It is the start of our fifth week of homeschooling and we have held class in three houses across two states and in two different countries.  Whew!  We are very excited to be here and settling into a routine.

We are adding a bit of local geography (adults included in that) to our curriculum.  We were very glad when the familiar FedEx truck pulled in with our small marker board large British Isles map.

Now our living room\dining room is also looking like a classroom.

Special thanks to our friends John and Lynn who loaned us a computer for our classroom this year.  Our home desktop computer crashed two days before we left Alabama.

We begin each morning, like we did at our school in Fairhope, with a “morning meeting”.  We say the pledge, quote our verse of the month, read a devotion from the book  Jesus Calling and sing our hymn of the month.  We are using the book Hymns for a Kids Heart for our hymn study.

Classical Christian education is the curriculum model our kids have been a part of since Kindergarten.  We first fell in love with this approach when Joshua was five.  Classical curricula is based on the trivium of knowledge:

Grammar – K -6th  Students at this stage learn history and bible in chronological order, have a strong ability to commit large amount of material to memory, learn chants and jingles to help learn the “grammar” of every subject.  Latin is also added as subject in 3rd -6th grade.

Logic – 7th – 8th grade    Early teens tend to be questioning everything and  a bit argumentative.  Formal logic is introduced to take advantage of the natural tendencies of this age.  as well as a recap of world history, including bible , literature and art.  Greek is taught as second language at this stage.

Rhetoric – 9th – 12th grade  Students at this age are learning to take their thoughts  knowledge and formulate insightful writings and present them orally before their peers and adults.  They also may choose a modern language to study during these last years as they follow a college bound or advanced track in math and science.

It has been amazing to watch Joshua and Meg and others at their school thrive and grow during their years in classical education.  They have been given the gift of a great love of reading and history as well as a great love of learning.  They are using modern technology to communicate with their classmates back home and will be making some video presentations of their field trips to historical sites to share in class also.

More can be learned about classical education on the Association of Classical Christian Schools website:

http://www.accsedu.org/what-is-cce/what_is_classical_christian_education

-Beth