This school year was our family’s 17th as a homeschooling family, and to tell the truth, in years 15 and 16 I struggled with burnout. If the Lord blesses us to homeschool all of our children through to high school graduation, we’ll go for 31 consecutive years; I guess it’s no wonder I hit a hump in the middle of the journey. 🙂
Last year we discovered Classical Conversations, and joined a new location; our whole family is hooked. Classical Conversations (CC) is a one-day-per-week classical model program for homeschoolers in grades K-4 through 12, with classes tutored by CC-trained parents. Next year I will tutor Challenge II, a high school class.
HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) has deemed CC High School “a complete curriculum.”
Here is some more information about the Challenge Program for middle and high school:
Challenge levels offer rigorous college prep work including:
- American Lit
- British Lit
- Ancient Lit
- Latin
- American History
- World History
- Logic
- Drama
- Free Market Economics
- American Government – including a study of 44 articles, speeches, poems, and legal documents that shaped American government
- Philosophy
- Art and Music History through Western Cultural History
- Poetry and Shakespeare
- Spanish
- Apologia Science
- Saxon math
- Debate
How is CC different from all other High School options?
Integrated ideas: Subjects are not taught in isolation. For example, math finds its application and climax in the sciences; similarly literature analysis cannot be separated from philosophy, theology, and history.
Parents retain primary roles of teaching and recording students’ progress.
Accountability and community motivates and encourages students to complete assignments on time and with excellence.
Knowing God and making Him known is the focus of all learning, giving students an impenetrable foundation of biblical truths. The following resources are used throughout the Challenge program to strengthen students’ knowledge, argue and defend their point of view, and cultivate wisdom and virtue in their lives: Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door, It Couldn’t Just Happen, Defeating Darwinism, How Should We Then Live?, The Consequences of Ideas, Mere Christianity, Jesus Among Other Gods, and A House for My Name, to name a few. Students are trained to process knowledge in order to see how it glorifies the Lord while also revealing aspects of His divine nature.
High School courses flow nicely into a transcript with more than enough credit hours for graduation. AcademicRecords.net is also offered for a professionally formatted student record.
Please contact Dana Sutko at dsutko AT gmail DOT com for more information about our Classical Conversations community, which meets on Tuesdays at Grace Chapel Church of Christ in Cumming, GA. We currently have openings in Challenge A, B, I, and II (approximately grades 7-10); Essentials (4th-6th grade grammar and writing course); and a waiting list for Foundations (K-4 through 6th grade).
This week I’m attending the free parent practicum (events to help equip parents and tutors for teaching) in Norcross, GA. I was pretty excited on Monday morning when another attendee on the row in front of me held up her phone and showed me the post of mine she’d just received there. Email subscribers are pretty special, so that was exciting for me. 🙂
Here are tutors and parents from this week’s practicum:
I just inquired about a CC group that meets 45 min from us. I wish there was one closer! Since I have all of my material for this year, I wonder if I should wait until next year? I’m just not sure. My boys will be in 4th and 6th grade, although Austin is borderline with 5th/6th (he has a mid-August birthday). Ack. Foundations is full but they said there was room in Essentials. Any advice?
We drive 30 minutes with perfect traffic, which as you know doesn’t happen in Atlanta on weekday mornings. 🙂 Some people drive further than us. I feel like CC is perfect for us from K-4 (Lily this year) through high school. Our location is more than doubling in size for next year (this was our first) because it’s gotten such positive reviews from all of us first year families.
Essentials is really an awesome program that teaches grammar and writing. Foundations is in the morning and Essentials is after lunch, so you wouldn’t have to get up so early. 🙂
You could get on the Foundations waiting list. If they aren’t completely full, which would be eight full Foundations classes, they might just add another class from kids on the waiting list. We joined late last year, and since we have four Foundations kids, they were able to take others from the waiting list and add another class.
Marsha,
You would love the essentials program. It will take him all through the IEW models of writing…go for it if you can….but gotta say I’m in love with the foundations too. Can you go to one of the free practicums. If you can’t do anything else at least try to go to that. They are awesome even if you don’t do CC. We are doing it this year too and I’m teaching the essentials class in ours. Maybe they will get another tutor if there is a big enough waiting list.
Beth
Awesome write up Dawn! I’m so excited to be a part of CC this year.
Dawn,
I was researching the cumming classical conversations and your website came up. Cool!
I am thinking about starting my first child next year (K), but am looking for contact information.
Would I register with someone this summer? Thnks. Lorelei