Classical Conversations

This past January, a friend told us about this amazing homeschool program that she is involved in called "Classical Conversations." After her children wow'ed me with a demonstration of everything they'd be learning with this program, I thought I better check it out. Much to my delight, there was a program up and running just 10 minutes from our home, too! It is a bit hard to explain the program without seeing it for yourself, and the website can do a better job at this than I can. But basically, it's a group of homeschool families that meet once a week for 3 hours and review the material (a specific classical program) that we've worked on all week with our children. The children are grouped by age, (M was with 4-6 year olds), and a parent (called a 'tutor') leads the group for the three hours, while the mothers of the children help out (i.e. it's not a 'drop off and leave' program). It provides healthy competition, great accountability for us mothers, fellowship with other homeschool families, and a fabulous classical curriculum. We joined halfway though this year, so M missed out on the first part of the year, but we were soooo thrilled to be a part of it, and I am still amazed at everything these children learn so effortlessly and in such a short time! This coming year, I'm going to 'tutor training' in May so I can lead M's group in the fall. I highly recommend the program, with my only reservation being that it is not a Catholic program, so there will be some doctrinal differences, but these won't be an issue until later down the road. I think the "Classical approach" to education is tremendous. This program is not an all-encompassing homeschool curriculum in itself (we still do a ton of other things at home, like reading, math, music, religion, etc), but it is a wonderful 'core' program for us. And the best part? Little L, who is too young to actually be in the program yet, is learning right alongside M when we practice everyday and he picks up on everything, too! Many of the things they learn are set to music, which makes it soooo much easier and more fun for the kids to learn. Here is a little sample.
M learned the Presidents, and you'll see how L loves to join in with her!




Oh, by the way- Check out the link to this program if you're interested in understanding it better than I can explain here:

http://classicalconversations.com