Tapestry of Grace Year 3: Weeks 11-12: Jacksonian Democracy and Revolutions in Texas and Europe

These last two weeks have been a lot of fun!  We dove into history with stories of Davy Crockett, the Alamo, Cherokee Indians, and more.  We learned about Andrew Jackson, who was the first President from outside the aristocracy, born in a log cabin.  I have always loved Tapestry's book choices, but I am just not in love with The Story of the World.  The stories are fine, but I've often gotten bored with them.  They also are very clearly written from a secular world view, which is fine, but it's very obvious.  Because I've really been enjoying reading about Charlotte Mason method, and looking at ideas on Ambleside Online and Simply Charlotte Mason, I've gotten a lot of ideas about alternative books for our history readings.  These two weeks, we have read stories from This Country of Ours and Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans, both online free at www.mainlesson.com.  There are hundreds of fantastic books online free there.  I find these stories to be more detailed, but also more engaging to my kids than Story of the World.  We are loving the readings we've done from books on Main Lesson! (I found out about Main Lesson through our writing program, Classical Writing. It was recommended on their website.)

My kids really loved the stories of Davy Crockett.  Luke did a great notebook page about him, and wrote a paragraph about his childhood.

I'm beginning to implement more and more of the projects from Writing Aids. I really love what we're doing with Classical Writing, and plan to keep with it through high school.  The writing assignments in CW and Writing Aids are completely different types of things.  I like Tapestry's emphasis on "read, think, write," specifically about the history they are learning.  There are some really fun assignments in Writing Aids, as well as some great information in the students Talking Points, and really great graphic organizers.  This week, I had Luke use the WA Story map for his CW assignment, The Top and the Ball.  

Kiryn enjoyed reading about Susanna of the Alamo this week. 

 I have been wanting to do more memory verses with the kids, but it was one of those things I could never quite manage to plan or organize well. I found this verse pack that came with our Children's Desiring God preschool curriculum.  It's been great!  We're doing one verse a week, and it's been wonderful.  

Levi is trucking along with his phonics.  He did this all by himself! He knows all the letter sounds, and is beginning to smash the sounds together to make a word!  Progress! : ) 

It was a great couple of weeks in homeschool. We have a break planned the next two weeks as we have friends visiting, and Thanksgiving!