October 31, 2007 by KellyH.

Often, while working your way through a Weaver volume, you’ll find that one of the activities asks you to study bugs, or collect specific plants–and it’s the middle of winter! What do you do when the activities don’t correspond with the seasons? Many moms have solved this problem by scheduling mini-units during the spring or summer months.

Sometimes it’s a preview of a unit to come, while other times it’s a review of what’s already been discussed. When the activity comes up during the normal school year, do what you can by using the Internet, books, and lots of discussion. When the weather warms up, take time to go back to that unit and study those bugs.

As you look over the volume for the following year, take time to map-out which units will be done in which months and make a note of the ones that fall in the wrong season. Feel free to go over that science information while it’s warm. Then, when the subject comes up during the cold months, your children will have a good jump on the information.

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October 29, 2007 by KellyH.

Many moms spend some time during the year organizing, planning and preparing for the next school year–I’m no exception. One of the things I do periodically is re-read Teaching Tips & Techniques. If you’ve never had the opportunity to read TT&T, you’re really missing out! This is the one and only book from the Weaver line that I recommend to people who are not even using Weaver. Anyone can benefit from this book–anyone.

Written by Rebecca L. Avery, the author of the Weaver Curriculum, this book is a treasure chest of support, encouragement and edification for anyone who homeschools. Within the covers of this book you will learn about teaching multiple children in varying grades; motivation; the three Rs; spelling, science and social studies; and everything you can think of that relates to homeschooling.

Many moms who teach with Weaver read over this book each summer. Some refer to it throughout the school year, reading specific chapters as needed. For example, one year I re-read chapter 8, to help me understand about teaching spelling. (You’d think by now I’d have it down pat! ) Another year I re-read the beginning of the book, for encouragement.

Whether you pick-and-choose sections to read, or start at the beginning and work your way through, this book will inspire you! Get your copy of Teaching Tips & Techniques today!

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October 26, 2007 by KellyH.

Each day the neighbor child comes home with corrected tests, finished book reports, and short essays. What does your child have to show for their day of learning with Weaver?

When we first started with homeschooling, we had daily math assignments, as well as reading and phonics sheets. For the rest of our studies, we discussed things and did hands-on activities. Sometimes there was an original drawing or a coloring sheet done. As the months went on, I started to worry that I wasn’t doing enough since we didn’t have all the papers that the neighbor child had. Imagine my delight when people started telling me how intelligent my children were!

It’s not that we never do anything…

Weaver doesn’t incorporate all the busywork that some curriculums use. Some of our projects have been large, like the edible relief maps we made one year. So I started taking photographs and saving things in a file folder. Apparently, others thought of this idea as well, and many took it a step or two further. Thus, the birth of notebooking and lapbooking. These aren’t original to the Weaver curriculum, but they sure work well with it!

Notebooking is basically what I was doing: taking finished reports, colored pages, and photos of finished projects, and placing them into a three-ring binder or two-pocket folder with the unit’s theme as the title on the front of the notebook.

Lapbooking is taking the information you learn and placing it within some type of “book” for easy viewing later. Kind of like creating your own book from all the information you gather. Many Weaving families are enjoying lapbooking as a way to compile info for each unit.

Both of these ideas are good for any amount of information your children gather, and they really bring out the creativity in a child!

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October 24, 2007 by KellyH.

I can spend plenty of time organizing my supplies and scheduling my children’s classes. I can spend time online, offering encouragement and getting support from women around the world who use Weaver. And I can seek God’s wisdom to teach my children His ways. But, the only thing that really counts is if I get up and actually teach my children!

Weaver works best when you ditch the ‘teacher’ mentality and pray for God’s leading. Whether you’re prepared for the day or not, spend time talking to your children, read to them from the Bible or a good book, ask their opinions on how they think something happened or why they think someone did what they did. Teach them how to safely use the Internet and find information on whatever their heart desires. Reward them for their participation and thinking skills with a fun game, either online or offline.

YOU are the teacher. You are the one who can make school fun. Be enthusiastic: get up and do it!

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October 22, 2007 by KellyH.

Whenever someone asks this, my first impulse is to say yes. But, when they tack-on that second question, I know I have to say no.

Weaver is fun.
Weaver is educational.
Weaver will teach your students how to find the answers they need in life.
Weaver is based on God’s Word, the Bible.
Weaver will challenge you as a teacher, as well as inspire and encourage you.
Weaver can be as easy or as hard as you make it.

