TOG

Well, I think I've recovered enough from writing that long post about William to write a long post about what I am doing with the girls next year. (Actually, in four weeks...yikes!)

I've usually been eclectic in my homeschooling, mostly because nothing worked with William, so I changed curriculums all the time, searching for that elusive one that might spark his interest. (I never found it.) Two years ago when William went to high school and I just had the girls at home, I started using Heart of Dakota (HOD) which I loved and worked really well for us. It's very gentle and that's what I liked about it. They don't say they are very Charlotte Mason in their approach, but they are.

But after two years of being gentle, not really pushing the girls, and recovering from the strong dislike I had developed towards home teaching when William was home, both Rog and I thought it was time to start challenging the girls a little more and be more deliberate in my approach. I could do that with HOD, but after talking at length with a friend who has been using Tapestry of Grace (TOG) for four years, I felt led to switch to that.

But although TOG is the main framework on which I am hanging the CORE of our studies, it is not everything. I reread the Charlotte Mason handbook at the beginning of the summer, as well as some of my inspiring home education books and going through the curriculums and books I already had, and that combined with my seven years of experience of knowing what works for me and the girls and what doesn't, a bigger picture of our days started forming. I also asked myself what I wish I would have had a better understanding of after graduating from high school. (I graduated 17th in my class of 350 and always loved school, but I never really understood American government, nor did I know all the past presidents, nor did I have a clear understanding of time...who was president when and what was going on in the world with art and music and politics...i.e. I knew who Napoleon was, but didn't know when he lived or why he was important to France. I knew about how our country started and the first 4-5 presidents, as well as the Civil war and the importance of Abraham Lincoln, but ask me who was president when the Wright Brothers invented the airplane or what Watergate was, or who was president during the Viet Nam War or the westward expansion, and I felt lost. I wanted to be able to discuss at least the well-known artists like Degas or Renoir, or be able to intelligently discuss Handel or Beethoven. I guess what I wish I would have had was a general well-rounded education and understanding of significant people and events through history and how they all occurred in time.

So all of that to say that TOG gives me a roadmap that I am using or altering as I put much thought and prayer into what I want the kids to learn during the year. I wouldn't have felt comfortable altering a curriculum when I started. I always felt guilty if I didn't do EXACTLY what they said I should do. I had to check things off...nothing else was as important as that. I was a servant to the curriculum. Now the curriculum is MY servant.

Oh, I should say here that William is doing something different. He is just taking the courses and subjects he needs to take to graduate.

Anyway, TOG suggests having Baylee (8th grade) do a complicated timeline with lots of dates for battles and events like the XYZ Affair and the Tennis Court Oath in France. I think knowing what things are and the general time they took place and their significance to what was going on in the world around them (in other words, a basic understanding of the flow of time and events) is more important than writing the dates of battles. She wouldn't remember specific dates anyway (I know I wouldn't), but I really want her to understand Napoleon and his role in France and why things happened there, and what that had to do with America and how did it affect John Adams (the president at the time)? So I am just going to put four thin white timelines that stretch around our room, one above the other, so they can "see" time and how things happened simultaneously in different places. One for Europe, one for France, one for America (that will start after the others so they can get an idea of when this nation started in relation to other places), and one for the rest of the world. Then as we go, we will just add significant events to their relevant timeline so they can see how they relate to each other.

OK, that is just the tip of the iceberg, but I've already spent a lot of time on this post, so I'll write more tomorrow or the next day. Don't worry. It will only take several installments to explain everything!