5 Delightful Benefits to Tapestry of Grace
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Trying a new curriculum is always stressful.
Tapestry of Grace sponsored this post. In the interest of disclosure, I purchased all 4 year-plans of Tapestry of Grace, and I’m in my 7th year of using Tapestry of Grace and have seen these benefits while teaching my children. All opinions are my own honest opinions.
You worry if it will work out for your family and what benefits the curriculum will bring. In my family’s case, Tapestry of Grace has brought these 5 delightful benefits with it!
1. Read Through the Great Books in High School
Tapestry of Grace offers an excellent great books education along with literature analysis at the rhetoric stage. This year my high school teens are reading All’s Quiet on the Western Front, Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby, The Old Man and the Sea, among many others.
And we’re not just reading the books. Poetics includes information about the authors, the genres, and the historical background of the works.
We’ve looked at realism, modernism, and American regionalism as they pertain to literature. What are the authors trying to do?
Right now my kids are reading Animal Farm for literature and a biography of Stalin for history. My daughter is enjoying herself as she’s trying to figure out who each pig represents.
This leads to the next advantage of Tapestry of Grace.
2. History Studies Are Tied to the Great Book Study
The history studies are tied directly to the Great Book study. Tapestry of Grace moves from Year 1, the Ancients all the way through to Year 4 and Obama’s presidency.
You read about ancient Mesopotamia and read Gilgamesh. You read through the Bible. As you’re studying the Ancient Greeks and Romans, kids read the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid.
But Tapestry of Grace doesn’t stop there.
As you progress in history through the Romans, Medieval Times, the Renaissance, and the Reformation, teenagers read the Song of Roland, The Divine Comedy, and Henry V among many other works of literature.
Kids not only see the works in their historical setting, but they also see how literature grew and developed from the earliest days in Ancient Mesopotamia.
Recently my own teens read Animal Farm. Since we read the work shortly after we’d studied the Russian Revolution, the kids had fun matching the literary characters with the historical figures they’d studied.
Animal Farm became a fascinating glimpse into the use of satire in literature.
And the discussion questions were a huge help!
3. Discussion Questions
Have you ever sat down to hold a discussion with your kids only to draw a blank? You have no idea what to ask your kids or how to lead them to draw conclusions from their weekly studies!
It’s happened to me.
This is why Tapestry of Grace’s discussion questions are absolutely awesome!
Extensive discussion questions are available for dialectic (middle school) history and rhetoric (high school) history discussions.
The dialectic discussions lead kids to draw connections between events. They understand what’s going on in history and why.
But the rhetoric discussion questions take history one step further. Kids aren’t just asked to draw connections between events, they’re also asked to analyze the events.
To draw conclusions and to evaluate what’s happening.
4. Awesome Teacher’s Notes
As a working homeschool mom, I don’t have a huge amount of time on my hands. Certainly not enough to keep up with my high school teenagers’ weekly readings!
So Tapestry of Grace provides extensive Teacher’s Notes to give a brief background of what we’re studying each week. I learn about the historical background, a brief biography of major figures, geography, fine arts, and literature. Even government and philosophy studies are provided!
I read through the notes to prepare me for the weekly discussion. I use the notes to grab the information I need to plan our morning time.
The Teacher’s Notes save me time and energy while providing all the information I need to teach my kids!
5. Tapestry of Grace Keeps Us on Track
One of the most unexpected benefits of Tapestry Grace is that it keeps us on track.
See Tapestry is set up for a 36 week school year and includes several subjects. It’s our history and geography lessons, literature studies, and art assignments. And I use Tapestry of Grace to set the pace for the school year.
If we’re working through week 12 of Tapestry of Grace, we’re on the 12th week of the school year!
My goal is to keep our Tapestry of Grace studies moving forward.
The kids do their weekly readings. They complete the geography lessons, and we sit down for our weekly discussions.
We keep moving forward.
Because Tapestry of Grace keeps moving forward, I’ve found other subjects are dragged along in its wake.
The teenagers know my goal is to reach week 18 before we break for Christmas. That’s halfway through the school year! So they asked me to note where the halfway mark is for every other subject. Their goal is to reach the halfway mark in math, science, and languages as well!
Tapestry of Grace
Tapestry of Grace provides a wealth of options. Kids can use the curriculum independently and only meet up with you for class times. You can focus on projects or read-aloud.
Learn more about the benefits Tapestry of Grace offers your family!
