What do you do in a Classical Conversations Community?

[mnemom]

I was reading the other thread on the book The Core (Leigh Bortins). I read that book and liked it a lot. It got me wondering what Classical Conversations communities are like. Anyone belong to one and care to share?

[Heidi @ Mt Hope]

Well, we just returned home from ours, so I'll give it a stab. :)

 

For the Foundations classes (ages 4-11), we meet one morning a week for 3 hours. 12 weeks in the fall, 12 weeks in the winter/early spring.

 

We start out in an assembly with all the families sitting together. One family does a 'family presentation' each week, sort of a family show-and-tell sort of thing. We sing a patriotic song, say the pledge of allegience, go over new Bible memory (a verse each week), and learn 8 history timeline cards with motions.

 

Then the kids go to individual classes. They are small classes (max of 8 kids) per paid tutor. Ages 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11 are grouped together. Parents stay in the class with their children, observing and helping as needed. (When more than one child is enrolled, a parent can choose which class they are monitoring.) The tutors introduce memory work in history, science, grammar, Latin, and math, and go over the timeline cards. Geography memory work is done along with map work. Then the kids do a science project and a fine arts project (4 weeks drawing, 4 weeks artists, 4 weeks music theory/tin whistle, 4 weeks composers). The kids also do a short presentation (public speaking) in front of their classes each week with a different theme. Then they review past memory work. (And have a snack somewhere in there....) All of the foundations classes learn the same material, making it very easy to review and supplement during the week if you have multiple kids enrolled. There are three year-long cycles of material, and every CC community is on the same schedule, so this year is cycle 2. So, if kids participate in Foundations for 3 years, they cover all the material, longer and they are reviewing material. Some of the information (such as the math memory work) is repeated every year.

 

At noon, the families all eat lunch together and there is some gym time for the kids. We head home after that, but there is an afternoon session available for grades 3rd or 4th-6th. Challenge level begins in 7th grade and is a full day program (1x/week) for more weeks during the year.

Edited September 27, 2010 by Heidi @ Mt Hope

[dsmama]

Heidi gave a great description.

 

The CC web site has a cute video of some Foundations (elementary) classes. http://classicalconversations.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=article&id=85&Itemid=54

[mnemom]

Thank you both for your responses! It sounds like something I would be very interested in. I am currently just afterschooling but would like to make the jump to homeschooling when (if?) I can get dh on board. I was intrigued by the cc group and was just curious how they worked. So thank you!