Coordinator: Renee Pitt
Classical Conversations
Want to experience INSPIRATION and MOTIVATION in your home school, to know Him and to make Him known? Did you ever read The Well Trained Mind and felt like you wanted to do that, but didn't know how? Do you want your kids to grow to be comfortable speaking in front of a group, increasing their public speaking and apologetics skills? Our program is rigorous, but doable, in the style of how our country’s Founding Fathers were educated. It is not education for its own sake, but for pointing to our Creator and Savior.
We will begin a new year for 2009-2010 meeting on Thursdays at Spring Valley Baptist Church in Shiloh.
What is Classical Conversations?
Classical Conversations is a community, not exactly a co-op, not a school. What happens at our weekly classes? Parents, you have nothing to prepare - come and just show up with your kids (yes, bring the toddlers and babies, too) once a week. Learn from a paid tutor how to classically educate yourselves and your children for the eternal purpose of sharing Christ with the world.
Check out our website: www.classicalconversations.com
We are also seeking to hire home school parents as tutors for either Foundations or Essentials. We train you and you get paid! Ask me about how to qualify.
FOUNDATIONS – ages 4 through 12
Spend the mornings on fun, high-energy, fast-paced Bible memorization, public speaking, Latin, timeline memorization, geography, English grammar, a science experiment, a fine arts project, math drill games, history, and science.
The Foundations program is a great supplement to whatever curriculum you may be using at home, particularly for public speaking experience and memory work. For the youngest ones, just add phonics and reading at home the rest of the week.
Memory work tends to fall off the radar screen for many families in their home schools, but it’s so critical to have those pegs of grammar on which to hang information. Meeting together for friendly competition can spur us on to good works! Science experiments, music, and art – we can really round out your week in one morning.
ESSENTIALS – ages 8 through 12
In the afternoons, our students (3rd graders and older) work on intensive English grammar, math, public speaking, and writing skills using Leigh Bortins’ Essentials of the English Language and the highly acclaimed Institute for Excellence in Writing program.
CHALLENGE – Grades 7 through 12
Our new Challenge Director is excited to be starting this fall. The Challenge levels include skills from the classical model: grammar, exposition, debate, research, rhetoric, and logic through a biblical worldview. Rather than the cafeteria-style method of picking and choosing "elective" subjects at this age, CC believes dialectic and rhetoric students should not be taught any subject in isolation. For example, literature analysis cannot be separated from theology, history, or philosophy. CC seeks to do more than just give students knowledge in a particular subject area. We seek to help parents train their students to process that knowledge in order to see how it glorifies the Lord while also revealing aspects of His divine nature. We prepare them for the time of later specialization for a career path by equipping them with the learning tools, by giving them the chance to see how God uses his whole universe to reveal Himself and His will.
Challenge is a full day of seminars. Some of the seminars we use are Latin, Writing, Geography, Science, Apologetics, and Math. Parents are always welcome and encouraged to sit in class anytime, but are not required to attend.
Contact Renee Pitt for more information:
May God richly bless your home-centered education endeavors!
classicalconversations.com