My Least Favorite Things About Tapestry of Grace

Let's face it, there is no perfect home school curriculum on the planet. Not Taestry of Grace, not what you've seen on the Internet, not what your friend raves about. There is simply no curriculum that will not need modifying, tweaking, radically altering, or even perhaps putting aside for a time.

While we genuinely like Tapestry of Grace, there are, of course, some things that just don't suit our style. Here's our list of things that can rub me wrong with Tapestry of Grace:

1. Tapestry of Grace, as with life, offers more things to do than I have time to do. Plain and simple. I have to prioritize and say no to some things, and sometimes I just want to do it all! So that's frustrating. In those times I find myself forced to go back and seek my Creator, who alone knows what He wants for me and my family. This is good -- very good -- but sometimes I chafe at that and want to charge ahead with my own ideas!
2. Sometimes some of my kids would rather read historical fiction than the more factual books Tapestry has on its reading list. Not that the Tapestry books are dry, but they might not always be as "exciting" and emotionally compelling as other choices might be. But this is where the purpose of the books that are part of Tapestry comes in. Tapestry offers a variety of books, including exciting historical fiction titles, but also some more fact-based textbooks.

   I suspect that those who choose the books for Tapestry selected books with a specific purpose in mind depending on the week, perhaps to understand better a certain person, idea, or theme. Or perhaps because the books are great works of literature. While many of Tapestry's books are page-turners, the entertainment value in itself is probably not what puts a book onto the main reading list for Tapestry of Grace.

3. I sometimes wish there were more Easy Readers for the Lower Grammar level. While Tapestry doesn't include phonics readers, most weeks do include books for the Lower Grammar level that a proficient second-grader can read on her own. There are some weeks, however, when the type is too small for my daughter, or the length is too long for her attention span. Then I usually read some and have her read some. But when there is a book that is at her level that fits with our theme for that week, her face just lights up. That's what I'd love to see even more often. Maybe some Tapestry graduate could write and illustrate some (anybody? Hint, hint!).
4. Tapestry requires access to a good number of books. If you want to have the freedom to do the assignments as written, with the least amount of frustration and highest amount of satisfaction for you and your children, you'll most likely want the books nearby. There are ways around buying them all, of course, and borrowing or sharing can be very workable options. But there are a lot of books. We have moved around a fair amount, so this is a cost we have to factor in.

   There is good news on the horizon, however, as there will soon be a that includes all the notes for the teacher and handouts you need for the students. I am very excited about this option!

5. It takes more adjusting when you only have younger children. When I had only one or two children who were at the Lower Grammar levels or below (as we had been a few years ago), it was even harder for me personally to say "no" to all I wanted to do with Tapestry.

   Marcia Sommerville, the original author of Tapestry, has wisely said that Tapestry at the youngest ages is just icing on the cake. That is very true. Believe it! My problem was that I really didn't know what our goals were so didn't really know how I should modify Tapestry. We ended up quitting after our first two years (you can read about our home schooling journey here).

   How I wish I had stayed with it! If only I had known more about setting effective home schooling goals I think I could have felt more freedom to adapt it to what we needed. Also, had we stayed with it I would have used the time to learn more myself. That would have been much more productive than all the hours I spent time searching for some different home school curriculum.

   Finally, I think had Tapestry Redesigned been available then I probably wouldn't have quit because it is so much more teacher-friendly. You can read more about my comparison of Classic Tapestry and Tapestry Redesigned here.

6. When we used Classic Tapestry I didn't always want to spend an entire week on certain topics. This may be true for other people living outside of the US who may wonder how to adjust the assignments to their own country. I think it can be done, but having only experience with Years 2 and 3, I'm not sure what that would or will look like.
7. Sometimes we can't find the answers in the assigned reading, or I neglect to notice and tell my children that they will need to look in our World Book to find the answers. Usually the teacher's notes tell me this ahead of time, but there have been times I didn't pay attention to this and my kids weren't able to find the information they needed. I went over the information with them, so it was okay.
8. Sometimes it is difficult to lead discussion times because some of the student discussion questions don't have the same numbering as the teacher's notes for the discussion. I think this is intentional, as a way to promote more of a genearl discussion of the issues, but we're still at the stage where we need a lot of guided hand-holding, shall we say, so we find that a bit confusing. However, the answers are there enough that we just adjust to what works for us, and we still have lots of help to have a good discussion.

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