>Taking a deep breath and believing that home educators need to hear about this I have decided to share to the best of my ability what we will be starting on Monday, but what I have prepared for since late April, Classical Conversations.

Classical Conversations was introduced to me just over one year ago and I let it pass, it seemed out of reach for our family, something that I could not grasp or help our children accomplish…I was afraid of failure. I wish I had held on with both hands and taken this ride sooner.

Classical Conversations is an extension of the Classical Education that I have tried to implement in our home for over 10 years. With Classical Conversations I have the accountability and the resources to complement what we already study.

The particulars of our coming year are Classical Conversations Cycle Three are from God’s hand to our family. God is so good, let me say it again GOD is so GOOD, all the time. As I began to evaluate the coming school year this last April, I knew that we would cover American History from Pre-K to Highschool Freshman. I knew that we would need to discipline ourselves to the memory work of Highschool History. God continually brought the Veritas Press materials before me and I even owned many of them. I became painfully aware that we need to improve on our English Grammar, Math Facts and Geography. I was only having minimal success in these areas. Our oldest daughter desired more challenging work and some more accountability to others. I prayed and woke in the middle of the night remembering an old conversation with Leah an acquaintance, now called friend. I prayed for confirmation, received it and in a glimpse had signed on not only for going to CC, but tutoring…..Classical Conversations Cycle 3, American History being the History offered in the cycle. God is Good.

Classical Conversations give the children and the parents the tools for memory work in English Grammar, Latin, Bible, History Sentences, Timeline Cards (Veritas Press), Art/Music,Math facts and definitions, and Geography. The Classical Conversations Guide adds to what a family is already doing, it is the punch to the Grammar Stage of learning (see link below to find out about that- http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4964032397330282695&postID=9075835595637526092 ).

Our home education needs just that punch. I have prayed everyday for encouragement in this walk I started and to continue gaining strength where God needs me to serve in the program. God has given strength. I have been led to multiple blogs, while not all dedicated to Classical Conversations recently mentioning them.

God wants our home education journeys to succeed. Ask what you need, He will show you. Tell God where you struggle, His hand will become evident. God just like that.

>Yesterday, I tried to give you a picture of what our space looks like.
The next question I want to address is what do we do for school. This is not nearly as fun. But something I am asked to share often. I will do this in 3 or 4 parts ending with our routine and schedule. If there is something specific (as many have asked for this) you are not seeing, email me or better yet leave a comment I will see sooner.
Honestly, it would take so much time to say all we do in one post I have decided to talk about a few subjects at a time.
We have chosen to educate our children based on a Classical Model.
English please?
disclaimer- I realize this isn’t by the book Classical Education, it is Pike Classical Education for the Homeschool at our home 101-
We teach history chronologically, we use original sources to teach history as much as possible, we integrate our Literature with our History and we write about what we are reading, we study Latin, memorize as much as possible in the early years,math facts are memorized and Advanced Math is pursued, finally (but not exhaustively) English Grammar is seen as a tool for effective communication.
Please remember this is a condensed version and many great….long books have been published about this.
A Classical Education in our home pre-supposes that children learn in stages so each child will study the same subjects on a different level for the most part, we spend much of our lower school (grammar)years memorizing, the dialectic stage(middle school, JR High, sometimes a bit earlier) we see the older kids start reasoning and understanding what they have memorized more than before and asking as many ‘why’ questions as they did at two years old, finally in the Rhetoric Stage (upperschool/highschool and beyond), the now young adults begin to communicate, present, and apply what they have memorized and understood, this is all fabulous to watch happen. At this point,I have multiple children spanning all the stages and I continue to learn from them…yes it is fun much of the time, sometimes I am just tired.
A very important part of Classically Educating a child is the study of Latin. Latin you say? Yes Latin, it prepares the children to understand the make up of English vocabulary as well as most other language an American Child would learn.
I can here most of you now (because I read your emails), “what do you actually use?”
Here is a list-
English from the Roots Up
Latin In The Christian Trivium
Rosetta Stone
Story of The World
Notgrass History
Institute for Excellence In Writing (IEW)
Our Mother Tongue
ABEKA English
Winston Grammar
Wordly Wise (vocabulary)
Classical Conversations which will be covered completely in Part two
This is just a short list of what we refer to, write in and use during the course of a week. Remember, that as the teacher I review and refer to probably 25 other books through out the year. I know that this seems boring, sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. I have developed all sorts of learning strategies to make this tolerable, even fun, for the children. If you have spent anytime at all around me you know that it would be hard to imagine our family sitting still long enough to absorb most of this, so we don’t….sit still. Now because thinking about school starting back has made me tired, I must go swim.
In the near future you will see links to each of the books I list as well.