So, here I was checking out curriculum. It was my first glance at real homeschool methodoligies and books. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I wanted to see it all! There were two ladies sitting at a table with no impressive display, just some photo copies on yellow paper. I almost kept walking. I mean...really, don't you know you need a flashly display to draw attention. However, my sweet friend Teri (who was also an overachiever) was with me and insisted that we stop.
This is all I remember.
*Classical (this Must mean music...shoot...I don't know anything about music...but you KNOW my child Will!)
*Conversations (Hmmm....not sure what to do with this, but OK)
* $13/week for 2 1/2 hours of time (WOW!!!! That is WAY cheaper than the 15-20 bucks I was considering spending on half an hour of dance or gymnastics)
*Music class (I mean...of course, it says Classical in the title)
*Ages 4-12 (Yeah, well....uh, you know...my three year old is REALLY well behaved, and smart, and she's super obedient, and she even knows her alphabet and can count really high. I'm sure my three year old would be JUST fine! )
However, the ladies at the table insisted that she must be 4 and that I should wait a year. Disappointed...I mean, big, FAT, Disappointment is how I felt. I walked away, with my head hanging, clinging to my yellow photo copied paper for dear life, trying to figure out what I would do now.
**I should note that just a few minutes later someone unreleated to CC walked up to me and asked how old my oldest was. When I told them three (with a big cheesy grin) they said, "What are you doing here? Your kids are to young to homeschool." This broke my heart and totally embarrassed me. I never went back to another one of those meetings....even as I progressed in my homeschool years. It almost ruined me for homeschooling, but I suppose that could be a different post altogether. I just want to say....Don't say that to someone. It's not nice. It's discouraging and not true.
Soooo....fast forward to the following year. I tried my darndest to get my 4 year old into a local CC group. I had a really hard time contacting the director (even though I knew her), and by the time I got a hold of her, classes were full. Guess what I felt again...Big, FAT Disappointment! I mean...my daughter was FINALLY FOUR! Don't they know how long I waited?!?!
A few days later, I got a hold of the director for the Ft. Myers community and she invited me to visit. I drove almost an hour (I mean...I was dedicated!). We walked into a class with not a single idea of what CC was or what to expect. To be honest, I walked out almost as clueless as when I walked in. Lucky for them, they were in week 8 which meant they were learning Tin Whistle...or else I would have been wondering where the music was (I mean, this is classical, right?)
After far to much conflict in my own head (when I make decisions I act like I can never undue them), I made the life changing choice to enroll in this strange program. Truly, I acted like I was signing my life away...weird, I know.
So, here we were, finally in a Classical Conversations community, listening to crazy sentences about history, science, math (skip counting?), geography, English grammar (wait...I thought grammar was grammar, but they were calling this subject English grammar,and the whole half hour "New Grammar", I was so confused!), and Latin! Latin! I've never taken Latin! My daughter is going to be Sooooo smart! I watched children give presentations, we did science projects that I thought were weird, played some games, and oh yeah, those crazy little people blew in those tin whistles (where do I get one anyway?)
Looking back on myself 4 years ago, I'm sure I looked as confused as I was...but...I was loving it! I mean, this is IT. This is what I want to do!
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| Reviewing something :) |
By the end of the year, I finally figured out the routine, but never understood the madness to the method. That is...until I attended Practicum. I had no idea what Practicum meant. I don't think I could even remember the word most of the time. All I know is that it was amazing and opened my eyes to words and methods I had never heard about before. The funny speaker lady (who I later figured out was the Amazing Betsy Leslie) told stories about coo-coo clocks, shared her family's homeschool journey and introduced me to words such as trivium, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. By the end of the 3 days, I actually had a pretty good understanding of what those words meant! Finally, I "got it", and I was SOLD!
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| learning to trace |
Excitedly, I entered our second year of CC, this time in a brand new Naples community. Ready to tutor, to encourage my friends, and spread my roots deep into the beautiful foundation we were building for our children's education. Until, a fast decision, and God's hand quickly moved us to Tampa.
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| Impromptu park date with CC friends to practice memory work |
We moved over Christmas break, and within 15 months of starting CC, I was already in my third community. Sad to leave my friends, but eager to make new ones, I tried not to "rock the boat" to much in my new community. However, I obviously have a hard time sitting on my hands, and I'm always working on more self control over my words and actions. We finished out the year with a friend or two after a fairly quick move to a place we have never been before. It was working. I signed on a tutor the next year, hopeful that I wouldn't have to move communities again. I mean, I had yet been able to stay in community for an entire 24 weeks.
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| A beautiful celebration cake made by a very talented mom! |
By the end of the this third year, I was feeling the Lord leading me in a change but I wasn't sure what it was. Another tutor in our community had recently become a Support Manager and was sharing with us about the need for more communities in our area. There were people pulling their children out of school, but receiving very little or no support in their homeschool adventures. I started praying. After some discussions, I decided to go ahead and walk through the process of applying to be a director. I mean...they could have said no ;) .....
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