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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 19
We’ve entered the final 6 weeks! It’s the downhill slope, but it sometimes feels more like it’s the hardest part of the year. I read a great blog post entitled “Everyone wants to quit in November and February” a week or so ago. It can be encouraging just to realize that you aren’t the only one who feels worn out! Hang in there, folks! History Well, here’s the thing. The Korean War is often called the “Forgotten War” and that makes finding great kid-friendly sources about it a little, ummmm . . . challenging. Crash Course History has a video on the Cold War, which begins with Korea (first 5…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 17 and 18
We’re still in the taxes-filled zone around here (see Week 15 and 16 for more dull details, if you want them), so once again, I’m combining my Week 17 and 18 into a single post. History I don’t know about you guys, but I think some of the hardest memory sentences are the ones which are really just a list of names. We acted out the ones from the Renaissance (Week 6) based on their occupation. We used the dress-up game for WWI leaders (Week 14). And now for WW II leaders, we did some goofy acting out. I did print out Melody Stroud’s history cards (we’re using ALL her…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 15 and 16
This is the time of year in our family when a couple of things typically happen: 1) We’re just really getting back into the school “groove” and I start to feel good about what we’re accomplishing and 2) tax season hits. In some past life that I occasionally have flashbacks of, I was a CPA who had VERY, VERY little to do with taxes. I spent most of my time (and by that, I mean 50-80 hours/week) auditing fairly large, often publicly-traded companies. I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just skip to the end of the story . . . I don’t do that any more. Okay, if…
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Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
About two weeks ago, our family went to the local art museum. We were there primarily to see an exhibit of Norman Rockwell’s work, but also on display was an exhibit that highlighted art by some of our country’s African American artists. We wandered through this exhibit first, and as we went along, we came to this piece. Neither of my children (5 and 7) understood the piece at all. And so, I found myself in the middle of a museum trying to explain to my children how people can choose to judge each other entirely by the outside appearance rather than by looking at the heart. Truth be told,…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 14
While there were some tough grammar areas, in my opinion, this week (English, History and Math were all just really long meaty!), I still really enjoyed it and we came up with some fun stuff to do with all of them! History Who else noticed this week that crazy, over-the-top mustaches must have been ALL the rage in Europe during WWI? I mean, SERIOUSLY the facial hair on these world leaders was crazy! There’s actually quite a bit of discussion on the internet about it, and I even read that David Lloyd George kept his specifically trimmed to a length that would not interfere with the seal on his gas…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 13
Welcome Back! I hope that you all had a wonderful break. We’re back in action in our Classical Conversations community this week, and although I feel a little like I’m swimming through jello trying to get myself and my family back into the routine of things, we ARE slowly getting our cylinders all fired up and in sync! Math Usually, for this week’s Math, I use a Gallon Man or Gallon Bot to reinforce the idea of liquid equivalents. There is a nice Gallon Man that someone has posted on CC Connected (C3) and there is a Gallon Bot available at Super Teacher Worksheets. What I’ve noticed about myself, however, is that it…
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Classical Conversations Cycle 2 Week 12
Our Classical Conversations group took a field trip this week to the Dyer Observatory. If you live in or around Nashville, I would HIGHLY recommend it. It was an exceptionally good field trip and dovetailed BEAUTIFULLY with our recent CC Cycle 2 Science Grammar and Science Projects. The astronomer in charge re-visited the relative size of the planets and stars, took us on a planet walk to show us the relative position of the planets, educated us about the different planets as we walked, then did an activity to illustrate the phases of the moon and showed us the telescope they use at the observatory and how the roof moves…
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Classical Conversations Week 10
This week our “Science Project” was Facility Clean-up! I loved the opportunity to do a little something for our hosting church. They are wonderful and we SO appreciate their willingness to host our Classical Conversations (CC) group each week. Just to keep it real here, when I asked my son after the day was over what his favorite and least favorite parts of his CC day had been, “cleaning up his classroom” fell into the “least favorite” category. We need to do some work on the idea of serving others joyfully, obviously. All the children in my class were wonderfully helpful, though, and more than willing to pitch in and…
