Greetings!

November is a month set aside to express thankfulness and we'd like you to know how thankful we are for you, our homeschooling families. We thank God daily that He has allowed us to serve you through Tapestry of Grace.

Important Reminder for Those Ordering Any Print Copies

Just a quick reminder that one of the benefits of our Digital Edition (DE) is that you get FREE updates! Since we adopted the DE delivery option, we have been attempting to educate our users that Tapestry of Grace has become a wonderfully fluid product that is always most current in its digital form. In combination with the Book Updates Chart, free periodic updates ensure users that they can always find books in print so as to implement their year-plans. We feel this is a clear benefit of Tapestry in that it enables us to produce a rich, "real books" curriculum and to overcome the real obstacles of the changing publishing market which constantly sends real books out of print.

However, in this fluid world of Tapestry, we need to remind you that all printed copies of Tapestry units are really a snapshot of the curriculum at the time that you place your order for a printed unit. If you buy DE + Print, the print portion is simply a static snapshot of DE; in essence, print copies are convenience products. We've printed the pages for you to save you time, energy, and money. If you order a copy on Wednesday, any book listed therein could go out of print on Thursday. You will always need to be ready to reference our Book Updates chart, even if you have the most current printouts of our units.

Overstock Sale

For one month only, we are substantially reducing the price on our overstocked items...as much as 50% off! As you peruse this month's sale, notice that some of the items are out of date and some are damaged. "Out of date" simply means that printed copies of sale units are several years old, and thus significantly out of step with currently in-print books and current DE downloads.

The out-of-date units discounted in this month's Overstock Sale are mostly the Year 2 units that were printed in 2008. Since Tapestry DE has undergone several updates since 2008, and many books listed in that print copy have gone out of print, you will need to either print book-related pages from our Book Updates Charts for yourself, or purchase the listed books used, or find them in your library. (Remember that Bookshelf Central has the current "primary" resources!) For many families in hard times, the extra work of printing fresh pages themselves will be well worth the opportunity to buy Tapestry units at a 50% off reduction, so we are offering them to you in November only. When November ends, they will be gone for good!

Damages to sale items are explained in the description of the sale items so that you are fully aware of what you are purchasing.

Items purchased during this sale are NOT returnable. Supplies are limited, and it's first come, first served. So, tell your friends about the bargains you can find during November!
Bookshelf Central November Sale

Take advantage of the November sale at Bookshelf Central! All Worldview books from ANY year-plan are 10% off. This is a great time to stock up on missionary biographies (picture books and chapter books), Church History resources, and others that might make good gifts as well!

Plan Ahead: Announcing 2012 Prices

On January 1, 2012, new prices for printed copies of Tapestry of Grace will go into effect. There are two reasons why we are telling you this:

We want you to be able, if you wish, to buy next year's curriculum at this year's prices. If this is you, you'll want to make your purchase before January 1, 2012.
For those who must wait until next spring to purchase, we don't want a price change to take you unawares. Hopefully, this announcement enables you to budget wisely.

Here are the prices that we anticipate for 2012:

In 2012, the price for Tapestry DE remains at the same bargain price of $170/year-plan, and $45/units.
For Print Only copies of all four year-plans, the 2012 price will be $295, and $80/unit.
For DE+Print, the 2012 price will be $315.
If you wish to purchase DE alone (for $170) and then later decide to add a printed copy of a yearplan or unit, there is no fiscal penalty. Add-on print copies for DE purchasers will be $145.

As you'll note, we are standardizing the prices of all printed year-plans. Our current prices were set in January of 2009, when we almost lost the ability to continue producing Tapestry and were corralled into producing it digitally. At that time, a homeschooling father and user of Tapestry stepped in to partner with us and offered to print Tapestry units at his cost (and since that time, I believe that his prices were below his costs!). We have been so grateful to him on your behalf!

For three years, we've had a partnership with this off-site printer, and kept our prices the same, but many of our customers have expressed dissatisfaction with delays in receiving their units. Now that Lampstand Press is able, we've decided to bring the printing of year-plans (and Writing Aids, SAPpacks, etc.) in-house. This means that we will have control over the production schedule so that your future unit purchases won't be delayed. Overall shipping costs should also decrease, because you'll get your units from us combined with any other Lampstand Press products you order.

We have negotiated a very reasonable rate--far under any commercial copy store rates. Bottom line: we've done the best for you that we can. And, we are so grateful for Tapestry DE because it gives us the freedom to both continually update Tapestry for free and keep the price fixed for the foreseeable future.

These 2012 prices reflect our goal of working for simplicity in ordering for you and for keeping our ability to continue to reliably deliver your printed copies for one standard price no matter how the page counts fluctuate due to revisions. There has been a lot of confusion with each year-plan being priced according to a price-per-page system, and our Global Updates change those counts so that some year-plans become under-priced and some overpriced if we don't change them accordingly. For instance, next year's Year 1 revisions (discussed below) will mean that Year 1 has a higher page count. The prices above have already taken that increased cost into account. Hence, the price hike is greatest for Year 1, since up until now, Year 1 has been the smallest year-plan.

Finally, let us again emphasized that this is an increase only on printed copies, and the price of Tapestry of Grace DE remains the same for yet another year.
Upcoming Year 1 Revisions

We've been working along at a revision of Year 1, and would like to share some details with you so that you'll understand the why's and how's of it. This announcement is particularly relevant to those of you who are in co-ops.
Why are we revising Year 1?

