The Classical Way

*** Sorry for this long and very boring post, but I wanted to share with you a little bit of what our school year looks like. Some have asked what this new program we're doing is all about so here's just a little bit about it.***
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We are just in our second week of the "official" school year, but have accomplished so much already and are having so much fun!
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Yesterday was our first class with our new homeschooling group, Classical Conversations, CC for short.
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All I can say is IN-CRE-DI-BLE!
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It's a curriculum that we use at home to do our schooling, but we also attend class each Tuesday from 9-12 with other students doing Classical Conversations. The children are divided into classes by age, and have a trained tutor (which is one of the moms in the program who have stepped up to do the training) who leads the class along with the parents to help when needed. Then the other days of the week, we continue to practice the memorization work which we learned in class.
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Yesterday at dinner time, after our first class and learning all new information, the children told Daddy what they learned today....
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In 1492, Columbus made the first of four trips to the Caribbean on three Spanish Ships. The Nina, The Pinta, and the Santa Maria. (Yes, I know it's a mouthful but the tutors teach us fun ways to remember our facts).
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The four types of tissue in the human body are... connective, muscle, nerve and... ep.. ep.. (with a little cue from mommy)... epithelial.
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They also recited the first 8 major events in the bible timeline starting at "Creation" and going up to "The First Intermediate Period of Egypt".
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Counting by 2's from 2 to 24, quickly without hesitation.
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They learned Latin prepositions... in (in), apud (with), per (through) and sine (without)
(They teach Latin for several great reasons. After wondering why and looking into this, I am grateful that we will have the opportunity to learn it.)
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And they learned the states and capitals of 5 states.
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It blew Josh's mind how Colton was rambling off, "Boston Massachusetts, Providence Rhode Island, Hartford Connecticut", and so on. We have never worked on this before so it was completely new learning for them.
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This was all in ONE day of learning!
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Each week we will learn new facts on each subject, then review the previously learned facts.
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On top of this, at school we have a morning assembly where all the families gather and we start with prayer, pledge to the flag, pledge to the Bible and one family a week gives a presentation on a topic of their choice. In their classes, they also did a science project and an art project. Throughout the year, they will be learning how to read music, play the tin whistle (similar to a recorder but this is actually used in real symphonies), learning about famous artists, composers, memorizing the presidents and so much more.
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I must admit, when I signed our family up for this, I was a little apprehensive and slightly overwhelmed by the amount of material we would be learning in one year, but after being part of it just one day, I can see why they have such a huge success rate with their program and I am more excited about it then ever!
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It continues all the way through High School so the kids had fun peeking into the big kids classroom yesterday to see what they were doing.
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Classical Conversations believes that in the early years, children are capable of memorizing so much. If they can memorize all these "pegs" of information, when they get to the next stages of learning, they will already have such a strong foundation of the most important pieces of history, bible, math, geography, science, art, etc to build upon.
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I am excited to be doing this because it gives me a second chance at learning all these important facts. And believe me, after looking through what will be learning this year, I have a lot to learn! I am also excited that my children will be building a solid Christian education surrounded by a wonderful group of people. I think this program is allowing up to have the best of both worlds. They'll have all the benefits of homeschooling, while still getting to experience the classroom environment without having to be there for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week.
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And Fletcher gets to come to school too! They have a toddler room where the littlest students get to engage with one another and have their own fun while their big brothers and big sisters are learning in their own classrooms.
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The best part about this type of schooling is we all have a common goal... "to know God and make Him known". That is what comes first when we do our schooling. Without Him, what do we have? What is our purpose in life? Why do we do what we do? And how is it possible to do what we do without loosing our sanity?
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Welcome to our school.
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At CC, they allow a maximum of 8-9 children per class so the children get lots of time and attention devoted to them. I love this!
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Colton's class with their wonderfully fun and creative tutor, "Miss" Christie.

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Gracie's class with their super sweet, Jesus loving, and highly animated tutor "Miss" Nadine.


Here are a few pictures from Gracie's class. The moms rotate between their children's classes so this week I was in Gracie's class and next week I will be in Colton's class. I loved watching Gracie learn in a classroom environment and being there to help the children as needed. I am looking forward to going to school with Colton next week!

{here the kiddies are doing their map work}

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Class dismissed! Thank you for joining us!

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