Why do you want an easy curriculum? Perhaps a better question would be, why do you want to homeschool? Do you feel God has called you to educate your children? If that’s the case, then He will show you the curriculum He wants you to use, regardless of how easy or hard you feel it is.

Are you homeschooling for academic reasons, or location/flexibility reasons, or even for safety reasons? If you merely wish to have school at home, perhaps you would be more interested in a Work Text format, such as Alpha Omega’s LifePacs. However, if you are looking for a curriculum which will ground your students in the Word of God, then Weaver is the right choice!

Forgive me if that sounds harsh–I am only trying to save new homeschoolers some time. If you are truly serious about educating your children, then you need to know that homeschooling is hard work. It may come easy to some women, but to most mothers this is a full-time job that is worked along with our other daily household chores and responsibilities.

Many women write to me asking about the ease of Weaver because they have commitments at church, extra-curricular activities for their children, toddlers and babies that need their attention, and a part-time career or hobby that they do not wish to give up. (How much time does that business/hobby take up? How much of it are you willing to give up to educate your children?)

When my children were young, it was very easy for me to have hobbies and activities aside from schooling them. Now that they are older (I’m teaching five now, between 2^nd and 12^th grade) I spend more time devoted to their education and less time on my hobbies. This is a choice I have made–I want to give my children the best education I can, and for me that means giving them more of my time. Other women have not had to make the same choices–we’re all different, as are our families.

So, is Weaver an easy curriculum? I think so. I have been using it from the day we started homeschooling, and I have a wonderful group of women who support me online. You can have that same support through the Unofficial Weaver Pages‘ email support group. Some will tell you it is easy, some will tell you it is moderately hard… but all of them will tell you how much they love the curriculum!

Does Weaver give the teacher the answers? No. Weaver teaches your students how to think for themselves, not how to memorize answers for a test. Many women have stopped using Weaver because they just couldn’t teach without answers. But, many have also come back to Weaver after realizing that their children retained more information when they used it. The choice is theirs, and now it’s yours, too.

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October 19, 2007 by KellyH.

I’ve been using Weaver for 12 years. I am by no means an expert at homeschooling, but I feel I have found a curriculum that will work for anyone who chooses to put God at the core of their studies. I know I’m not alone in my feelings as there are hundreds of women around the world who visit the Unofficial Weaver Pages and participate at the Support Forum and on the Email List.

Why did I choose Weaver? When I first thought about homeschooling, I did a ton of research. I didn’t have an Internet connection back then, so I used my phone and a book I had bought that listed publishers of homeschooling materials. I had two young boys and was pregnant with my third child. My background was in Child Day Care, so the idea of unit studies really appealed to me. I found two options: a curriculum that focused on character traits, or a book that would teach me to write my own unit studies. I was all set to go with the former option when my cousin mentioned Weaver.

After calling the company and getting a sample, I was hooked! Here was a curriculum that started with God’s Word. Here was a curriculum that I could use with all my children. Here was a curriculum that offered flexibility and scheduling, all at the same time.

As a new Christian, I desperately wanted to put God first in my life. I felt Weaver would help me teach my children how important that is, and I was right. What about you? What has brought you to this Unofficial Weaver Blog? What types of things are you interested in learning about Weaver? Let me know and I’ll answer your questions, or leave a comment and share how you came to use Weaver!

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October 17, 2007 by KellyH.

I just learned that the Official Weaver Blog will be discontinued. I’m going to work with the AOP Webmaster to get all my posts moved over to this blog. I’ve been posting to the official blog for over a year, and I’d hate to see all that information disappear!

Now I need to decide if I should post it all at once, or if I should post it gradually, like one post per day. Hmmm… decisions, decisions…

Leave a comment to let me know what you think I should do!

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October 16, 2007 by KellyH.

He was scratching at the door. My daughter thought there was a puppy outside, so she went to the window to see. It was a lizard! Yellow head, blue body, green tail. Definitely a male, and definitely a collared lizard.

We also caught a black widow spider recently! We’ve been doing some remodeling in our home, and when my husband picked up a piece of scrap wood he felt the spider (and dropped the wood!). We’ve had this fine specimen in a small container for four days now. I believe it’s a female, because of its size. My daughter (9) went straight to the wildlife resource books and looked up black widows. Did you know black widows spin 3-D webs? Most spider webs are flat, two-dimensional weavings. Black widows create ‘balls’ for their web. We have a lot of those around the yard, but the spiders are small and brown. That will have to be my next research project… spiders!

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