Tapestry of Grace is a proven winner that has been in the homeschool marketplace long enough that customers have bought all four year-plans and cycled back through from Year 4 to Year 1. As some of you remember, when we set out to redesign Tapestry Classic, we were very concerned that owners of Classic copies would be able to co-op with owners of Redesigned copies. We therefore attempted to remain as close to the content and style of Classic Year 1 as we could. After we began to edit Year 2, we saw significant ways to improve that year-plan, and made a decision to abandon the attempt to reconcile Classic and Redesigned Year 2, and simply make the Redesigned product the best that it could be. With Year 3, we made even more subtle yet important improvements in both layout and content approaches. (For instance, you'll notice that it was in Year 3 that we started to add in discussion questions for the Dialectic literature work.) By Year 4, we'd truly hit our stride and were very pleased and excited with what Tapestry of Grace had become.

Here's our concern: those of you who use Tapestry by entering in Years 2-4 have communicated to us that coming back around to Year 1 is a bit of a confusing jolt. Having enjoyed the fully streamlined and smooth content of the later year-plans, you wish that Year 1 could be "smoothed out" too. This, then, is our goal with the upcoming revisions of Year 1.

What's changing in Year 1?

Here are the substantive changes that you can expect:

Closer correlation between various sections of the curriculum:
For instance, the style of the Threads' contents will match that of later plans that developed over time.
The Weekly Overviews' lists of projects will more exactly correlate with activities that are explained in the Student Activity Pages, etc.
Other such nearly invisible formatting is adjusted for overall improvement.
We're adding more detail in the discussion outlines--clearer answers, more hand-holding, etc. for the teacher as we discovered was needed in later plans--for History in both Dialectic and Rhetoric levels.
Dialectic Literature will be more similar to that found in Years 3-4. Discussion questions (and teacher scripts) added to existing Dialectic Literature worksheets. We also hope to bring the level of colorful graphics for worksheets up to par with other year-plans.
New questions and answers for the Bible Survey track for Upper Grammar students.
More directives for Rhetoric Fine Arts will be in the Weekly Overviews.

As you who have experience with Tapestry know, the changes above are largely "smoothing." We are trying to make the experience of the teaching mom as easy and straightforward for this year-plan (which is the first for many of our new moms) as the later plans became. This is truly not a new edition of Tapestry. It is a significant update.
When and how will these revisions be released?

We are working along at these revisions as the Lord gives us time and staff. We are expecting to release the revised Unit 1 in late winter-early spring of 2012 in the DE format with associated print options.

You will notice in the above list that these changes are not substantive in that the book lists will not be changing, except for updates that will be inserted from replacement books that are already actively listed in the Book Updates Chart at the time of printing. (Remember, all copies of printed Tapestry are snapshots of DE at the time that they are ordered.) Because many of these changes are format-related, and the content changes are mostly additions, we are not seeking to do the entire year-plan before Fall, and we don't call these revisions a new "edition." Rather, we consider them "smoothing," and on par with our annual Global Updates.
What if I'm using Year 1 in a co-op?

One reason that we're going into this amount of detail in this newsletter is that we want to give co-op leaders and members a heads-up way in advance. There will be significant changes to the questions asked of students in the SAPs, especially at the Dialectic and Rhetoric levels, and we know that mismatched copies can cause co-ops issues. Here are your options:

Those forming new co-ops should seek wherever possible to all buy the DE format of Tapestry. This is the least expensive format, and gives the co-op the greatest flexibility with ongoing changes between curriculum updates.
In the case of this revision, where co-op families have existing, older copies of Redesigned Tapestry, their easiest option is to upgrade to DE (a cost of $35).
If this is not possible, we do allow families in co-ops who own Tapestry in any format to freely share copies essential teaching materials for up to nine weeks. Students may receive copies of the Student Activity Pages for a full year.
Thus, if a teacher who owns an older, paper version is teaching a unit in which some families own older copies and some newer versions, permission is given for an owner of a newer copy to print or photocopy the Teacher's Notes and Student Pages for her to reference so that that mom can fulfill her teaching obligation.
If a student's family owns an older copy of Tapestry, permission is given for anyone in the group with a newer copy to give out reading assignments and SAP questions so that that student can participate.
NOTE: Students of families that do not own any full copy of Tapestry must purchase subject-specific licenses in order to abide by copyrights and gain the same privileges.
Finally, with the Year 1 revisions, we will be keeping on discs versions of the older Year 1 even after the revisions are released. We will offer families who purchase the revised version this copy but are in a co-op with families who own the older version and wish to use it as the group's standard a copy of this disc for a nominal fee. This should make syncing families in co-ops pretty simple.

This Month's Freebie

Are you feeling like you are veering off course or wandering in the desert with your high school student? Check out our article called "Mapping High School." Many people have told us that these pages give them the tools they need to easily plan their student's high school career.

Marcia's Blog

Have you checked out Marcia's blog lately? There are several articles that Marcia wrote this month that may just give you the refresher you need to "keep-on-keeping-on." One of them includes pictures of Marcia's new homestead farm and the lessons God taught her when, after months of work, the Lord gave her rain for the day of her daughter's outdoor wedding. There are also fresh exhortations to keep having those all-important Quiet Times as we settle into our school routines more comfortably. Marcia is always praying that these articles will bless you, and would love to hear feedback from you via comments!

Sincerely,

The Staff at Lampstand Press