It’s February so it is time to start thinking about plans for next school year. And since I seem to be on a path of doing things I never thought I would do (i.e. enrolling Little Bug in a school this year), I am now considering something for our homeschooling next year that I never thought I would be interested in…..

Classical Conversations!!!

I’ve heard about Classical Conversations (CC) , but I just assumed that wasn’t my homeschool style…..until I really started looking in to it this past week. A good friend of mine came over for a play date and she had just been to a Classical Conversations information meeting and was very excited about enrolling her boys for the coming school year. We talked a lot about CC and some of the myths, I guess you could call it, that I had believed about CC were busted in our conversation. Several days after our play date, I couldn’t get CC out of my mind.

We are weighing our options for next year. Little Bug is in this school this year, and she loves it, but, honestly, this is not how I saw our homeschooling journey going down in the books! I love that the school provides an outlet for Miss Social Butterfly in this stage of having a newborn/young infant, but beyond that, everything else about Little Bug “going to school” just annoys me! I dislike the lack of flexibility and that I cannot choose the curriculum I want to use to teach my child. I don’t like that I am away from her for seven hours 3 times a week. These years are fleeting… I feel like her Kindergarten year has been stolen from me because it has gone nothing like what I had planned.

So I just kept thinking about CC! I decided I needed to educate myself on Classical Conversations and see if it really was what I thought it was when I told myself that CC just “wasn’t my style”. One day last week during naptime/rest time, I spent practically the entire time reading the blog, Classical Conversations at Home. And then later that evening I text my friend and told her, “So….I’ve been reading a blog about CC today and I think I’m interested…” And everything has spiraled from there and I am signed up to attend an informational meeting this Friday!

So what has me intrigued with CC and made me want to learn more? This is what I’ve learned so far about CC mainly from talking to my friend and reading the blog, Classical Conversations at Home:

1. Contrary to what I first believed, I will not be at home doing drill and kill with my children all day long. Talk about boring!! That is so NOT what CC is all about. Yes, during Foundations, your child does memorize history, geography, science, Latin, math (and more?) facts. After reading A Day in the Life at Classical Conversations at Home, I realized her homeschool day is just like mine now…except there was a half-hour block of time devoted to Classical Conversations Memory Work! I think we can handle that.

2. The Memory Work isn’t done in a boring way! After watching this CC class in action I saw that the Memory Work is taught in fun and engaging ways for the children! They are not just sitting at a desk doing worksheets all day. They are up dancing, singing and moving about the room doing hand motions to help them remember their Memory Work. I can totally see Little Bug participating in something like this. There is a CD that I can purchase to help us with our Memory Work review each week.

3. The classical model of learning is...intriguing. I am in the beginning stages of learning what this is all about, but what I have learned so far about the Classical Model of learning makes sense. Children begin by memorizing facts in the early years through songs and chants, then around age 10 they begin to dig deeper into the facts that have been engrained in their memories by sorting, comparing and understanding the words they have memorized. When they reach high school age they are ready to focus on themes and contexts and apply it to their own lives in discussions, debates and speeches.

4. I will still have control over the phonics/reading and math curriculums that I choose for each of my children. I simply love this because it is one of the major reasons we have chosen to homeschool our children. I want my children to learn from living literature and not boring textbooks and worksheets. In CC my children will have their CC work (in Foundations it will be their Memory Work) but then we will be able to continue on with our All About Reading and Horizons Math in conjunction with CC.

5. I love that I can take the facts that my children will be memorizing and expound on them through living literature. If their Memory Work in History is about Abraham Lincoln or about the Pilgrims coming to the New Land, we can go to the library and check out books about those topics to bring life to the facts they are memorizing. One of my biggest hang ups with CC has been the assumption that my children would be memorizing all these facts with no real meaning. I can see the validity of the Classical Model of education, however, I also see much value in children learning something when there is meaning behind what they are learning. Expounding on Memory Work topics through living literature will give meaning to Memory Work topics of interest as we go to the library to select books about topics that are of interest to my children. At the same time, watching this YouTube video of a 4-year-old reciting multiplication facts past the 12’s was quite impressive and meaningful. How much easier is math going to be for this child since her multiplication facts are basically already memorized before she even begins Kindergarten?! She will be able to take that knowledge and apply it to learning the concept of multiplication down the road!

6. The one day a week Community Meetings sound like a load of FUN! The children are in classes of 8 students with one tutor (teacher). During class from 9-12ish the children in Foundations go over their new Memory Work, do a science experiment and experience fine arts and music each week! Then there is a lunch hour from 12-1pm. Little Bug will absolutely love this format and content. She will have one day of “going to school” and we will hopefully build community with our CC group as we all develop new friendships.

7. Parents attend class with their children. I love this involvement. It truly bothers me to drop Little Bug off at school three days a week for 7 hours each day. I feel like I am missing out on so much of her learning. If you have multiple children then you rotate CC classes. So one week I will go to class with Little Bug and the next week I will go to class with Sweet Pea. I think it is a perfect mix of being involved in their classes and then also letting them have some independence on the weeks that I will be in their sister’s class.

8. There is a cost to CC, but when compared to the cost of private school, the money you pay for CC is a fraction of what you would pay for private school! It will be approximately $300 per child per year. That is very reasonable compared to what we are paying now for Little Bug’s school.

I’m looking forward to learning more on Friday and hopefully knowing for sure if this is something that will be a good fit for our family!

- Elaine