Weaving Through Our Year

Last Spring, when I ordered my homeschooling materials, I made a decision.  I decided that, while I love a couple different curriculum, I just couldn't afford to spend the kind of money each year that I had so often spent.  Financially, my husband and I needed to cut back and streamline a lot of things.

My Weaver Volumes and Supplements

I LOVE literature-based, Charlotte Mason-style curriculum. I had spent hundreds each year buying these types of curriculum.  (I still use bits of them.) The benefit is that most of it is reusable.  I needed to purchase two years of curriculum so that, with any other funds, we could get back on our feet. The costs of two years of the literature-based programs for three students would have added up to over two thousand dollars! 

These programs, though expensive, gave me a safety net.  Planned out completely for me, I didn't have the fears plaguing me about whether we had done enough. I could just trust the curriculum.  Not everything worked well, but I would make do or adjust things.  Occasionally, however, I would get frustrated by books that I didn't like and had paid big bucks to buy.  I was livid that a writing program that came with my materials was BORING, had cost me a small fortune, and my child hated every assignment to the point that I quit using it a few weeks in. Since part of it was consumable, I couldn't sell it for what I paid. 

I needed a program with more flexibility.  I needed to be able to use the library or pick up materials used at resale shops.  I needed to be able to customize the materials a bit more for each child. 

So, despite feeling sad that I couldn't afford the program I had been using, I took a leap of faith and ordered programs that met my needs better.  They may require more planning on my part, but that actually has been a blessing. 

I don't look for that "perfect" curriculum any longer.  Instead, I look for resources and materials that I can use with multi-levels.  Ironically, I use workbooks for some subjects.  They may be consumable, but they are time savers in certain subjects, like math and grammar. Most cover concepts in a systematic way that reviews and builds precept upon precept. I love using Language Lessons by Queens because this is more than just a "find the noun, find the verb" grammar program, but is still gentle.

This year I delved into notebooking, which has been amazing for my visual learners. 

One investment I made last Spring was in the Weaver curriculum. Weaver is a unit study curriculum published by Alpha Omega.  I had played with Volume 1 off and on for a couple years.  Each time I used it, I loved it.  However, I just didn't have the confidence to jump in all the way. I would go through the massive guides and fear that I could never put it all together for three children.  Then I would be so stressed trying to do three children in three different grades with three different complete lesson plans. The expense was not making things more simple.

Weaver bases everything around the Bible.  History and Science are Bible-based, stemming from the Bible lessons. I love that!  I could make Weaver my own.  

Let me say that jumping into Weaver with two in high school was a bit scary.  But I'm watching my girls develop extraordinary research skills.  When they have to look up things and write about what they are learning, they remember the concepts so much more than when they simply read about them.  However, they still do a LOT of reading. 

I can now build a library of more than just books someone else chose.  I can add in Christian materials from multiple publishers.  I can buy books from the resale shops for pennies, or check out stacks of books for free from my library.  

I can decide how to cover certain topics. For instance, we are working on maps in Social Studies.  My older girls have done a lot of map work, so I have them reading about China as they read a novel set there.  However my seven year old has only a little experience with maps.  My copier is broke, making using the resource pages in the back of the Weaver guide difficult.  So I ordered an Ace Pace about maps from their third grade Social Studies program.  Megan is going through it and learning all about the objectives listed in the Weaver volume, for around three dollars.

For science, we are studying weather at the moment.  The older girls are reading about advanced weather prediction techniques while my second grader is going through the beginner sections of Our Weather and Water, filling out a calendar of the weather daily, and even watching a Magic School Bus episode about air pressure on Netflix. 

For our Bible time, I have found the Christian Light Bible goes perfectly with the Weaver lessons.  Occasionally one or the other will be more info-depth, but the levels I'm using blend well.  We are using Volume 4 of Weaver because that is where we were in our Old Testament studies.  We are studying David, using CLE grade two for my seven year old and grade six for my high schoolers. I am very impressed with CLE's Bible. I decided to not use the high school levels because the fifth and sixth grade levels were so detailed, with a lot of cultural explanations and maps of the times.  Mixed with the Weaver Bible lessons, I am continually blessed by the incredibly deep and detailed lessons.  The CLE guides often give writing assignments, discussion starters, and even visual suggestions.  The Weaver adds a lot of depth, such as the added Psalm study we are going through now as the girls read about David.  Our adventures as spies (field trip) added some amazing real life lessons when we studied the spies sent into the Promise Land.  Weaver helped our lessons come to life!

I see a lot of homeschooling moms out there that tried Weaver and left because it was too hard to plan or too hard to find the books.  I don't use the books listed most of the time.  I will invest in some of the biographies occasionally, but most of the time I look for age appropriate books by topic.  I purchased the Answers in Genesis God's Design curriculum for my elementary and middle school students.  I often use these for my high schoolers too, because they give a great starting point before more in-depth research. 

Weaver seems to complement the Adhd in my home.  The Objectives that catch our interest, we can delve into deeply.  The ones that we don't like as well, we can do our best and move on.  I can make it hands-on if I need to.  I can make it as literature rich as I want.  I can add in a workbook if I'm not confident in my abilities in an area.  I can add in Notebooking to engage my learners that learn best with this method.  I can throw in documentaries for my daughter that is very visual.  I can use the books from my literature collections or use books from Goodwill.  I can raid the library and it won't cost me a dime.  I can choose whatever read-alouds I want to read, and not the ones chosen by someone else that I may find objectionable or my child find boring.  

More work?  Yes... In planning.  But so far it has been so worth it!