Hi, Does anyone have experience with the Junior Classical League? We are trying to start up a homeschool JCL in our area. I'm looking for ideas and inspiration! There doesn't seem to be much on their website about how to run a successful JCL. I thought it would be helpful to get some ideas on what others have done. Thanks in advance for your help!

(cross-posting) If you've used CAP Writing and Rhetoric, can you tell me what you liked about it? -did it help your student write better -did you feel you had to supplement with another program -do you feel it is complete -are you able to apply it to modern writing i.e. 5 paragraph essay We are currently using Classical Writing, we'll be in Chreia next year. I do think it is a thorough Progym program, however, the way it is laid out, I've had a hard time getting the rhythm and flow of it that our year looked "choppy." If there are already threads to this, please let me know!

I have 3 kids, all strong personalities. A 7 year old who is a young 3rd grader this year, a 5 year old who is an old kindergartener this year, and a very active 2.5 year old who is very disruptive during schooltime. My 5 and 7 year olds are only 2 years and a few months apart but are 4 grade levels apart because they're each on the other side of the Sept 1 deadline for school. I am an engineer who didn't plan to homeschool but was not happy with the available school choices and I felt my daughter was too young (just turning 5) to start kindergarten. I wish she was in 2nd grade instead of 1st. Even though she does well with her schoolwork, I feel like she's doing too much for her age and that her peer group is too old for her when in activities. I grew up in private Christian school which was nearly exclusively Abeka with upper level Saxon math, and I had 2 years of correspondence Latin in highschool, and there was a lot of poetry memorization and Scripture verse memorization throughout K-12. I was nearly always bored in school, and I thought history was especial drudgery, but I think it was the presentation from Abeka. My children are part of a public correspondence school so we can get funding to cover some of our expenses if the curriculum is secular. So our curriculum... Both kids do Suzuki music, my daughter in violin for 4 years, and my son on cello for 2 years. Both kids take Spanish lessons weekly, and I review lesson content at home when I have time, and read them Spanish books and try to make at least half of our limited TV time in Spanish. I don't have a Spanish curriculum, and while I don't want them to be writing in Spanish yet, I would like a more structured plan. I began my daughter with Logic of English and did too much in the K year, level A, B, and C for my young kindergartener. Also in K, she did Rightstart Math A, and Bookshark Science. We liked Bookshark Science so much that we did Bookshark Science and History in grade 1, switched to Abeka math, which works well for my daughter, and repeated level C and did D for Logic of English. This past year (grade 2), I used Bookshark for Science, History, and Language Arts. I did this because I felt LOE Essentials was too far beyond my daughter with no graphics in the workbooks and the lessons just looked heavy. I also felt that we would save time on the reading since the LA reading was part of the history curriculum. We did continue to use the LOE flashcards and I had her do spelling with the letter tiles. I also got her a level D book to use through the year, but we actually just began D with her summer school and she was so happy to see it again and is actually asking to work in it. It's only about 50 lessons, so we'll probably finish before the main school year season and I was planning to begin LOE Essentials then. BTW, we hated the Bookshark language arts. My daughter hated the weekly writing assignments and could never think of anything to write. For Pre-K, my son was attentive to most of the history and science when graphics were involved. He only occasionally listened to A Child's History of the World. He was/is usually reluctant working through LOE book A (still not done!) but he's more interested now that he and his sister both have similar looking books as she's working in part D. Bookshark history reading was excellent, and my daughter really loved the reading and asks me to read to her. I also enjoyed the reading content, but my voice was usually hoarse every night with so much reading and talking all day long. I want good literature, but I just feel like I can't do the volume/schedule in Bookshark. I also know that I can't do two grade levels of Bookshark. My son won't be ready for level 3 (ages 8-11) and I don't really want to restart my daughter at level 1, though I've considered it. Bookshark science was good, had science kits with everything for experiements and a DVD to demonstrate. The reading was mostly good, I just didn't like one of the recent sections of the Usborne Book of Knowledge spine which had some pretty detailed machine workings which often were too wordy for my daughter. I