Our Homeschooling Journey Begins


Here we go! Our first official day of our homeschooling journey is tomorrow!  

 We are really excited about our decision to join a community called Classical Conversations (CC). I knew that if I ever decided to homeschool, I would want to do CC based on the experiences and outcomes of friends. When I called around to get Jude in a group for this year they were all already full! However, one director emailed me back and said they were a new community and would love us to join but they didn't have a location yet. Long story short, the community is now at our church! I love how God works everything out better than I could have imagined!


To tell you a little about CC here is a quote from their website:
Classical Conversations is a leader in the home-centered education movement. It is a mission: To know God and to make Him known. It is a model: Classical Conversations combines the classical method of learning with a biblical worldview. It is a method: Classical Conversations families meet in communities where parents train parents to implement home-centered education well.

With CC, we meet together once a week to introduce the new material and review previous weeks. The children are divided up by age into classes of 8 or less. There is one tutor that leads the class and introduces the memory work. The memory work covers six subjects: timeline (161 events in chronological order that integrate world history with bible & church history), history sentence, geography, math, science, Latin, and English grammar.  We will also do a science experiment, fine arts project, and each student will give a presentation. The parents are encouraged to stay in the class with their children because the lesson is helpful for them to see how they can teach their children at home. (As the parents are considered the teacher) 

 Since our community is new and there is a demand for CC communities in our area, we were short of tutors. So I am going to be a tutor for the Master I boys class. By going through all the training this summer, I feel more confident to be able to teach all this material to my own children and for that I am very thankful! However, I am sad to miss Jude's class each week, but I know he will be fine. He is up to go first for presentations this week and is quite confident!

 It is really great to connect with other families that are doing the same thing and have support and encouragement throughout your homeschooling journey.  I have made the best of friends this summer in my training and meetings leading up to our first community day TOMORROW! 

 As I went up to the church tonight go go ahead and prepare my board for the morning, I was thinking that is a bit crazy to have my 4 year old memorize all this information. The memory work is things that I don't (or didn't) have memorized. But my dear friend Lauren who introduced me to CC back in FL posted this on her blog last week referring to the same question:

To address this question, my favorite way it was explained to me was something like this: Imagine your child's mind is full of file folders. This method provides a framework for information intake. They memorize facts & file them away. They don't have to understand details about each subject but once the fact is committed to memory, it is there & ready to be explored in more detail as they mature. 

 So this may seem crazy to many, because honestly it is a totally different mindset of how to educate children than what our country uses, but it has proven itself effective and our family is beyond excited to begin this journey!

 Here's to a great first day tomorrow! 


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