First of all, decide how you want to use Classical Conversations, Cycle 1. CC can be used in many ways at home. Just remember to keep it simple and use the "stick in the sand" approach, when you can. There is a range of how simple or elaborate each family chooses to use and add to the Foundations memory work and this also varies the amount of time spent on it during the school day. Many of us use CC as the core or "spine" of our curriculum for everything, but there is a wide range of resources and ways to do this. Many families also set aside around 30 minutes each day to practice and review the memory work, but that might look different for each family. There are a variety of ways that families use the Foundations new grammar that are listed below.
1.) Using CC as the core of all school work, adding loads of great books to read aloud at home that might tie in with science, history, geography, math, etc. is a fairly simple and effective plan.
2.) In addition to finding good books, some families create or find worksheets, lapbooks, games, songs, or hands-on activities that tie in with the memory work topics at home, but this is more elaborate and takes more time and planning for the parent/teacher.
3.) Other families use only the memory work and add another full curriculum to it at home, like Sonlight or My Father's World. This would also be a more elaborate plan and would add more time to the school day, but might take less planning if you purchase a "boxed" curriculum package that's already scheduled and planned out for you.
4.) Then, there are the families that simply enjoy community days and listen to the memory work in the car or home without a lot of other practice, keeping it very simple.
5.) Of course most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle, using the memory work as a springboard for other educational activities at home, but not overloading on doing "extra" activities all week.
For every family the required purchases for parents of Foundations students really are very simple:
- Classical Conversations Foundations Guide
- Tin whistles for each enrolled child
*In our home school, we have always spent around 30 minutes at the beginning of our school day on practicing the new grammar (memory work) and reviewing past grammar. We found resources and tools to add to it and make it the "spine" of our curriculum, although in the beginning I was tempted to blend CC with another curriculum package, but found that to be too overwhelming. One really good curriculum is enough! Choosing activities that would help my children to add context to the memory work was fun and helped them to remember it in a concrete way, but I tried to choose things that did not add a lot of extra time or tied in another subject area, like copywork that was handwriting practice and also practice of the Bible memory verses.
If you want to mainly listen to the memory work in the car or at home, the Cycle 1 Audio cd would be a great help, or you can subscribe to CC Connected and download songs to your heart's content. A subscription to CC Connected will give you access to digital files of all of the audio memory work (spoken & songs) and maps, plus tons of other ideas from CC parents like copywork, visuals, and worksheets. (If you are enrolled in an official CC community, the subscription price is very reasonable and you could even buy it for a month or two and then cancel after you have downloaded what you need.) I have purchased the audio cd's every year and we listen to them every day while we practice.
For those of you who want to set aside daily practice time at home, CC has created many other helpful resources that you can pick and choose from to give you variety or to suite different needs. None of these are required, but you may find something here that is a great help. Just remember to keep it simple and only select items what you will really use and LIKE, which might be only one or two for your first year. If YOU like the resources that you choose, chances are that your kids will enjoy them, too, giving you all joy in the process! You can find all of these in the CC Bookstore:
- Cycle 1 Memory Work Flashcards are small, color coded flashcards for all of the memory work for this cycle that are ready to be placed on a ring. These are great to carry around in the car, to use at home, or to use in class if you tutor and they are especially good for review games.
- Cycle 1 Geography Trivium Tables are laminated maps that fold up conveniently. These are helpful because you can use dry erase markers on them for tracing geographic locations. They also have lists of all of the geography memory work by week, which is helpful if you are reviewing with your students.
- Cycle 1 App. for Apple products including iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc. is another super convenient way to "carry" the memory work with you and it includes all of the sound files except the timeline song.
- Cycle 1 Acts & Facts Science Cards introduce the science memory work.
- Cycle 1 Acts & Facts Artist & Composer Cards give brief biographical information on each of the the composers and artists that we study.
- CC History Acts & Facts History Cards (also known as “Timeline cards”) are the same for all three cycles and we do go through all of them each year. They have extra information on the back of each card and are a great way to study history throughout the school year.
There are also some great finds out there on the internet from CC parents! Check out these blogs with lots of freebies.
Half a Hundred Acre Wood blog
Homegrown Learners blog
Solagratiamom blog
Classical Conversations at Home blog
Don’t forget to add a math program and language arts (phonics/spelling, reading, and handwriting for young students)! There are many to choose from. CC leaves the selection of these more individualized subjects to the parents in the early years. For years, I have relied upon the Cathy Duffy Reviews for helping me to select curriculum. She gives great information on almost all home school curriculum that I have considered, so check out her website for descriptions of various curricula. Here are some popular ones:
Popular math programs for the earlier grades:
Saxon, Horizons, Math U See, Math Mammoth, Right Start Math, Life of Fred, Math in Focus (Singapore), Miquon Math, Rod & Staff, BJU Press, and Teaching Textbooks (starting in 2nd or 3rd grade)
*We have used Math U See successfully for all but one year of our home education journey, when we tried another program. I highly recommend it for multi-sensory learners!
Popular phonics programs: All About Reading/All About Spelling, Primary Arts of Language (PAL Reading) from IEW, Phonics Pathways, Spell to Read & Write, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Sing, Spell, Read, & Write (SSRW), Spelling You See
*We used My Father's World before we had CC in our area and their Kindergarten and 1st grade phonics programs are great! My natural speller used Spelling Power and SpellingCity.com to master spelling and we used the Barton Reading and Spelling System for our dyslexic child and it was fantastic!
Handwriting: Along with learning the basics, these younger children also need to be learning how to write, so I recommend just a few minutes of handwriting practice each day. CC now has different levels of its own cursive handwriting curriculum, Prescripts, but it was not published when our children were in the younger elementary years. It looks like a great way to practice handwriting, learning cursive from the beginning.
*We loved Handwriting Without Tears and used all of the HWT levels. It is a great multi-sensory program for preschool and the younger grades, yet only takes a few minutes each day with diligent practice to help you teach handwriting.
Beyond these recommendations, you can go find many great books at the library to read about any subject that interests your children. You may also want to use (optional) book lists that other CC parents have created to tie in with your Cycle 1 studies. You can find more information about how to find books at another post soon!
Again you only NEED the Foundations Guide and tin whistles, so keep it simple, but if you want to find other fun ways to motivate the kids to keep practicing their memory work, choose simple tools that will help you find more JOY in the process! I hope you find some inspiration here in choosing your curriculum for this year and keeping it simple.
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