I am sitting here printing things out in order to plan for Tapestry Year 3 and thought, I probably should blog about this as I go. So far nothing has been the same in preparing from year to year. This year would have been, until the Lord brought to my mind that A1 has never studied this time in European History and parts of the American History we will cover. It also was brought to my attention, God is so good, that A2 will not be getting this time period of history again either as he is a freshman this fall. Enter panic into my thought process. "A1 needs to get the facts and things that are at the Dialectic Level, but still needs the synthises of putting it all together and making the bigger picture connections of how history is still affecting us today and cementing her beliefs about it. A2 needs both of these too. If I have them do all of both levels they will hate me, school and life.(Thinking like a teenager here)" Enter sanity in the form of my TLT friends who are filled with wisdom and love to share and help. After gleaning from them, my year just got a bit more complicated, however, the kids year should end up with just the right balance of both. I will be weaving the two levels together according to what is being taught in both each week. We've always done both discussions together so that won't be new, however, assigning reading and work from both levels without overwhelming them will be new. So I'm going to write down how I'm doing this for future reference, since I'll probably have to do the same thing next year, and to help anyone else coming along after me through this.
Since I have the DE(digital version) and I have to move so much between levels on the threads and reading levels I am starting by printing both of these things out so I can mark them up. To be most economical about it I am printing the Threads into a book by printing back to back. I am also doing it in gray scale with black only ink. While I love color, it isn't essential to my planning as I'll be highlighting the final way I'm wandering through Tapestry this year. (There will be a brief pause while I finish this up and decide if I'm using color for the next step or not.)
Actually, I digress. I next printed in gray scale, black ink only, the Unit Introduction notes for the year as well. Between reading these, looking through the threads, and listening to the Pop Quiz CD's when they get here, I should have an excellent idea on where to weave at. If I'm not sure for the week, then I'll read the Teacher Notes(TN's and background) for the week in question off of the DE screen on the computer.
I know some are wondering why I didn't just get the print version or the print/DE version. Here is the logic behind this. I don't need it all. I only need some things. I probably could have gotten by without printing the Unit Intro's, but I wanted to be able to take this to bed and read there and it is easier to read paper in bed then off a laptop. I love the DE version for the search-ability. I think this year instead of printing the kids Student Activity Pages, I'm going to put them on a flash drive either edited to word or have them do that so that they can type their answers on their computers. If they need them printed then they can do it. That is my thoughts on that part of it. A1 uses her laptop for everything and A2 likes to use his too. He is all about not wasting paper so that might work well for him too.
To print color or no color that is the question, whether 'tis nobler or...oops, not Shakespeare, but color it is. The kids may have to refer to these charts in case something goes weird with the whole workbox system we are also going to try this fall.
So all of those things are printed and I've actually read the Unit Intro's for the whole year. It is going to be an exciting year. Today I'm going to start through the threads, highlighting the things that I feel are most important for them to get. To start I'm going to use yellow for things I think we should do and then go back and refine with blue so that everything we are going to do will be in green. Then, I'll coordinate that with the reading assignments for the week and start checking to see which books we have.
I might be busy for a few days or so, but this is where it is starting. Somewhere during this I really need to get the rest of the painting finished around here too.
Have a great day everyone!
Anita
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