Free Tapestry of Grace Seminars

These FREE seminars are designed to assist Tapestry of Grace families with everything from choosing courses to thriving with the curriculum once you receive it.

Tapestry of Grace
Simple Start Guide

Featuring
TAPESTRY OF GRACE 
PRESENTATION SPECIALIST,
​SARAH WHITE

Tuesday, June 18, 2-4 pm ET
​​Cost: free

You have your copy of Tapestry of Grace in hand. Now what do you do with it? We'll walk you through the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, show you where to find what you need, and help you plan how you'll use it.​

Get to Know Lucerna Academy

Hosted by 
LUCERNA ACADEMY OWNER,
​TERI SKIDMORE

Tuesday, June 11, 3-4 pm ET
​​Cost: free

Wondering what it's like to participate in a Lucerna live, online Tapestry of Grace class? Need help choosing courses for your student? We'll begin by overviewing our courses and our approach to education. Then, we'll open the mic for your questions. We'll meet in one of our online classrooms, so you can access from anywhere and get a feel for what it is like to join one of our classes. We hope to see you there!

Student Book Clubs

Designed to help students continue to enjoy reading during the summer, these laid-back book clubs meet once per week for an hour to discuss together. ​And, if you attend regularly, the club could be free!*

Dialectic

In Desert and Wilderness

 by Henryk Sienkiewicz (translated from the Polish by Max A. Drezmal)

Tuesdays, July 2-August 6,
from 1:30-2:30 PM ET 
(proposed times are flexible, email us to let us know if you’d like to meet at a different time of the day)

​Cost: $36 (*free with rebate)
This book can be read online at no extra cost or purchased for around $25 + shipping. A link will be provided to the edition we will use.

“In the silence could be heard only the heavy breathing of the camels, the rapid hoof-beats on the sand, and at times the swish of whips…in vain both children gazed around. One hour passed, then another; neither tents nor campfires could be seen. Then the hair rose on Stas’ head, for he realized that they were kidnapped.” 

In the 1880s, the Sudan in Africa was a place of endless horizons of sand, a variety of peoples, and a great war, the Mahdist War. This was a two-decades long, bloody rebellion of the native Sudanese peoples against the forces of Britain. Such is the setting for this book. 

 Two children, a 14-year-old Polish boy and an 8-year-old English girl are raised in Egypt by their fathers, who are both engineers on the Suez Canal. When the war breaks out, the two are captured as hostages by a group of Arabs. Then follows their wild adventure through the Sahara and their struggles for survival, where they meet a variety of people, friends and foes, and many wild animals, as they make their way to the Indian Ocean, where they hope to be rescued. 

This relaxed book club will last six weeks (giving you time to enjoy the book), and we will read through it, meet once a week for an hour to share our thoughts, and dip into extra-literary activities related to the work (games, movies, music, art, history, etc.). Welcome to this fun club!

Rhetoric

Quo Vadis

by Henryk Sienkiewicz (translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin)

Wednesdays, July 3-August 7, from 3:30-5 PM ET 
(proposed times are flexible, email us to let us know if you’d like to meet at a different time of the day)

​​Cost: $36 (*free with rebate)
This book can be read online at no extra cost or purchased for around $25 + shipping. A link will be provided to the edition we will use.

“Without exaggeration it may be said that this is a great novel. It will become recognized by virtue of its own merits as the one heroic monument built by the modern novelist above the ruins of decadent Rome, and in honor of the blessed martyrs of the early Church. There are chapters in “Quo Vadis” so convincing, so vital, so absolute, that by comparison Lew Wallace’s popular book seems tinsel.” – Brooklyn Eagle, 1890s. 

 In Ancient Rome, in the days of Nero, a Roman centurion falls in love with a Christian maiden and struggles to understand her faith. Meanwhile, his uncle, a patrician, encourages him to fulfill every desire, seek every pleasure, and live “today, for tomorrow we die.” A mercenary and despicable old Greek man appears to aid the centurion in his plots against the maiden, but his story takes an unexpected turn. This story explores early Christianity and its conflicts with the Roman, materialistic mind, which will undoubtably remind you of our world today. It is deeply philosophical, with moments when the author shows ancient Rome in all its horrors, and scenes that seem to depict indescribable events of both terror and spiritual beauty. 

 This relaxed book club will last six weeks (given the length of this work), and we will read through it, meet once a week for an hour to share our thoughts, and dip into extra-literary representations of the work (movies, music, art, etc.). Welcome to this fun club! 
​
You'll notice that many of our clubs and classes have a theme this year--the history and literature of Poland! We are blessed to have former Lucerna student Abigail Sarabacha join us to host these classes. Abigail graduated with her bachelor's degree in history and specialized in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 for her senior thesis project, joining the Lucerna Academy staff after graduation. Her passion for these subjects is contagious! As books can often be the best teachers, she has been informed by the great leaders of Polish history and culture, including those alive today and those who were educators in the past: Norman Davies, Robert Frost, Oskar Halecki, Monica M. Gardner, the Polish Ministry of Information during WWII, Arthur Bliss Lane, Jan Karski, and many more. In addition, she is a student of Polish language at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and is an avid collector of Polish historical artifacts and documents (including original newspapers from the Warsaw Uprising, WWII Armia Krajowa publications, 1890s Polish literature illustrations, etc.). She enjoys spending her free time reading Polish literature, watching old Polish movies and TV shows, and listening to and educating herself about the history of Polish classical music.

