In September, Keira started a new homeschool co-op program called Classical Conversations. It's an international program that a friend introduced me to last spring. Basically, it's a homeschool "supplement" program for ages 4 all the way up thru high school. The program meets 1x a week at a church nearby for a large group assembly, class time (which is comprised of same age & same gender peers), lunch, and playground time. The school material is presented from a Biblical worldview and the focus of learning is on Scripture memory, History, Geography, Latin, Math (concepts), English Grammar, Science, and Fine Arts (more on the format below).
Here is Keira on her first day of school!
My big 4-year-old girl!
Starting out with "map blobbing," learning how to draw a map of the world
(tracing the continents, equator, etc)
Every week, each student presents in front of the class on a certain topic.
Here is her friend, Claire, sharing about a favorite book.
Testing a hypothesis about the propeller.
Hands-on science experiments are so fun!
During the 2nd week of school, Keira was chosen to be "Student of the Week" by her teacher, Mrs. Cho.
She enjoyed wearing the special medal throughout the class day!
We were too cheap to by the class portraits, but here is Keira's first school picture!
My beautiful girl!
Sadly, these are the only pictures I've taken during CC. It is quite challenging juggling the needs of an ever-growing infant (yes, Corinne is in my arms the whole time!) while trying to stay in tune with the busy class activities!
During class days, the typical schedule is as follows:
--Arrival and Large Group Assembly
All the kids and families come together for opening prayer, announcements, practicing the Scripture memory verse, recognizing the Students of the Week, flag salute, a family presentation (each family takes a turn and shares about themselves or demonstrates a talent, etc), and then dismissal to classes.
--Kids break out into age/gender specific classes
Keira's class has a total of 8 girls (most of them are 4-years-old, with a couple 5-year-olds). The class is led by a "tutor" who is a mom of a child in the class. All the other moms stay in the classroom to help support their child and the tutor (or they are helping out in the nursery/preschool childcare or assisting in an older/younger siblings class).
The first part of class is spent learning new grammar (lessons). For example, the tutor introduces a new history sentence and the kids repeat the sentence and learn hand-motions and/or a song to help them memorize the information. The goal for this stage of CC is to memorize the sentences/concepts each week and later on in their development, the kids would begin to use critical thinking skills to better understand the concepts they have memorized.
After practicing the new grammar, the class takes a snack break and each child takes a turn giving a presentation about a specified topic (basically like "show-and-tell"). After presentations, there is Fine Arts time. So far, the kids have learned different styles/forms of art, practiced music on the tin whistle, and have learned about famous artists in history. Finally, the class time ends with science, using the scientific method and doing hands-on science experiments.
--After class time, the whole group reconvenes in the cafeteria for lunch and then there is playground time.
I think that is the basic gist of CC! As I am typing this, we just passed the deadline to re-enroll for fall of 2014. After agonizing over it for a month, I decided not to re-enroll next year. Although there are many things I love about the program (Biblical worldview, Scripture memory, small class size, the Director is amazing and the other families are so wonderful, very content rich material and cool field trips), but overall, I feel the program is just a little too intense for our family at this stage of life. It is difficult to juggle Corinne on class days and she doesn't get a good nap (we are out of the house from about 8:45am until about 1:15pm). It is also challenging to keep up on the memory work from week to week when the content continually builds on itself. I appreciate the philosophy of the program and I understand the importance of the kids memorizing the information at a young age while their brains are absorbing things like sponges; however, I feel that the material is usually so far over Keira's head it seems strange and unnecessary right now. For next year, I'd like to focus more on things that are appropriate for her age like reading, math, science, etc. But, maybe in a year or two, I'd consider looking into CC again once the girls are a little older.
Anyway, this post is A LOT longer than I anticipated, but it is good to type it all out and it will be interesting to look back on this experience in the future. I guess our CC experience is the "official" beginning of our homeschool journey! As Keira turns 5 this summer and will be Kindergarten age in the fall, we are moving forward with another year of homeschooling! We still plan to take it year by year as the Lord leads, so here we goooooooo!
During class days, the typical schedule is as follows:
--Arrival and Large Group Assembly
All the kids and families come together for opening prayer, announcements, practicing the Scripture memory verse, recognizing the Students of the Week, flag salute, a family presentation (each family takes a turn and shares about themselves or demonstrates a talent, etc), and then dismissal to classes.
--Kids break out into age/gender specific classes
Keira's class has a total of 8 girls (most of them are 4-years-old, with a couple 5-year-olds). The class is led by a "tutor" who is a mom of a child in the class. All the other moms stay in the classroom to help support their child and the tutor (or they are helping out in the nursery/preschool childcare or assisting in an older/younger siblings class).
The first part of class is spent learning new grammar (lessons). For example, the tutor introduces a new history sentence and the kids repeat the sentence and learn hand-motions and/or a song to help them memorize the information. The goal for this stage of CC is to memorize the sentences/concepts each week and later on in their development, the kids would begin to use critical thinking skills to better understand the concepts they have memorized.
After practicing the new grammar, the class takes a snack break and each child takes a turn giving a presentation about a specified topic (basically like "show-and-tell"). After presentations, there is Fine Arts time. So far, the kids have learned different styles/forms of art, practiced music on the tin whistle, and have learned about famous artists in history. Finally, the class time ends with science, using the scientific method and doing hands-on science experiments.
--After class time, the whole group reconvenes in the cafeteria for lunch and then there is playground time.
I think that is the basic gist of CC! As I am typing this, we just passed the deadline to re-enroll for fall of 2014. After agonizing over it for a month, I decided not to re-enroll next year. Although there are many things I love about the program (Biblical worldview, Scripture memory, small class size, the Director is amazing and the other families are so wonderful, very content rich material and cool field trips), but overall, I feel the program is just a little too intense for our family at this stage of life. It is difficult to juggle Corinne on class days and she doesn't get a good nap (we are out of the house from about 8:45am until about 1:15pm). It is also challenging to keep up on the memory work from week to week when the content continually builds on itself. I appreciate the philosophy of the program and I understand the importance of the kids memorizing the information at a young age while their brains are absorbing things like sponges; however, I feel that the material is usually so far over Keira's head it seems strange and unnecessary right now. For next year, I'd like to focus more on things that are appropriate for her age like reading, math, science, etc. But, maybe in a year or two, I'd consider looking into CC again once the girls are a little older.
Anyway, this post is A LOT longer than I anticipated, but it is good to type it all out and it will be interesting to look back on this experience in the future. I guess our CC experience is the "official" beginning of our homeschool journey! As Keira turns 5 this summer and will be Kindergarten age in the fall, we are moving forward with another year of homeschooling! We still plan to take it year by year as the Lord leads, so here we goooooooo!
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