Thanks to 4-H, our children have been a bit obsessed about turning trash into treasure. (And here I thought we’d need a cow and a chicken to join 4-H two years ago! Boy, was I wrong!) Instead of raising farm animals this spring, we’ve collected trash to transform it into… other stuff. In fact, I […]
Classical Conversations and The Well-Trained Mind
As a follow-up to my previous post on The Well-Trained Mind Schedules, I’m attempting to answer some questions I received about how The Well-Trained Mind fits in with Classical Conversations®. For those who are not familiar with Classical Conversations®, click here for a description of what a day in the life of a Foundations community looks like. In […]
Supplementing CC on a Shoestring
At one time we used Classical Conversations as a spine around which we built our school year. If you want to supplement the memory work but are lacking funds to go hog-wild with buying boatloads of books, here’s a list of supplemental resources that you might want to check out. Most of them are in […]
Minecraft Chicken (or Duck?) Piñata
When our oldest son walked up and saw these boxes stacked together amongst the mess on top of the stove… he saw something I did not. As we prepared for David’s Minecraft birthday party, I was ready for a simple idea for the piñata. And so…. with a little duct tape… …a rope, and some […]
Revisiting Plans and Schedules with The Well-Trained Mind
Believe it or not, I’m a highly distractible mom who gets sidetracked easily and chases rabbit trails to infinity and beyond. But… maybe this is why plans are so important to me. If I don’t have a plan in place, our homeschool derails. And life provides enough derailing for me to not run off the […]
Our CC Cycle 3 Booklist
Here’s our compiled booklist for CC Cycle 3 (with an American History focus). This is a “book buffet,” a place to pick and choose books that you think will be best for your family. The links will take you to descriptions of each book on Amazon. (We use affiliate links to cover the rising costs […]
Geography Fair
When our children were young, our homeschool group held a geography fair based upon what was studied over the year. This event gave students and parents an opportunity to showcase the geography memory work or cultures in a unique and creative way at our year-end celebrations. It also provided a way for those who are […]
Cycle 3 Weekly Planners
Due to special requests from Classical Conversations families, we updated our Cycle 3 planners to include reading correlations, book lists, and a Memory Work Review plan to keep the memory work fresh without review becoming cumbersome and overwhelming. Check it out here. If you’re interested in a basic planner without the planning packet (which includes […]
Free Handwriting Resources
For a couple of years, our family used the Prescripts series for penmanship and drawing practice. However, as one of our children progressed from Book 1: Introduction to Cursive Writing & Tracing to Book 2: Writing Cursive Words and Practicing Drawing Skills, we encountered quite a setback. There was such a huge leap from one book to the […]