In the book it mentions an ancient spartan teacher who used to teach music. He is said to have charged double for children who had received lessons previously because he said he had to spend part of the time having them unlearn all they had already learned. I was thinking about that and how sometimes I keep trying to find an easy way to implement the classical principles in my schooling and I find it really hard to undo all that I've been raised to think about education. I have a hard time breaking away subjects and letting go of this core knowledge idea or just to think of school as life training and not a teaching of subjects. I have a couple of friends with children in classical schools and even those schools seem to be heavily influenced by the current pedagogies. I think the difference of styles with the teachers was due to different circumstances, settings and children. We tend to look at education as building this model and then fitting the children into that model. It seems as if many of the classical educators were fitting the model to the children. With all of the ancient teaching I've read so far they all seem to use great writers as models from the beginning. They seem to focus on one book for a long time allowing students to memorize large portions of it. I've considered using some of the ancient books as models but if we read translations I wonder how much is lost when poetry is translated.

This book, for me, cleared up a lot of my questions on Classical Education. I think the revival of tradition needed the pathway that Christianity gave it. Vittorino's faith and the way he was able to make the goal of creating a three fold complete man (moral, physical and intellectual) complete by guiding the pupils faith and using some of the Ancient stories to connect to Christian morals. He understood that to fully comprehend a culture the best way to read the books would be to learn the language. That helped bring back the culture and appreciation for things that had been forgotten. I really loved how he would adapt his methods to each student and said that each student had a gift and as a teacher our job is to find and cultivate that gift. I found it interesting that it mentioned Guirino could turn out boys after 12 months that could translate Greek. I wish I knew his methods. I think what I'm finally realizing is that this is/was a way of life. I think it's really hard as a person brought up in the progressive era to change the way you think. I also have realized that in questioning Classical Education often we want a simple checklist of curriculum or an exact lesson plan of things that need to be done and somehow we miss that this is not training a child for a future job but instead molding a human being to be the best that they can be. If you miss the moral aspect of it, if you turn this on from 8-3 and then go back to life then you are missing the point. Also in reading this I think I need to get my kids outside more. It never occurred to me to consider the physical aspect of a child. I try and get my kids outside to burn off energy but I have never connected the physical health with our schooling.

It's $500 per kid per program (price may be a little less or a little more depending on the facility fee). 4-6th graders are part of the essentials program and foundations so it's 1k per 4th-6th grader. Once they hit 7th grade it's even more expensive since they move to challenge. That's why this will be our last year. It's to much as it is and I don't like the challenge program. Some people like having a program dictate all of their curriculum but personally I like being able to tailor a program to fit my specific child. The hardest part for us it leaving all of our friends but I feel it's financially irresponsible to spend that much on a program just for the community. Oh and with essentials it's an all day program from 9am-3pm but that means your little's who aren't in essentials have to be in child care which consequently means more money. At our community last year they played outside then watched movies. I don't even allow media time for my twins at home but I get to pay at a co op for them to watch it :/ Some communities do classes for the little's in the afternoon but it's not a CC things so that's up to a mom to put it together. ETA: I feel like my post come across as really bashing CC and I wanted to add I really do love the community. If the price were less I could deal with the problems I have because as I said the facts they've learned have stuck with them and our group is awesome. We have a prayer group together, my daughters best friend goes there, my best friend goes there. I just wanted to lay out the other side of things which are definitively points to consider.

