Frazzled....

[SchindlersRUs]

I'm starting to plan out my son's Freshman year... I'm overwhelmed and quite confused!! He's the oldest of 7, so basically he's our guinea pig. I have no idea what I'm doing or how to narrow things down or what's most important to read what can be left out. I thought there used to be somewhere online where I could go to soak up all the guru's knowledge for the Rhetoric level. FWIW we are getting ready to star Y2 in July.

The other thing I'm looking at is using books from the library or getting them for our Nook or our Kindle b/c buying books for 3 different levels is not possible financially. How do I figure out how to narrow down which books are important and which aren't?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Links, suggestions, thoughts, experiences? I'll take what I can get!

Thanks!

[PinkyInOK]

Crissi,
I too was overwhelmed! Have you been on the loose threads yahoo group? Lots of wonderful ladies who love TOG and love to help!
I also have seven, and our oldest is our guinea pig! We are wrapping up freshman year now. I keep trying to talk her into a super senior year (an extra year) but so far..... I will keep talking
Figuring out which to buy and which to borrow is (to me) the hardest thing. How do you know what books you will like till you get them? How do you know what assignments to ditch till you see the books? It's like a maddening spiral with no end. There are a few things that I do to help me determine what to buy.
First: focus on one unit at a time.
Second: consider your kiddos styles. Will they enjoy reading older books from the that were written in a manner that we don't use today? Some of the primary resources are like this. I have gone with the alternate for UG in this case- SOW. Then we supplement with books on that topic from the library. I feel like as long as my UG and LG kiddos are "on the wagon" with us so to speak then I am great with that.
Third: look at your shelves at home! Use what you have - especially for lower levels!
Fourth: Teach to your oldest. Make their books a priority. I use the alternates mostly- partly because they are more appealing to my student, partly because my library carries most of them (and not the primaries).
Fifth: Pre check out books from the library to see if they are worth purchasing! If it is only used for one week, consider how long it will take your student to read it. Consider the inconvenience of having that book already checked out when you need it, and how will you handle that? If your library doesn't have it to lay hands on, check it out on amazon and use the see inside feature to get a glimpse into that book.

Ladies are all the time using free versions of some of the primaries on the e readers and they lack page numbers, table of contents, and the ability to get to that chapter without flipping through all the pages Well if it's free nothing lost! Just make sure to figure out before class starts how to deal with it!

Dive in and plan a week! gather all your materials, books, supplies, etc. Get it ready like it is for real; now what ? What do you lack? what is extraneous? Do you have him reading 700 pages on the first Monday? Map it out down to the assignments per day to get a feel for it.

What you are experiencing is often lovingly referred to as the TOG fog. I have a blog post about how I dealt with it here: http://littleprairiehomeschool.blogs...g-tog-and.html

I hope you find this helpful!

[Pat]

I am going to assume that this is your first year using Tapestry. If it is, I might suggest you consider using the D level materials with your oldest. This would be acceptable for a ninth grader and gives you a year to get both him and yourself up to speed with the program. If you like you could plug in some lit or history topics he's really interested in to the D level materials to prepare him to be at the R level next year.

Next, I would always prioritize my R level student's resources. Those are the ones where you'll want to make sure that student is getting all the information Tapestry expects. Also, in terms of lit Tapestry does use some large anthologies while these may seem like a big ticket item, in the end they may serve to do two important things: save you overall money because of the number of works used from them and save your student from amount of reading as sometimes the works are abridged.

For D and down you can safely substitute for most books. I did this as Sheila suggests by looking at what I already owned and buying used where possible. If you've never been to your local used bookstore, make sure to check it out. I find that if I go once a month, I see enough turnover in stock to justify the trip. I also usually find their prices are pretty good. The only thing I would suggest buying as Tapestry suggest are the long running books.

The one caveat I would put here is that you need to be ready for some frustration when Tapestry's questions aren't answered in your student's books. Decide in advance what you are going to do about that (do they do internet research or do you just teach whatever it is they don't have?)

The other thing to do is to consider if you can buy a mix of books for younger students and create a blended level that more than one child can use. Maybe some books would be used only by one student or the other, but others would be shared resources.

[Marcia]

We made a video this past spring just for people like you who are wondering how to convert Tapestry guide suggestions to child-specific lesson plans. It's newly mounted on our website. See it here: http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/plan/. Please let me know if it helps you!