Starting next week, we are officially going to start our homeschooling journey! After several years of consideration, (yes, this has been on our minds for YEARS) we decided to be a homeschooling family and we are getting started with a well-established homeschooling method called Classical Conversations. We have joined a community that meets Thursday mornings for 24 weeks throughout the year and yesterday we went to our very first back-to-school orientation!
Maci just turned 5 in June (how did that happen?!) which means that she is old enough to be enrolled in kindergarten. She completed VPK (voluntary pre-kindergarten) last year at the daycare she and Davis have been attending for the last couple of years and is more than excited to get started with school again! She is in the Abecedarians class and her tutor is Mrs. Schulkers. There are six children in her class ranging from 4 to 5 years old. With the exceptions of the weeks I will be covering in the nursery (where Davis will be), I will be in the classroom with her, learning along side her each week. Then we will go home and practice what she learned in addition to some of the other content I have decided to supplement based on Maci's individual interests and capabilities.
I had never heard of Classical Conversations until the last year or so. I have a friend in town who has used this program with all 4 of her children and another friend out of town who started last year and they both have nothing but positive things to say about CC. After struggling to make a decision about HOW and WHERE to educate our children, I figured what did I have to lose going to an open house last spring just to see what it's all about? As soon as I walked in, I knew we were in the right place! Decision was made.
So what is CC??
CC is a homeschool education method that follows a classical model of education emphasizing three states of learning, called the Trivium which include (1) grammar, (2) dialectic, and (3) rhetoric. We are starting with Foundations at the grammar stage (the "parrot" stage) in which vocabulary and facts are emphasized providing the "foundation" for learning any subject. Throughout our time in Foundations the kids will be exposed to a wide variety of vocabulary, events, people, and lists of information with the goal of memorizing the information. As they get older, the information that is memorized will be assimilated, understood, and applied in the later phases of learning during the Challenge program. Students can complete all of their education to graduation, even concurrent enrollment of college classes before they graduate, with the CC program.
Why the classical model?
The classical model has been used since the Middle Ages to provide a systematic, memorable framework to teach all human knowledge. America's one-room school houses used this model of education and produced literate students who also knew how to think well and some ultimately changed the course of our history! By nature, a homeschool family closely resembles a one-room school house approach to learning with multiple ages under one primary teacher, the parent. If the old one-room school houses could produce some of the greatest leaders this country has ever known with limited resources, then so can we!
There are many reasons that we decided to go this route for our children's education (I'll have to delve into all that later), but for now here are some things we are excited about:
- Freedom to schedule our life as we see fit and not around a school bell schedule
- Having more time with our children, even as working professionals
- Knowing that our children are receiving education at their level, at their pace, and we can be sure they are challenged
- Being able to manipulate our lessons around the children's interests and make learning fun
- Utilizing the world as our classroom and incorporating our travels into our studies
- High adult-to-child ratio at home and on community days
- Re-learning all the materials in the core subject areas we will review every week on community day and at home throughout the week (math, English, history, Latin, geography, science, and timeline
- Supporting our children to become independent thinkers who are secure in their own convictions
- Revolving our family life around its own needs and priorities rather than the demands of school
Many people seem very concerned about the socialization aspect of homeschooling. To me, that is the very least of my concerns! Because we are both going to be working (part-time for me), the kids will continue to go to daycare on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesday afternoons, we will be meeting with another homeschool family to do some activities together. Thursdays will be community day with our CC group. Then, on Fridays there are often events/activities/field trips that we can join with our CC group. To be honest, by the time Friday arrives, we may just opt to stay home and NOT socialize!
From what everyone has told me, at this age, it's appropriate to spend about two hours each day on school. We will try to get in some work on Monday and Wednesday evenings plus Tuesday and Friday when we are home... and the daycare teacher has offered to do work with Maci if I send work in! I think once we get into the swing of things, we will figure out what works best for us and it shouldn't be an issue making this lifestyle work.
It's my goal to utilize this blog as a journal of our journey and to document all that we experience and learn together as a family. Stay tuned and wish us luck!
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