I wouldn't do CC at that age. My girls are in CC. This was our first year and I did sign up for next year but I think that will be it for us. I signed up because a lot of my friends are in the group we are a part of and my girls like it but I disagree with their interpretation of Classical. They believe in just doing memory work for science and history and then you add a math and language arts program. The memory work is random facts and none of them are explained. In fact a tutor is not even allowed to explain the facts. All of the CC people will say that this is classical but I feel like all they understand about classical education is what Leigh Borton has said. All grades cover the exact same material. 4year olds on up to 6th graders. They cover memory work (the random facts) from latin, english, math, history, science and geography and repeat the fact 5 times each. It's a long time for a little kid to sit. There are no games, no toys, they aren't even allowed to bring in any visuals. Everything has to be hand written on a white board. It's the "stick in the sand" approach that Leigh Borton has devised. I covered the context at home so it wasn't just random facts and they do remember most of the songs. The songs are very catchy and a lot of the facts at this age (4th and 5th grade) have been useful. I liked the art projects, drawing and composers although I don't know that it was enough for them to remember any of it. I disliked the tin whistle and I feel if they want kids to learn music it's going to take more than a 30min class 6x a year by an inexperienced tutor. I do think the presentations were helpful. I would give them the topic they had to choose from for the presentation and they would research and write a short speech. It was great because they took charge of it and it was stuff they wanted to learn about. Ultimately for us it come down to, it's not worth the 3k it cost to have all 4 kids in CC. There is so much more we could do with that time (since it takes 24 days away from the year) and we could use that money to pay for an online class with a teacher who knows the subject they are teaching.

So 2 days after I said I was going to do more fun reads.... I finished Vittorino Da Feltre and other Humanistic Educators: Essays and Versions. An Introduction to the History of Classical Education. I loved this book. I've read books about Ancient education methods (Greek and Roman), Medieval methods and 1800's through today's methods. This was the first book on the Renaissance Era and it talks about some of the educators who founded the revival of classical education. One question on my mind as I read books from the Medieval Era was that some of the methods are very much like classical education. They often talked about the trivium and they all learned Latin. I finally feel like I understand what makes classical education different from the Medieval methods. Classical methods created a passion for culture which medieval methods lacked. Medieval schools were more about the mechanics of learning. It lacked the desire to create a whole man. A man who was cultivated in 3 parts: physical, mental and moral. The humanist wanted to study the spirit of the books not just the mechanics of it. In a way classical education added a "soul" to education. Now I'll get back to Maze Runner. BTW I looked up the release date of the next movie and found out the actor who plays Tomas was injured and the movie got pushed back to 2018. I guess I have a while to read the book...

I guess I'll read the first two before reading The Death Cure. I didn't realize the movie strayed from the books. I wish I had read them before watching the movie but I hadn't originally planned on reading the series. It was such a nice break from the books I've been reading. I need to do more just for fun reads.

I haven't posted on here in awhile but I've kept up my reading. I took a break from the school geared books and read the Prequel to the Maze Runner series. My daughter has been reading them and I picked up the prequel for her and ended up reading it in a day. I really enjoyed it. I'm debating on reading the first two books of the series or giving into my curiosity and reading the final book since I've seen the movies for the first two books. I have finally realized I need to give a little on the books I let my kids read during free time and it's been so awesome to see them really get into books and spend hours reading even if the books they are reading aren't on my list. I sat down and listed all my books for the year and I think I should be able to read the 52 books this year! 2016 1- War and peace 2 - Of Love and other demons 3- Moonlight Garden 4- Ratio Studiorum 5-The Art Courses at Medieval Universities 6-The Schoolmaster 7- The Abolition of Man 8-Is Public Education Necessary? 9- A Great Idea at the Time, The rise and Fall of the Great Books 10-Left Back: A Century of School Reform 11-The Core - Leigh Bortins 12-Homeschooling a Parent's Guide to Teaching Children - Samuel Blumenfeld 13-Emile - Rousseau 14- Great Books a Panacea or what? 15-The light of the Fireflies 16-How to Read a book - Mortimer Adler 17-Herbert Spencer and Scientific Education 18-Ten ways to destroy the imagination of your child 19-How to conduct Recitation - Charles Mcmurray 20-Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis 21-A History Of Education in Antiquity 22-Montessorie in the Elementary Years 23-Prequel Maze Runner

Those tiles are the reason I quit AAS. So many pieces! Then with 2yo twins running around who kept grabbing them. It was a really bad week till I tossed the whole thing (gave it away actually, someone elses problem)

Definitely IEW. From everything I read I was worried it would be so formulaic but seeing the growth in my kids with this program has been nothing short of amazing. My reluctant writer can write! Also math mammoth. I bought it on homeschool buyers co op since it was so cheap but we are going to be using it for the third year next year. Both of my kids mental math skills have grown so much.