really like the 4 day week schedule, which gave me some freedom on our lesson day. Abeka math is working well now that I know how to trim the classroom schedule. I also use some Rightstart manipulatives. We did not like Rightstart in K, but I've thought about trying Rightstart D to use with Abeka. A friend told me the early Rightstart was not as good as the later books. Abeka is good for us because I think my daughter needs to have worksheets to complete. She says she doesn't like math, but she does well with it. I also like to feel that she's doing real work and able to see progress. I'm planning to do year round school. I need to complete the regular year of courses on schedule for ease with our correspondence school's required progress reports. However, my kids need structured days, and I don't want them to forget what they've learned, so we're still doing school through the summer. It is fun school though, with days off for activities and art every day we do our light schoolwork. I'm not an art person but love Artistic Pursuits for the art history, but haven't had time in the past year, so we've restarted it. I would also like to start our regular school subjects earlier (maybe August 1) so that I can have some freedom throughout the year to take time off when needed. I've already ordered Abeka math 3 for my daughter and K for my son (I'll also add some Rightstart projects for him). I'm still debating getting Rightstart D for my daughter. My son may repeat LOE A. I haven't decided yet. He's only starting to read short vowel words and his handwriting could use some extra practice. My daughter will do what's left of D over the summer, and then I think we'll be getting Essentials for our Grammar. I don't like the LOE Essentials add-on Readers and writing program. It looks boring and writing isn't from real literature. I have looked at IEW, Blackbird and am now looking at Cottage Press. IEW looks too time consuming with having to watch DVDs, and may be too much work for my daughter who hates to write. Blackbird looks much simpler, and we can buy one unit at a time to go at our own pace. Cottage Press Fable and Song looks like my daughter would enjoy it. We read through all the Aesop's Fables with Bookshark and always loved to hear them. I'm just worried that it's too much to do with LOE Essentials also. I've tried to keep with secular materials because our homeschool will not pay for faith based materials and I have to purchase them on my own. I would however like to establish more Biblical influence in their daily lives. I really want to try Science in the Beginning. It's structure appeals to me that it's chronological science series, has short lessons, and daily demonstrations. I think it might help to shorten our workload. It is also faith based, but only $40 for the year so not a budget problem. I'm having a problem with the classical writing programs being faith based so they will not be reimbursible. IEW would be reimbursible, but I'm just not convinced that it's right for us. I have been strongly recommended to use Story of the World for history. I like the sound of the program, but am kind of worried about delaying American history for my daughter for 4 more years. However, I guess we could supplement American History in the summer time. I was also thinking of supplementing Story of the World with Mystery of History CD (purchased myself) Someone loaned me a Book 2 to review and I disliked parts of it, although the Level 1 Old Testament history would probably be better for us, so I am still considering it. I'm now reading more about "classical" education and am thinking about including Latin next year. I've had my daughter in Spanish lessons for 3 years, and my son for 2 years. In school, I had Spanish, French, German, and Latin and cannot speak anything. I put my children into Spanish because I want them to speak well in a practical 2nd language. I now am reading all the classical method essays that Latin is better for children to understand grammar and I wonder if I had an advantage that I didn't realize because I had a bit of Latin in my education. Now, I'm thinking of adding it in, but where? Could I do Latin just 2 days a week? I don't really like to schedule that way, but I don't see how I can add another thing to do everything every day. I feel like I cannot stop Spanish before they've mastered it. I was really planning to add in Russian in 3 years so they have a different language type. I just feel that it broadens their minds. I'm also pretty passionate that music broadens the mind in the same way. Anyway, I'm sorry for the lengthy post but I was trying to present a full history. I posted a week ago, but didn't have all the info there and didn't respond because I didn't have a working computer and didn't want to type it up on my phone. I'm an engineer, not a teacher. I'm not even really a kid person, though I like my kids:) I'm a bit of a perfectionist and get stressed if things are not done the right way. I am reading online about Charlotte Mason, WTM, and