Seven Years of Classical Conversations

My bunch at the beginning of the school year.

Seven. That is the number of years that we have been with our Classical Conversations community. We started with Classical Conversations when my oldest was ready to begin Kindergarten, and we haven't looked back.

We have learned so much in our seven years with Classical Conversations. My oldest daughter will achieve the title of Memory Master for the fourth year in a row, and my oldest son is gearing up to try for Memory Master next year. We have learned so many different things! Here is just a sampling of what we have learned over the past seven years:

• A timeline of historical events, beginning with Creation and going through the present day.
• All of the Presidents of the United States.
• Multiplication facts, math laws, conversions, and geometry facts.
• Latin noun declensions, verbs, and then finally translating John 1:1-7 from English into Latin (yes, in the Elementary grades!).
• Rocks and minerals, the parts of the earth, the classification of living things, weather systems, volcanoes, plants, human anatomy.
• History sentences from ancient history up through United States history. (My kids can tell you about the Mound Builders, the liberation of South America, the Crusades, and WWII!)
• The definitions of a preposition, a helping verb, and a linking verb and a listing of each category, as well as how to conjugate different infinitives (my daughter can tell you the difference between "to lay" and "to lie").
• They can point out many different places on the map, from ancient civilizations to knowing where Constantinople/Istanbul is located, from European countries to the states and capitals of the United States.

All of that is a sampling of what they have learned in the Foundations program. My oldest daughter also spent two years in Essentials, which is an intensive grammar and writing program for kids in the 4th-6th grades. She memorized adverbs and adjectives and the questions that they answer, she can tell you what an Object Complement Noun is and show you how to diagram it correctly, she even know the difference between a gerund and an infinitive. How many of you learned those things in the 5th and 6th grades? I certainly didn't! Not only that, she has already written two major research papers and had to present them before an audience of her peers and adults.

So, why Classical Conversations? Classical Conversation is a Christian classical community. For us, the classical model of learning is the best fit. I love how it utilizes repetition and memorization and how as the children get older they naturally start to fit things together and want to search out things for themselves. When my daughter was in Kindergarten, she didn't know why she was memorizing skip counting songs. When she started learning her multiplication tables, though, she got it! That was one of her lightbulb moments! She looked at e and said, "Mommy, multiplication is easy! It's just skip counting." When she gets into Algebra, she will put these different laws that she has memorized for seven years into use and may well have yet another lightbulb moment. 

I said that Classical Conversations is a Christian community. I love that we put God at the center of all that we learn and we show how all of the different things that we are learning are connected to each other and to God.

My family has also loved the community aspect of Classical Conversations. We have built some amazing friendships through Classical Conversations. We have walked with each other through sicknesses, births, deaths, and family crises. We have laughed and cried together. We have sent a family out on the mission field and welcomed them home with loving arms when their time overseas was over. We are preparing to send them out again! We eat together and play together, and we have spent time studying the Word of God and praying together.

Are we going to call it quits now that we have seven years under our belts? No way! This is just the beginning for us! My oldest daughter is excited to enter the Challenge program in the fall and will take a Latin class over the summer, which is taught by an older Challenge student, to help her prepare for Challenge. My oldest son and I are tossing around the idea of him taking Essentials next year. My youngest daughter will begin her second year of Classical Conversations, and my youngest son still isn't old enough for school. We love Classical Conversations and all that we have learned so far. Yes, we. Even this mama has learned a lot while homeschooling. I enjoy learning right alongside my kids, learning things that are new to me and rediscovering things that I "dumped" after a test. Perhaps one year soon, I will even try to make Memory Master with my kids!

What kinds of things have you learned while homeschooling your children? Are you part of a loving and supportive community?  What has your homeschooling journey been like so far? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Friendship and Community

We have finished our 6th year of homeschooling, our 6th year with Classical Conversations, and my first year as a tutor with Classical Conversations (CC). Our CC community has been invaluable to us, both from a homeschooling stance and from a personal one. More than ever, we needed that sense of community that comes with our CC group this past year. They held us up, supported us, and encouraged us. But more about that in a minute.

As a tutor, I am required to attend the free, three-day Parent Practicum that is offered each summer.Today was the last of the three days for our local Practicum, and it was phenomenal! Although we have been in CC for the past 6 years, I didn't really have a vision for where we would be going with education and with CC. This Practicum really solved that for me. Today, during the morning session, the speaker showed a few slides that laid out what our children will learn in each of the Challenge levels (Challenge A and Challenge B are middle school, and Challenges I-IV are high school), and I am so excited! I truly wish that I had been taught classically. I think that I would have been better prepared for college and for life. I am glad that my children will have this opportunity to be taught HOW to learn in such a wonderful manner.

One of the things that CC stresses is community. As homeschoolers, we need that supportive community around us to help us as we educate our children. The speaker stated it so eloquently this week when she remarked, on more than one occasion, that there was "so much wisdom in the room." As a community, that is vitally important. What an opportunity to learn from those Titus 2 women and then to become a Titus 2 woman yourself as you help other new homeschoolers. She also talked about community, and how our CC community is a vital support network, not only in an educational way but also in a personal way. A few moms stood to say how they have been blessed by the community that is CC. They have developed friendships with ladies whom they know they can call anytime, who would help them in any way possible; one woman stood to give testimony about how the CC community in our area (comprised of 3 local CC communities) came together to support her and her family during a very serious medical crisis, and many had never even met her or her family.

In the life of my family, CC has been a huge blessing during this past year. My director was one of just a couple of people who knew that I had become a single mom last  summer. I called her and had a very candid conversation about returning to CC and what that may look like and would I be able to be a tutor given recent events and would we still be welcomed in our community--because, let's face it. When you are thrust into a major life change, the enemy comes at you with all kinds of doubts and fears and irrational thoughts. My director so patiently listened to all of these fears and thoughts and alleviated them one by one. So I made the commitment to stick with CC one more year; if for no other reason than the kids would need the support of their friends. You know what? Mama did, too.

My friends in our CC community rallied around us all year; they threw a surprise birthday party, provided meals, and blessed our family in a variety of ways. We could have made it through this last year, but it was made easier with the friendships and the community that we have with CC. They were part of our Aaron and Hur (see Exodus 17:12).

I am incredibly thankful for the community of believers and homeschoolers the Lord has placed us in with our local CC community .

What about you? Do you have a good support system for homeschooling and for life? Feel free to share about it in the comments!