Guest Hollow also has a free literature based history of course you would need to check out the books at the library. http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/americanpdf.html

Climbing to Good English is a good low cost workbook option for english. It is similar to rod and staff.

I have a school memory book that has questions for each year. Each page is also a folder where you can keep samples of that years work. I try to have a couple of academic samples and art samples. I'm not very sentimental so I toss everything else. In fact school ends Friday and already all our old works is in the trash. I keep some work in case my kids want to see it when they are older. I realized just because I'm not sentimental doesn't mean my kids won't be. You could easily create a portfolio for each child. Set a number like 2 written samples and 1 history 1 science or something like that and toss the rest unless your state has laws that require keeping it. I keep a list of what curricumum we've used so I could always look back if needed to see what we have or haven't covered.

Unfortunately if you send her to public school they have to test her according to common core standards if you are in a common core state. The math standards are closer to Singapore than to Saxon. It's a different way of doing math so she may need to be placed at her regular grade level to learn the new style of math. If the school has a gate program you can push to have her tested for that. I believe that test is based more on IQ than on standards so she shouldn't have the problem of not understanding the language. Also common core language arts is much different than what most homeschoolers are doing. They are big on inference, vocabulary in context etc. Reading is based more on non fiction rather than fiction. Grammar isn't really tested at all so none of her knowledge in R&S will help her on the placement test. You are basically testing her on a core knowledge that she hasn't learned so she will have to start below where she's at to learn it. Here's the link to the english page http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/4/ if you click on each strand (ie writing, reading, listening etc) you can see what they want the students to know. Here are the math http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/4/OA/ . If you have the option I would go to the classical school.

I really disliked it also. I came away also feeling like maybe I was misunderstanding some of the books we were reading since the way we had discussed them at home wasn't the way the authors described it. I do feel like often book critiques misunderstand or read to deeply into the authors intent. I recently read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and I liked it so much more. It really is geared towards the adults that were reading The Great Books but I took away quite a few notes from it and I do feel it will be helpful in our house. One of the things he said was that the only book you can learn from is one that is over your head. I loved that and it encouraged me to continue in my self education. Another take away from the book: Liberal arts entails taking a position on ideas because "to regard anyone except yourself as responsible for your judgement is to be a slave and not a free man". It doesn't cover literal devices or anything to that effect it is more just advice on how to understand the problems presented in a book and take your own stance on them.

Some people attribute the french revolution to Rousseau. He definitely was one of the influential thinkers of the enlightenment that helped aid the idea that men could rule themselves. In The Social Contract he said man could be freed through force and that man would only be free when he ruled himself. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/32284-rousseau-and-revolution/ As a mother I dislike Rousseau very much for abandoning his children. As an American, in a country that was inspired by the philosophies of the enlightenment, I have to appreciate all of the idea's that helped us create the constitution and establish our government. Sorry for OT I just find all of this so interesting.

This is exactly why I wanted to read his book. There were so many people inspired by his theories. The founders of our constitution for one, although that was a different book - The Social Contract, inspired by Locke. Dewey, Horace Mann even Charlotte Mason were inspired by some of his theories. I could not wrap my head around people looking to a man, who could abandon all of his children, for educational theories. They may not have been aware of that fact though. He also never taught. He tried to tutor once and said his anger with the pupils lead him to abandon it completely. I still don't understand his followers but I highlighted so many idea's in his book that I see in modern day education. Reading his book was not to help me homeschool but to help me understand idea's that spured public school and many modern day philosophies. I thought going to primary sources to understand the history of education might be more useful than reading books that have the authors opinion interwoven throughout.