*How Can Your Book Club Be Free?

It's simple! If you attend all the weeks of your student book club without missing any club meetings, we will credit to your Lucerna Academy account the cost of the book club for use in paying for Lucerna classes during the 2024-2025 school year. 

This credit can only be applied toward tuition for the student/family attending the student book club. That student/family must be enrolled in at least one Lucerna Academy 2024-2025 class before August 1st to receive the credit.

Enrichment Courses​

These courses equip students (and adults!) for success in the fall and beyond. 
​Note: when you register, you may need to add yourself to your family account as a student. 
​​

Introduction to Rhetoric Literary Analysis


​Tuesdays & Thursdays, July 30-August 15, 10:30 AM-Noon ET
Teacher: veteran Tapestry of Grace and Lucerna Academy teacher, Kim Moss
​Cost: $99

A light, engaging bridge class designed for Lucerna and Tapestry of Grace students enrolled in their first year of rhetoric (high school) literature. The goal of this class is to prepare students for a smooth transition to high school literature courses. Using classic children’s books to clearly introduce and illustrate the concepts, students will be given an overview of literary analysis, the ten categories of literary analysis, and the literary devices within them. No reading or class preparation is required. All materials provided.

World War II in Classic Cinema

A classic movie appreciation club hosted by Abigail Sarabacha

Wednesdays, July 3-August 14,
from 6:00-8:00 PM ET 
(proposed times are flexible, email us to let us know if you’d like to meet at a different time of the day)
​
For Ages:  10+
​Cost: $40
Price includes access to high quality, online releases of every movie.
Just $40 per family if you want to watch it all together from one account. 

This is a movie appreciation club, where we will get to watch a wide array of exciting, adventurous, dramatic, hilarious, and tragic films set in World War II and made between 1939 and the 1950s. Most will be those that were made during the war years, so you’ll get to see how people who lived through the events viewed the conflict. 
Come watch the films that educated and entertained moviegoers of World War II; see the original films that inspired Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, and so much more. 
This relaxed movie appreciation club will last seven weeks, giving us time to watch many amazing movies together. Each week, you will be given a link and title to certain movies that you can watch whenever you have time, at no additional cost. We will then meet to discuss the film(s), share thoughts, and learn fun facts. Some weeks, we will have the opportunity to watch a movie together in the online classroom. Join us, and sit back, relax, and enjoy the show! P.S. Don’t forget the popcorn!

Crash Course in the History and Culture of Poland

A lecture series by Abigail Sarabacha

Mondays, July 1-August 19, from 6:00-7:30 PM ET
(proposed times are flexible, email us to let us know if you’d like to meet at a different time of the day)

For Ages:  13+
​Cost: $56

“There is a country to the east of Europe, between Germany and Russia—a land of forests, plains, and cornfields. It is a country that through hundreds of years shed her blood in torrents in defense of the Christian world, driving back again and again fierce multitudes of Turks and Tartars as they swept like an angry sea against the European frontiers. The name of that country is Poland.” – Monica M. Gardner, 1926.

Seemingly small, unimportant, and located in the east of Europe, the country of Poland may not be the first thing you think of when you consider the history of Christendom or even of Western Civilization. Yet, this country long stood as the last bulwark of the western world. With its over 1,000 years of colorful, dramatic, democratic, war-torn, idyllic, at times mistaken, and at other times heroic past, the history of Poland reads like a novel. I invite you to attend a once-weekly summer lecture series and Q&A with me for 8 weeks this summer. There are no required readings

No Greater Ally: Poland in World War II

A history book club hosted by Abigail Sarabacha

Thursdays, July 11-August 15, from 6:30-7:30 PM ET
(proposed times are flexible, email us to let us know if you’d like to meet at a different time of the day)

For Ages:  13+
​Cost: $42
The required book costs around $10 for Kindle or Paperback + shipping.

“…Poland has been again overrun by two of the great powers which held her in bondage for 150 years but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation. The heroic defense of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, and that she will rise again…” – Winston Churchill, Oct. 1, 1939 

This is a history club where we will learn about the overlooked ally of World War II, Poland. WWII began because Germany invaded Poland, yet the role Poland played from September 1, 1939, to VE day in 1945 has been largely forgotten, and, in many cases, distorted. With the fourth largest allied military, the largest internal resistance organization, the first Enigma machine codebreakers, the largest uprising of any nation against the German occupying forces, more individuals listed as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for rescuing Jews from the holocaust than any other single country, and so much more, Poland played an immensely heroic role in the story of this war. Join me as we read about and learn the history of the almost unlimited capacity for sacrifice, the unforgettable heroism, and the persistence of the Polish people of World War II. 

In this club, you will read selected chapters from a book on this subject, and then we will meet for an hour to discuss what we’ve read and learn more fascinating details along the way. Join us!