the essence

Time for School




Where to begin? Addison is four-years-old and so very quickly approaching "official" school age. The girls and I do school at home (almost) everyday but I've really been feeling the need to figure out an official approach and how we're going to proceed as the kids get older.

I was homeschooled, I enjoyed it and it definitely worked for us. I'm also a firm believer that homeschooling is most definitely not for everybody. However, I've never been able to shake the idea that I'd really like to homeschool my kids. No matter how rough some of the days are or how much they might drive me crazy I still get the greatest satisfaction in teaching/training them. And, on good days, it's really good. (bad days, well....you know, you make it through & hope the next day is better!)

When we went to a small conference in Orlando back in January we stopped at the Classical Conversations booth and I was immediately interested in their curriculum. I have family and friends who use Classical Conversations so I'd heard of the program but I wasn't really familiar with the curriculum.

One of our local directors, Michele, is a good friend of Jens' and I chatted with her a bit last year at Hannahs' birthday party. After my encounter with the CC curriculum in January I started doing a little research and found that enrollment for next year begins in March! I was finally able to arrange a meeting with Michele & she graciously hosted the kids & I at her house for lunch today. Michele has five amazing girls, ages 6-12, who tended to my girls. It was so nice to be able to chat with Michele & not worry about the kids, even when they were outside and in the pool.

Michele is a wealth of information and basically I'm now completely in love with the CC curriculum. It's exactly what I was wanting in a curriculum but didn't know if it existed!

I love the flexibility of homeschooling - not just flexibility with the timing but also choosing different curriculums to meet the specific needs of the child. However, I felt like I'd be lost at sea if I were trying to choose the best curriculum for each subject for each child. Enter: Classical Conversations. It's all encompassing: grammar, math, latin, science, history...everything! I love how everything is laid out - it's an excellent skeleton which then allows you to easily build upon it with a more specific math program you like; or, unit studies to complement your science studies, etc.

I also really love the thoroughness of the curriculum. Seriously, I just love it. I feel like it's the answer I was looking for & desperately wanted to find!

As far as schooling goes, the cost is amazingly low. However, as Ray puts it, "It doesn't matter how cheap it is. If the money isn't there it's not a good deal!" He is so wise.

Thankfully, Classical Conversations offers tutoring options. The group meets once a week for 24 weeks out of the year and each child is in a class of about 8 students. I can tutor one of those classes (with the same curriculum I'll be doing at home!) and it will completely offset the cost. However, I'm so excited about this curriculum that even without the tutoring option I was pretty determined to find some way to make this work.

So, Tuesday April 12th (the day before Addisons' surgery) I'm planning to go visit their class with Addison so that we can get a feel for what we'll be embarking on in the Fall!