What do I need to buy to

[mom2agang]

Do Classical Conversations Cycle 1 at home? I really like it. But I absolutely have no time for a group. Nor is there one in a 3 hour driving distance. (I will not start one) I'm looking at K-9th

[RebeccaKes]

Just the Foundations Guide, honestly. There are lots of supplements, and you may want the timeline cards because they have so much enriching history info to offer. The overall idea is just to present the memory work as is and drill using whatever "tricks" you come up with. Membership to their community share site will provide you with every printable and audio technique you could ever want, if you need assistance in making it "stick" for your kids. Their audio CDs have all their own recorded songs and chants on them for car schooling, too. Good luck!

[Forgiven]

I do CC Foundations memory work at home. I have the Foundations Guide along with the the Timeline Cards. I did get a subscription to Classical Conversations Connected for a brief time in order to download songs from there. It's $60 a month for non-members, and honestly, not exactly worth it. You can find a lot of songs on Youtube. I would suggest purchasing the CD that they sell that has the timeline and president songs on it. They don't have songs for all the memory work though.

 

For Essentials, you can't purchase the Essentials Guide from CC unless you are enrolled in an Essentials class. You can look for a used one somewhere, but they are hard to find, and may not come with everything you need (A friend of mine bought one used through Ebay and it was missing all the GEAR pages, which are needed). If you aren't set on using the Essentials Guide, look into Analytical Grammar or Jr. Analytical Grammar. I use MCT's LA program and refuse to switch to something else because why fix something that isn't broken? But a lot of people that I see that do CC at home use Analytical Grammar or Jr. Analytical Grammar.

 

Also for the Essentials-aged children, use IEW. If you're not familiar with IEW, you may need to view the DVDs at the very least. If you don't want to buy them, look in your library or search for a used set. You could actually just do the Student Writing Intensive instead of the Ancient History book, which is what CC will be doing for Cycle 1 Essential Students this coming Fall.

 

For your older kids, who would be in the Challenge classes if they were in CC, you can do most of the Challenge work at home. What you will be missing is the group dynamic and peer discussion. I actually enrolled my daughter in Challenge A this year because of the peer discussion aspect of the class. Before I enrolled her though, I researched the Challenge A class and put together a syllabus for all the strands in the Challenge A class. There is enough information out there on the Web to piece the program together yourself. I haven't looked at all the Challenge classes in-depth, but I found a lot of information on all the Challenge levels.

 

Look on Pinterest, Quizlet, google the level you're interested in to find blogs from people who have done the level already. Read through the information on ClassicalConversations.com for the level you're interested in. Look through the books they sell. You can't get a guide for the Challenge levels unless you are enrolled in a class. You can try to find an old Guide on ebay or a used curriculum site, but I've never seen one for sale. They make new Challenge Guides each year.

 

Also for Challenge, figure out what the different curriculum choices are meant to teach, and find something else that may fit better. For instance, in Challenge A the kids learn to map the world by memory. The only book they use is an atlas. The actual break-down and everything else is in the Challenge A guide. Well, there are quite a few curricula out there that teach this: Mapping the World by Heart, Mapping the World with Art, and Draw Your World by Winter Promise are a few.

 

And in case you aren't sure of the ages that CC goes by, here they are: Foundations - Ages 4-11; Essentials - Grade 4 and up; Challenge A - Age 12 and up; Challenge B - Age 13 and up; Challenge I - Age 14 and up; After that I'm not sure if it matters for the other Challenge classes (II, III, and IV), as not all classes are offered every year, and they can be taken out of order.

 

There is a Facebook group for people doing CC on their own at home.  Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/441955959280425/

 

It's not extremely active, but there is some good information there, and people do answer questions.

 

Best of luck to you!

Angie

[Rubix]

I would get the foundations guide and the audio cds. My kids learn so much from the cds. The history and math sentences have the songs on the cd. If you choose to do songs, you would only need to make them up for science then. We have the cards but don't base our history work on them, so don't use them much. If our history work at home was based on cc they are a good source of info.

[aaplank]

Half-hundred acre wood blog has tons of free resources and printables to use with every CC cycle. I used her site a lot when I did CC at home. The guide and CDs are definitely what you need. I also bought the trivium tables for most of the subjects. The timeline cards are my favorite part of the program but aren't necessary because the timeline is written in the guide.

[SnMomof7]

How many of the memory songs are included in the apps?

[fourisenough]

I buy the Foundations Guide, the audio CDs, the Geography Trivium Table (erasable maps aligned with the cycle) and the business-card-sized flash cards. I originally purchased the timeline cards, but found that they were big & unwieldy, and infrequently used in our house. I have since sold them. Also, SOTW is our history spine, so I prefer to pull info from there when context/background is needed.

 

We have participated in a community for two years, but for a number of reasons I'm leaning toward doing Cycle 1 at home next year. I have purchased all of the above-mentioned resources for $60 (some were used; already owned Foundations Guide). I will have my DD3 (age 10) write the week's memory work on our 2'X4' white board on Monday morning. When we begin our day, I'll present the new 'grammar' just as the tutor would at CC, repeating each piece 7 times. We'll listen to the songs in the car like we always have. DD3 will review each day using the flash cards for 5-10 minutes (15-20 as she has more weeks to review by the end of the cycle). I'll pull in BrainPop videos and library books for additional info as needed. I'll expect "Memory Master" fluency from DD3, just as if we were in a community. DD4 is just along for the ride, as I feel much of the memory work is not developmentally appropriate for a new 6-year old.

 

We'll cover fine art & science experiments via our co-op classes.

 

Hope that helps.