2024-2025 Tapestry Weavers TOG Year 3 Co-op Nuts and Bolts:

Everything you ever needed to know about our co-op!

 

2024-25 Class times:

(All times are Eastern, all meetings are 1 hour except Rhetoric History and Literature which are 1.5 hours):

Grammar: Fridays, 1:30pm

Dialectic History: Thursdays, 12:30pm

Dialectic Literature: Thursdays, 2:30pm

Rhetoric History: Thursdays, 12:30pm

Rhetoric Literature: Thursdays, 2:30pm

Rhetoric/Dialectic Writing: Fridays, 11:00am

Rhetoric/Dialectic Combined Church History: Fridays, 12:30pm

Rhetoric Philosophy: Mondays, 1:00pm (covering previous week)

 

2024-25 School Year Schedule:

Dates listed are Tuesdays, so read as “week of“ and note in our class schedule below that all meetings will take place Thursday and Friday of each week, with Philosophy meeting on Monday and covering material from the previous week:

Introduction Week: August 13

Week 1 Classes: August 20

Canadian Thanksgiving Break: October 8

Week 10: October 29

American Thanksgiving Break: November 26

Christmas Break: December 24 and December 31

Week 19: January 21

Not-Quite-Spring Break: February 18

Week 28: April 1

Easter Break: April 15

Weeks 35-36 Combined: May 27

Last Philosophy class: June 2

Summer break: June 3

 

Training:

Training sessions are available via the following links.  For help our how to navigate our website and use our conferencing platforms click here.

 

Co-op Fees:

Family with parent willing to teach: $0 (# of weeks of teaching is determined based on the number of teachers available. Generally, you are expected to teach in the levels in which you have a child participating, although participating teachers have the flexibility to trade subjects and levels with one another) 

Family with non-teaching parents: $250 

Fees collected will be divided and distributed to teaching parents. 

 

General Expectations 

All coop participants (students and parents) agree to interact with one another in a Christ-like manner. Our group is made up of many different backgrounds, denominations, and literally spans the globe, so our life experiences may be vastly different from one another. This co-op's goal is to encourage, support, spur on, and share in the struggles of homeschooling and daily life while learning from the TOG curriculum. Our co-op is only as good as we all make it, so be willing to give input and be a part of the solution, if one is needed. 

Due to the nature of our co-op being open to any TOG user, you will not be asked about your faith or denomination. TOG is a curriculum with a Biblical foundation. The focus of our co-op will be learning TOG content and using the Bible as our common ground. If you choose to divulge your denomination, that is your choice, but is by no means required. 

We typically do not grade work in literature and history classes, however IF there are enough participants interested in having their child's work graded, those interested parents are welcome to form a grading group and organize graders and will be given assistance with the technology to do so, if needed. 

 

Student Requirements 

  1. Come to class prepared to discuss thinking and accountability questions. Complete assigned readings and review or prepare using the questions or worksheets provided in the Student Activity Pages (SAPs). Written completion of questions or worksheets is typically at the discretion of the parent, although teachers may request specific assignments to be completed in advance to facilitate class discussion. 

  2. Have relevant materials handy: books, notes, any questions you may have about what you've learned, SAPs, and any other specific items as requested by the teacher. 

  3. Be respectful of the teacher and peers. Opinions given need to be respected, considered, and refutes must be given in a gracious manner. Part of a Socratic discussion is the ability to articulate and refute opinions in a respectful way that does not cause divisiveness. This co-op is a safe place to practice this skill. 

  4. Participate appropriately in class. Teachers facilitate, not lecture, so be ready to share thoughts and listen to peers’ ideas. Headset/Microphone use is strongly encouraged. Profile names and/or avatars are clearly and personally identifiable. Chat is used in a way that shows we are engaged in class. Distractions are to be  minimized or eliminated. 

 

Parent Requirements 

  1.  Make sure that your student's work is completed and that he or she is prepared to participate in class. 

  2. If your student is unable to attend class, please let the teacher know either directly or through a post to the parent lounge. 

  3. Parents who are not teaching class are welcome to attend class with their child/children, if they choose to. Your presence is not required. If you choose to attend class, you may simply lurk or are welcome to participate in the discussion. Just be mindful that the goal is to get the students talking, not the parents! (We naturally seem to be good at that!) 

 

Teaching Requirements

"Teaching" in the co-op is less about lecturing and more about facilitating a discussion. A teacher's role and responsibilities in the co-op are as follows: 

  1. Participate in co-op teacher training and complete all required components. 

  2. Lead and facilitate discussions with the aid of the TOG teacher notes, following the TOG discussion outline and keeping student discussion on point.  While supplemental content beyond the discussion outline may be relevant and engaging, the scope of the existing content will be the focus of scheduled class times. Additional resources can be shared through the website or additional class meetings may be scheduled for optional/extended discussion if there is interest. 

