Designing a home-centered life: learning, exploring, and creating with our five littles
Friends, we've been part of a Classical Conversations homeschool community since my oldest was 5. He's now 13 and in Challenge A. All along, I thought I would love to direct a Challenge class one day. Well, everything lined up for me to direct Challenge B next year. My oldest will be entering Challenge B with me and I'm very excited. Most of his … [Read more...]
Y'all, let's talk Challenge. My oldest started this year. It feels like one more sign that he's growing older. Men's clothing, taller than me, deepening voice, and starting Challenge. Whew. We started with Classical Conversations when he was 5 and Challenge seemed a long way off. But, here we are 12 weeks into his first year. He's doing great! And … [Read more...]
"Art is one of the basics for little children. They love talking, listening to stories, and drawing or painting." Isn't what Susan Schaeffer Macaulay shares in For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School true? Put two of those together and I think you have some of the best building blocks for teaching art. I've made … [Read more...]
Okay, confession time. Our CC memory work review time has been a little chaotic. I blame the children. ;) Truly, there are four of them. They move and talk and distract. Then add in the toddler (he makes 5) and it's all a big fat mess. My threshold for frenzied school times is low, so we've modified how our review time works a little bit in order … [Read more...]
“Moms, let me say it again. You can’t help him too much. Okay?” These firm, but gentle, generous words from my son’s Essentials tutor washed over me for the second week in a row and I realized what freedom they had brought to our homeschool experience. I had been warned the first year in Essentials could be overwhelming and it's certainly … [Read more...]
Charlotte Mason promoted handicrafts as an opportunity for children to spend careful attention + neat effort making useful products while encouraging them to build skills that would help them to be industrious adults. Doesn't that sound noble? While she was suggesting this in the early 1900s, I think they're still an important part of a … [Read more...]
I always like to consider our first schedule a rough draft, because I typically make changes as I see how things shake out. And truly, our schedule is more of an order to our day than actual times to do things. That sort of predictability without strict rigidness works for us. Mondays: Our Classical Conversations community day now … [Read more...]
This upcoming year will be our third year notebooking our memory work. There are a lot of variations to notebooking. You can use it in much the same way as workboxes or lapbooks, but for us it's a simple way to review and collect our memory work. In years past, I've printed worksheets for my littles to complete each week. But this year I'm … [Read more...]
Because I have a love of books and a desire for my children to learn, I've made a habit of purchasing the best reference books I can find and placing them around our home. As a result, I've stumbled upon how to study science without really trying. At least one or two of these great books are opened by my littles daily without any prompting … [Read more...]
If you're considering or are new to CC, I know from experience it can be a confusing time. So, I'm sharing some posts I think will offer helpful information and make it easier for you to find the answers to, "What is Classical Conversations?". Considering Classical Conversations? Start Here! This post explains the programs of CC, … [Read more...]