My girls are currently on a competition dance team and do piano. Next year we will start another tech class for dance along with the dance practices and start jiu jitsu with my twins. I do not get how you guys have time for all this other stuff. We might do the homeschool PE class also next year. I'm on the fence though because Jiu Jitsu is 2x a week, dance 2x and piano. I like having 1 or 2 days where we don't have anywhere to go.

My boys are sept 30th and our state cut-off is now sept 1st. I really love the way it's worked out with their birthdays. We are officially going by the state cut-off which means next year is pre-k but they will be doing kindergarten work next year. Academically I feel they are ready for it but if they aren't I will just put the books away and wait. If we keep going forward it will be nice to know we have an extra year to play with. We can spend more time on something if they need to and not feel like we are behind. I want them in sports and activities with kids their age so the official grade will be whatever the local schools are. I guess at high school level I will have to really figure out what we are going to do if they stay a year ahead but I will figure that out then.

I am planning on using famous men next year. I think there are around 36 stories in it so we will just read one a week. I used famous men this year with OT/AE. I had planned on skipping NT/GR so I covered Greece and Rome separately by SOTW audio in the car and reading the Famous Men Books. It ended up being a very heavy history year but I feel like there is so much to cover with ancient history so I don't regret it at all. Some days the Famous Men story would take the place of their assigned literature reading. I skip the literature books veritas press does and do our own thing for literature.

Not necessarily homeschooling but I just finished Emile by Rousseau, a book on Herbert Spencers Educational Theories, Diane Ravitch's Left Back and I'm in the middle of The Educational Idea's of Pestozzi. They are helpful in understanding the idea's in modern education many of which are popular in the homeschooling realm. I didn't realize so many of the homeschooling philosophies were spin offs from different education reformers idea's, many of which were at one point attempted in schools. Most of the books I listed are free on google books since they are public domain. The Diane Ravitch book I bought used on Amazon.

Ultimately you have to decide your goals for school and what subjects will help you get there. Do you just want a utilitarian education or are you trying to achieve an education in the humanities? What do you feel is the core knowledge a child needs? There is a great debate in modern education about what is necessary since the goal of our education system is a utilitarian education, that is one which is useful for the life the student is expected to lead. If that is your approach then it's understandable that penmanship, recitation, grammar amd history have been mostly removed from schools. For the vast majority of students those subjects will not be necessary in the field they end up in. If your goal is an education in the humanities then the debates changes completely. For us our educational goals include Latin, a modern language, understanding how to think (learn) properly, understanding how to debate, how to speak. Grammar is one of the bases to reach the language goals so, for us, it is necessary.

We did life of fred for a little bit. My daughter loved it but when I would get to the questions she never understood them. She thought Fres was hilarious she just didn't learn anything. I decided we didn't have time for it if she wasn't picking up on the lesson. My younger daughter does BA with MM and it's worked out great! It really has her think beyond what she's used to and I feel like she has grown so much using these books.

I guess we will just take a break for a bit. They seem to be beyond season 1 but not quite ready for verbals. They understand adjectival and adverbial clauses and I think they are getting the ideas behind verbals but it's throwing them off when they go to parse them and the diagrams just intensify so much on season 2.

3 weeks left... almost.there. They are all short weeks for us, 2 day week, 4 day week and another 4 day week ending with a park day. Not that I'm counting or anything:) I really love homeschooling but I need to recharge. We should be on 1/2 days but we are all just dragging at this point and it's still taking us all day to finish school.

My kids are using Analytical Grammar and we are in the verbals section. They are seem to be a little confused and I feel like they need more practice with it. They can find the infinitives if they have a to in front of them but they are missing all of the bare infinitives. They are also confusing some of the verbals and they are having a hard time figuring out what the gerund or infinitives are functioning as. They understand gerunds are nouns make them parse the nouns as direct object, object of the preposition etc and they are getting confused with that. Ia there another workbook or anything that I can use as additional practice? Should I just get the review book from Analytical Grammar amd go over it later? They score fine on the test because they understand all the other parts of speech but I hate to move on whem they don't undersramd verbals.