  3. Communicate omission of content components due to sensitivity or lack of available time to parents of the students in that class so that material can be covered at home if preferred. Teachers who are uncomfortable with or don’t feel equipped to further the discussion on a topic will refer to what the Bible says and then request the students discuss the topic further with their family after class.  

  4. Make slides for the class discussion and load onto our website no later than 2 days after class. 

  5. Find a substitute to cover your class if you are unable to be there, or work with the parents of your students to reschedule class if needed. 

  6. Give feedback on individual class meetings via our website or email as need arises. Additionally, student discussion participation rubrics are completed by teachers at the end of each unit for all students for the purposes of supporting growth and development of the students' discussion skills. The teacher who has taught the majority of those classes for the unit will be the lead person for completion with input from any other teachers during the unit as needed. These rubric evaluations will be distributed to parents by email no later than 2 weeks after the last class for that unit.  

Note: IF you are not gifted in teaching in some subjects, trading is always an option that is, teaching Literature instead of History and vice versa.

 

How much time to prep for a class?

It depends. If you are making the slides in addition to teaching and are fairly well versed in making powerpoints, it could be less than an hour. If you are really wanting to digest all the material, make awesome powerpoints, or are a little slow on the tech side of making slides, it could take 3-6 hours. If you have a child who is good at the tech side, it might pay to hire them to make your slides for you! (Some parents did it the first year of starting this co-op because of the huge amount of technology I was trying to learn. My son was 8 or 9 and I paid him $5 a week for making my slides! He eventually taught me how to make my own slides. ?;-) )

 

Materials Needed

  • Tapestry of Grace Curriculum Year Plan. Print or Digital is fine. We do work from the current updated digital curriculum. If you have an older edition print, you can still participate but do anticipate that you may need to adjust your literature reading selections. TOG has a print workbook available for a nominal fee that would provide you with current discussion questions. The literature books might be different from time to time, but you would have the option to either miss those classes or read the suggested book for the week and be a part of the discussion. For history, our philosophy is that if you are addressing the discussion questions, it doesn’t matter if you are using current resource books or not. (It may be a little extra work for your student, but it can be done.) The history topic is what is being discussed, not necessarily the reading assignment. Having different perspectives on the same topic always makes for interesting discussion.
  • Computer (preferred), Tablet, or Mobile Phone. Mobile phones do work for our conferencing system, but with some limitations. They work great in a pinch though if you are traveling, dealing with technical issues, or have multiple children in class and not enough computers.  You may want to download the conferencing apps if you are not working from a desktop.  Click here for more info on how to do that.
  • Microphone Headset. A microphone and speaker on your computer are sufficient if you are in a quiet room, generally, but if you others in the room, or even other students in class in the same room, a headset is really key to avoiding feedback, background noise, and the ability to focus in the classroom. They are readily available on Amazon or your local big box stores for under $20.

Participants with Multiple Co-op Children

  • If you have multiple children in class, you have a few options:
  • A computer for each child with a microphone headset OR place in separate rooms.
  • Use a computer, tablet, and/or mobile device. Again, with headset or in separate rooms.
  • Share a computer. With this option, you will have to login as one person and just let everyone know that you are sharing the computer. You can notify the class through the chat box that you are sharing a computer. When you answer or ask a question, just identify yourself first.

 

Privacy Policy 

This policy applies solely to information collected by this web site. It will notify you of the following: 

  1. What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the web site, how it is used and with whom it may be shared. 

  2. What choices are available to you regarding the use of your data. 

  3. The security procedures in place to protect the misuse of your information. 

  4. How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information. 

Information Collection, Use, and Sharing 

We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We only have access to/collect information that you voluntarily give us via email or other direct contact from you. We will not sell or rent this information to anyone. 

We will use your information to respond to you, regarding the reason you contacted us. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary to fulfill your request. 

Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email in the future to tell you about events, member correspondence, or changes to this privacy policy. 

Your Access to and Control Over Information 

You may opt out of any future contacts from us at any time. You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address given on our website, or from your user settings/preferences. You may request to: 

   • See what data we have about you, if any. 

   • Change/correct any data we have about you. 

   • Have us delete any data we have about you. 

   • Express any concern you have about our use of your data. 

Security 

We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline. 

Wherever we collect sensitive information that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a closed lock icon at the bottom or top of your web browser, or looking for "https" at the beginning of the address of the web page. 

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only administrators who need the information to perform a specific job (for correspondence or assistance are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.