Classical Conversations and J

Since I wrote about the benefits that Miss K received from Classical Conversations, I thought I should write a bit about how it was good for J. My goal for him was to do Memory Master. I didn't push it much until we got to spring and then we talked about it.  At that point I knew he could do it and so I encouraged him to do it. He took some of the ownership for this.

I think for him the memory work was excellent. In math he learned his multiplication tables to 15. That was quite a challenge for him but good for him. He enjoyed his history sentences. The fact that there was a song with it made it easier to remember. I will say that when it came to testing he gave a few of us some grey hair. We knew he knew the material but he got nervous and froze so it took some time to get it out of him.



J was did the afternoon program. Essentials was not my favorite part. Personally, I had a hard time following what we were learning and felt that it was presented in a scatter fashion. I did like the charts. J was quite impressed that he learned to diagram.

I loved the IEW portion of the afternoon. We have not done a formal writing program up to this time and I did like IEW and the skills that were taught. It is great to see how something learned is later transferred to something else. J was writing a journal entry and read it to me pointing out that he had used a who/which clause, a prepositional opened and an -ly word. He also started a story and got to chapter 2. That was impressive. I liked it so much that I bought IEW for us to use next year.

Because of travel and moving we will not be part of CC next year and there is part of us that is sad about that. I learned some things that I am including in our lessons. We are writing history sentences and working to make sure we understand the list of major events. We will use IEW and add some Latin into our lessons next year.