This Week

Tomorrow is Labor Day so Luke will be home from work (Yay!). I love it when he's home with us all day and it's not the weekend. It's so much fun for me and the kids. I anticipate tomorrow being relaxing and fun.

Tuesday, we begin our homeschool group of Classical Conversations. I will be tutoring Elizabeth's class of 4 year olds. I think there will be about seven 4 year olds in the class this year.

Let me attempt to explain the program of Classical. Basically, it's memorization of tons and tons of information. The goal, as I understand it, is to create "pegs" in the child's brain. You do this by pouring information into their already sponge-like brains and reinforce it with songs, chants, hand/body motions and acronyms. As they recite these bits of information, the pegs are knocked into place more securely.

The reason you want them to memorize so much stuff is so that when the information is later addressed, they will have some sort of background knowledge to build from. As a former public school teacher I can tell you that background knowledge is hard to come by. Often, students would enter my classroom only knowledgeable about the things in their immediate environment. Trying to tie an in-depth unit study of North Carolina to any background knowledge was like trying to hang a coat rack with jelly, impossible!

I am excited to see what all Elizabeth will learn this year. Although I am not expecting her to understand all that she will be learning, I do think that she will build a base of knowledge that we can grow upon for years to come. Here are the main categories of information that she'll be memorizing. Keep in mind that Classical lasts for 24 weeks. We will memorize one thing in each of these categories over those 24 weeks.

> English Grammer - this includes verb tenses, verb forms, sentence patterns, types of sentences and parts of speech
> Science - this year we will study the Human Body
> History - this year we study American History. With this she will learn the Preamble to the Constitution, all the US Presidents, the Bill of Rights as well as 22 other meaningful history sentences relevant to our country, it's freedoms and notable dates.
> Math - this includes forms of measurements and things as complex as the Distributive Law and how to find an atomic number of an atom
> Latin (yep, you read that right)
> Bible - She will memorize the entire chapter of John 1 (oh, and this will be in English and in Latin, incase you're wondering)
> Geography - including all 50 states and their capitals plus 20ish other geographical bits of info (such as the Great Lakes, Major Bays, Rivers, and Mountain Ranges)
> Fine Arts - including how to play the Tin Whistle, drawing, and info about several great Artists (ie. Grandma Moses and Georgia O'Keeffe

I'm guessing that she'll remember WAY more than I will, but that we'll both learn so much in the process. I'm nervous, but excited. I know it will be an adventure and I'm always up for a challenge. Here we go! Wish me luck...oh, and if you think about it, say a prayer!