Adjusting Tapestry of Grace to
Make It Work for Your Family

While I think Tapestry of Grace is a wonderful resource for homeschooling, any home school curriculum has drawbacks, Tapestry of Grace included. They key is, can you adjust it enough to make it work for you?

Many of my adjustments are actually in how I think about what we are doing. Here are the things I find I need or needed to change for Tapestry of Grace to work in our homeschool:

1. Since Tapestry offers a lot of books, I had to realize it is okay to develop a good library. This may sound silly, but I have struggled to believe that it is okay to have the resources we need to teach the way I think God wants us to. I used to think I would "make do" and that would make it easy on us. However, it really made it harder and led to a lot of frustration for all of us. Now I see the value in the long run of making the investment in good books and teaching resources. Some people may find sharing books or borrowing them from the library what works for them, but I have found that, for us, what works best is to buy at least most of the books.
2. Since Tapestry is fairly structured, I needed to see the curriculum as a tool, not as a list. I needed to adjust my way of thinking and remember that I am the master of the curriculum and it is there to serve me. I have freedom to use it as how I see it needs to be, even if that is different (gasp!) than how the author used it.
   
3. When life gets crazy, I have to lower my expectations. As with almost everyone these days, our lives can get busy with out-of-town visitors, traveling, moving, sickness, or other events that take up half of our week. So, I lower my expectations...a lot. But given the quality of education I see happening in our family with Tapestry, I'm really not that worried. Even doing half of what we usually do means our children are still learning with excellent materials, and using a process that will keep them growing. So what if they don't go quite so deep on some things? They'll come around again, and for the older children who won't, we can adjust for them, too.
4. Tapestry offers a lot of writing assignments, and we simply don't do them all. We do more less-structured writing than Tapestry suggests, at least for the early grades. Tapestry says to make sure your child is writing every week. Well, for one of my children copywork may be the extent of his "academic" writing at this stage of his development. But that's okay. He'll move along in time. In fact, I already have seen him make great strides.

   On the other hand, our two older children are thriving on Tapestry's writing assignments, including one who didn't like writing much last year with a less-structured writing approach.

5. I admit we may go for weeks at a time without doing some aspect of the curriculum as written. We haven't had our Upper Grammar boy read church history for I-don't-know-how-long, simply because with all the other things he's doing, it would just be too much. We just have to pick and choose. This can be hard when I want to do it all, but that is MY problem, not the curriculum's problem. For other children or older Upper Grammar students, adding in church history may not be a problem.

   I try to remember that we'll be back in four years and we'll pick up some things we didn't get to this time around. Also, our children's maturation is a process, and as they mature they'll be able to do more bit by bit. I've seen that even as each unit progresses the children are able to do more by the end of the unit than they were at the beginning.

6. Since Tapestry can offer a lot to do, I have to help my children learn to prioritize and take bite-sized pieces. Some of my children want to eat everything in one bite; for them, we look over the assignments and see which ones we'll cover each day or this week so they don't feel overwhelmed. Prioritizing is a great skill for them to learn. Others of my children want to do as little as possible. The step-by-step process the writing assignments uses has really helped my son, especially, gain confidence and feel good about his work. Learning to set and meet small goals is a great skill for my children to learn, too.
7. Sometimes Tapestry's literature selections for Lower Grammar are above my daughter's reading level. In those cases I often read them aloud to her, or I may read some and have her read a paragraph or two. Most of the history core readings I read aloud to her. To give her more opportunities to read at her level we check out books from the library (when we are in the US) or give her a book from our shelves that may not be related to Tapestry.
8. We don't try to have our Grammar-level students do their own research for lapbooks. I just use them for copywork or dictation and they like that a lot. It is good reinforcement, as well as for learning spelling, grammar, and penmanship. We also split one lapbook set between two children. I help them divide up who gets which items and make sure each of them has something to do about every week.
9. We will probably include more Asian history as time goes on, since we live most of our time in Asia. Something on my wish list for Tapestry? Having a non-Western track or Global Outlook or Global Christian track that would somehow dovetail with Tapestry Redesigned but would include how God is working in other countries around the world. Maybe a Tapestry user who lives in a country outside the US can offer suggestions (hint, hint anyone?). Or maybe incorporate Perspectives on the World Christian Movement for Children (I heard something like that is in the works, but I don't know). Perhaps Tapestry users like us could help make this happen!

As we continue to use Tapestry of Grace over the years, I am sure we will keep tweaking how we use it depending on our children's needs. In fact, I think being able to modify this curriculum in so many different ways over different seasons of life is one of Tapestry of Grace's most appealing strengths.

I hope this information will help you as you decide if Tapestry of Grace is the right home school curriculum for you.

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