August 11, 2008 by KellyH.

Can I do this with little ones?

Yes, you CAN do this! Many of us do! But… BUT!… it takes some commitment and some sacrifices on your part.

I’m used to popping in a BJU video to ‘do school’ while I tend to the little ones, housework, etc.

Instead of letting your TV, or some textbook, or even some worktext, “teach” your children, YOU will have to do it! You will have to set aside your housework, just like you would if you were going out to work each day. You will have to find a way to include your younger children, or work around them, just like you would if you were teaching Sunday school class with a few unruly children in attendance.

What many women have found helpful is to have “chore time” in the morning–usually the time right after breakfast. Spend about half an hour getting some sort of house cleaning done, or whatever needs doing (laundry, crock pot cooking, etc). Immediately following this is school. You’ll be distracted by the little ones frequently, but it’s important to get right back to school as soon as possible. Show your children how important their education is to you!

Another trick that is often used, is working one-on-one with the children. While you are working with one, the others tend to the little ones. Then you trade off and work with another child while the first one tends to the little ones. The beauty of homeschooling is that it teaches priorities. The needs of the younger siblings are important, but teaching them to wait, or to be quiet, or to entertain themselves, is part of their schooling. The older students learn these same qualities, as well as discipline to not run off whenever Mom turns her back. (A couple of mine are still working on this trait!)

The ladies who make up the U-Weaver email list are here to support you as you homeschool your children. But, the work must be done by YOU. We’re just words on your computer screen–we can’t teach your children for you–but we CAN pray for you, and we will!

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November 26, 2007 by KellyH.

Just about everyone knows that Weaver is a unit-based curriculum. But, that doesn’t mean much to those new to homeschooling who don’t know what a unit study is. I recently replied to a homeschooling mom who had questions about Weaver…

What’s included in a volume?

Each volume consists of a complete curriculum to teach students in grades K-6. All the objectives and activities are listed, by grade and subject, and the sheets are color-coded:

• white for everyone/teacher
• goldenrod for K
• dark pink for 1st
• light pink for 2nd
• blue for 3rd
• yellow for 4th
• green for 5th
• salmon for 6th

The volumes are divided into 9 units, with some units having multiple chapters. Volumes 1-3 are designed to be done within one year each, while volumes 4 & 5 take about a year-and-a-half each. Going through each of the volumes once will cover about 6 years.

Each chapter starts with an overview so you know what you’ll be covering. Next are the For Your Information pages–these provide background info for the teacher, but you can also share this material with your students. Next are the Bible lessons, followed by a Recommended Reading list. Next are the colored pages, mentioned above, for the different grades. The subjects covered in the colored sections are:

• History (Social Studies)
• Science
• Language Arts

Following the colored pages you’ll find a few more white pages:

• vocabulary list
• health/safety ideas
• field trip
• art suggestions
• Bible memory verses

Sometimes the chapters have extra materials, like suggestions for character study, or information on mummification, or some other topic you may wish to study more in-depth while you study that section of the Bible. These extra materials are white pages as well.

At the back of the book you’ll find a resource section, with pictures, charts, maps, and various other “visuals” for your use–there is an index for these items as well, telling you in which chapter you’ll need each visual.

Does it matter which volume you start with?

This really depends on what your children already know. It’s recommended that you start with Volume I and work your way through, so as to go through the Bible chronologically. There is an overview located at the Unofficial Weaver Pages where you can see what is covered in each volume. Because Weaver is based on the Bible, choose where to start by thinking of your child’s Biblical knowledge.

What about math?

The only volume that contains any math is the Interlock, which covers pre-K/K grades. All other grades will need to purchase math separately.

The volumes themselves do not contain the daily lesson plans. These are found in the Day by Day, available separately. AOP also offers Wisdom Words, a grammar program written by the author of the Weaver, to round out your children’s academics.

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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 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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