the week only after we'd gotten well past the initial fog and realized what we expected from her.

We started with the classic year plans so we really had to whittle down the suggested assignments. However, with the redesigned year plans, it is reasonable to assign most or all of the reading for any given subject -- if that's what you want. Remember that the Tapestry plan is there to serve you, not the other way around.

This year, our week runs Monday to Friday and we have history and church history discussions on Thursday afternoon and lit discussions on Friday. Last year we discussed everything on Wed but our Tapestry week ran Thursday or Friday through Wed or Thurs. We've never been able to get it in gear enough to start our week on Monday and be able to discuss on Wed. Others do so quite well -- it just doesn't work for us.

My D child prefers to schedule her reading out to do a little each day. That way she gets all of her subjects in every day in smaller doses. That's HER preference and it works well for her. My other daughter and my son prefer to snuggle in with mom and do more reading at once on fewer days so we schedule history reading for Mon/Tues, projects for Wed, lit for Wed/Thurs, missionary reading for Thurs, etc.

In our house, I require that the accountability and thinking questions (A&T) be worked on daily as she reads. She prefers to looks through the questions before she reads, then does her history reading, then answers the questions applicable to whatever she just read. Before her discussion time, she looks through her A&T and goes back to find anything she missed. My goal is to get her to take notes on the A&T as she reads instead of after -- but it's a process. When I first transitioned her up to D from UG, we just talked about the A&T (no written work). She gradually saw that if she doesn't take some sort of notes, she won't remember enough to participate in a discussion.

We do map work early in the week to set the context and I leave the timeline work scheduling up to dd.

When my oldest child was a UG, I helped her make her schedule each week. Even then she liked spreading things out to do a little each day. With babies and toddlers in the house at that time, we did what we could together during nap time for the littles and she did her independent work according to whatever that day allowed. Some days we were able to get more one-on-one time in so we'd do extra math or science or whatever. Some days we were lucky to have 20 minutes without interruption so she did a lot of history and lit reading on those days.

The bottom line is that you will just have to tweak as you go. You will eventually find your own unique schedule that fits your family Baby Bear-style ... juuuust right!

Blessings,
Monica