a new school year: classical village.

We’re two weeks into our new school year, and thus far, it’s been a much smoother start than last fall. If you remember, last year at this time, we were still neck-deep in our kitchen renovation, and I despaired of ever having a quiet, clean house again, much less starting school.

This month feels delightfully quiet in comparison.

We’re still homeschooling, but we’ve made a few changes to our routine and curriculum, which I’ll tell you about.

First of all, like I mentioned in an earlier post, we’re no longer apart of Classical Conversations. It served us well for many years, but when it was time to quit, I knew it without a doubt. After 7 years, we needed a change. We needed new material to learn, and new ways of learning it. I could sense the kids coasting and myself coasting. This was not the fault of our community, but wholly my own fault. I’d had thoughts of making a change for awhile — and actually tried it a couple years ago, but it didn’t work because I had no real vision for the change. Plus, I was scared. CC was comfortable for us; it was a known. What if I tried something different and failed at it?

As I was having all these thoughts throughout last school year, a close friend of mine, Beth, decided to start a small classical cottage school, and as we chatted about her ideas, it began to seem like the perfect fit for our family.

A cottage school differs from a homeschool co-op in that it’s typically a drop-off program, with teachers and classes that meet once or twice a week. I knew that with Judah entering 7th grade I needed more help teaching him. Classical Conversations does offer great curriculum and weekly seminars for 7th graders, but the parent is still responsible for instruction during the week and for grading. I needed someone to take a couple of entire classes off my shoulders. If Judah had a homework question, I wanted him to be able to email or call his teacher; not me. And I wanted his teacher grading homework and tests. I felt like it would push him in a way doing all his assignments for me doesn’t.

So Beth spent last year planning out the school, and asked me to help teach, along with another of our friends. We had so much fun meeting to plan over last school year and especially this summer. I’m teaching 7th grade writing and literature; Beth teaches science, and our friend Anna Claire teaches Latin and classical studies. That’s it for this first year; we just meet two mornings a week. We have two other paying 7th graders, whose parents drop them off and pick them up, then Beth planned out a whole school morning for the younger kids of us three teachers, who rotate through several subjects during the course of the two mornings, including science, Latin, classical studies, poetry, art, and literature.

Last week was our first week of school at home, then this past week we started the cottage school, which is called Classical Village, and currently meets at our church. I teach the 7th graders English for 55 minutes, then have more or less a free period to do planning (I’m on hand to help Beth with the younger kids as needed) while Anna Claire teaches Latin. Then the last hour, Beth teaches science, and Anna Claire and I have the siblings class. It’s a merry-go-round! A very, very well-organized merry-go-round, thanks to Beth.

Actually, we all marveled at how well the first week went. The kids had a blast. We had a blast. It looks like this thing might actually work!

I did lots of prep this summer, and my biggest fear starting the year was that after teaching all the material I had prepared for my 7th graders, I’d look at the clock, and discover only 20 minutes had passed (I’m pretty sure I had a couple of dreams about that very scenario). Then we’d sit staring awkwardly at one another until it was time to go.

Thankfully, like most of my fears, that one was not realized. Whew. We had five minutes to spare in Tuesday’s writing class, and I ran out of time in our literature class Wednesday (but I bet that doesn’t surprise you one bit).

I thought from time to time I’d share here what we’re doing in class. You can see in the above picture which books we’re reading this year. We’re starting with The Bronze Bow. Elizabeth George Speare is one of my favorite middle grade authors. And the writing curriculum I’m using is The Lost Tools of Writing from the Circe Institute. I’m very impressed with it thus far, but it’s a definite learning curve. I need it though; I love to write, but since it’s something that feels very intuitive to me, I haven’t the slightest idea how to teach it. This curriculum is going to be so fun for both me and the students. One thing I love about it is that their writing assignments will come from the literature we’re reading.

And that’s all for today, friends! It’s Friday night, and I’m switching off the homeschool part of my brain for now, and headed to eat Papa John’s pizza  with my family, and later on, to continue watching The Hunger Games trilogy with David and Judah.

Happy weekend!