classical education. I haven't read the books. I really feel lost in what to do. I guess I'm more classically minded. I think structure and memorization are good. I would like to do more poetry and Bible memorization. I feel guilty that we haven't done much at all, even though it was a big part of my childhood. We do memorize math facts and phonics. I like the idea of memorizing a history timeline, but I don't know how to do this or if it's included in Story of the World. I've read a lot about Classical Conversations, and though I like some things about it, other things won't work for us. I also seem kind of Mason minded in that I really want more literature to be used. I am even feeling like I should do bird studies. We do a bit of nature studies based on what we're doing outside. I love what I read on Ambleside that the CM method uses folk music! I love folk music and teach it to my kids, trying to teach them something new every month or so, and sing them at bedtime. With what I know of Waldorf, I am not inclined toward that method as it's not practical enough for me. I feel guilty that I do so much with my daughter and not enough with my K son. I really want to combine their history, science, and read alouds. Spanish is combined, and we could combine Latin if I'm brave enough. My other problem is that I'm really striving for a sense of balance. I realized this with music. It's consuming our life, and I don't want that for our kids. We practice daily, have weekly private lessons, weekly group lessons, monthly performance classes, semester recitals, more special performances, a yearly Suzuki insitute for 1 week, and a separate fiddle class for a week later in the summer. Our teacher is wonderful and so are her students, and my daughter plays beautifully. While I want her to do her best, I don't want to funnel her into being a music major in college. Yes, if that's what she wants, but I don't want her to feel that it's her only option. I'm a pianist, and music is important to me, and I want my kids to be competent musicians to be able to have fun playing with others and in church. I want them to love folk music, not just classical music. I also do not want them to be burned out and dislike music. Anyway, I'm seeking balance because of this awareness from music, but also in other areas. I'm trying to cut back a little on activities. They were in swimming lessons Saturdays until February, when I quit and it's been so nice to have free Saturdays. They ski on Monday nights, and I just hate Mondays, because it's violin lesson, Spanish lesson, and ski lesson. Such a long day. Speaking of balance, where do the mothers make time for themselves? I have no idea. I don't know. I'm trying to figure myself out. I know I can obsess with anything and go extreme on anything. So I'm trying to cut back and do less, but now I'm trying to add more in with Latin. Maybe it will be less if kids are working together with some subjects. I don't feel confident enough to build my own curriculum by collecting books and teaching my own lesson plans, though Ambleside will be a great resource for extras for us. Every new curriculum I hear about seems like the best and the one, until I read about the next one. I feel truly lost and out of my element nearly all the time. I feel like we are doing too much and need to cut back and then sometimes I panic that I'm not doing enough, and that I should have been doing things since K that I hadn't thought of until now, like Latin. So for next school year: Math - Abeka K and 3, and some Rightstart Grammar and Phonics - LOE Foundations and Essentials Grade 3 writing - Blackbird, Cottage Press or something else?? Story of the World Literature Read Alouds ?? Does Story of the World have a good literature reading list? I really wish it was packaged like Bookshark. I hate shopping. And I can't even see the list until buying the curriculum. Science in the Beginning Spanish - want to add more formal oral curriculum ? Latin - Song School 2 days a week? Artistic Pursuits - 1 day a week, also considered Atlier art, but it will probably be beyond our budget since we use all our extracurricular money on music. Suzuki Music I also just got a computer and tablet for my kids do some learning apps / games. We really limit screen time for kids, so this is a big deal for them. I do have Spanish Rosetta Stone from our school library (looking forward to trying this) but would really like any recommendations for any learning games or apps. Well, even if no one reads this very long post, it has at least been a form of therapy for me to type it out. Any suggestions would be wonderful!

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Looking for classes that are offered as dual enrollment courses for highschoolers that are actually classically based. Looking particularly at the History, Lit., Bible and Rhetoric combo would be awesome! The only one I am aware of is Potters with Belhaven U. Anyone know of any others? Thanks for your help!

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