CC Cycle 3 Week 1: Columbus

So, I have a confession to make.

This is our first repeat cycle with Classical Conversations.  Although I very fervently believe in the process (and I do), I wasn't exactly sure what our first repeat cycle would look like.  After all... the last time we learned about American history, my kiddos looked like...

....this.

Oh my.  Blast from the past, right?  

When we began CC, Leah was four and a half and beginning kindergarten.  Logan was just two, and little Livvy was all of about one month old.  Back then, I was extremely impressed by the incredible acquisition of facts, retention of dates, and advanced vocabulary CC provided.  

But.  Three cycles?  The same three cycles repeated for the next seven years?  Would it really work?

As we began this week, it took literally three minutes for my faith in the Classical method to be confirmed.  Because, my kid?  She knows this stuff.  She doesn't remember it all, exactly, but this information is definitely in there.  

It was so much fun to see the marked difference between Leah and Logan - who learned everything together last year at roughly the same pace.  Logan is going through this information for the first time, and I have to go slow, pause often and repeat many times (which is perfectly normal.  This is the foundational part of the Classical process, and he is doing an amazing job!).

What is so incredible, what I had heard stories of but had never yet witnessed for myself, is the incredible growth that happens as they go through the information again.  Leah hears it once and has it because she remembers this information from three years ago.  It's CRAZY!  AMAZING!!  And most of all, delightful.  Such a joy to bear witness to this beautiful learning process. Because she has the vocabulary down, we can begin to go deeper and explore topics with dimension and enthusiasm. 

This week's focus was on Columbus, who, I'll be honest, we've read rather a lot about in the past.  So, although we refreshed our memories on the basics, we didn't spend a ton of time on him and focused our attention instead to what life was like as the first colonists began to build their lives in the New World.

This week's reading list: 

This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall: The Adventures of John Smith

Story of the World: Columbus

Roanoake: The Lost Colony by Jane Yolen

Paddle to the Sea Ch. 3

Burgess Animal Book by Thornton Burgess

The Adventurous Life of Myles Standish by Cheryl Harness

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Poetry: When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne

Composer: J.S. Bach (Becoming Bach by Tom Leonard)

Picture Study: Mrs. Noah Smith and Her Children by Ralph Earl (1798)

We are focusing our attention on one virtue per month.  This month, we're learning about Respect.  They've defined it and memorized a Bible verse to support the virtue.

This week, we identified and practiced some ways that we can show respect in our actions, and read about how even wolves use respect as an important part of their pack dynamic.

Since it was our first week back with CC, we set up the science notebooks I created for them.  Each week, they'll do a brief reading and activity to reinforce our science memory work (which focuses on anatomy and chemistry this year).

It's so fun to watch the little things that kids enjoy.  Coloring and getting to decorate their science notebooks with stickers took so much longer than I'd anticipated, because they were so excited and took such care in their work.

When they had at last adequately beautified their notebooks, it was time to get down to business.

As my pre-writer, Logan is practicing cutting and pasting his together.  

At 7, Leah reads through the information for us and can write her own answers. 

And, of course, my little Livvy, hard at work.  The ways in which she keeps herself busy as we do school are truly a wonder.  Someday, I'll have to do a post on what she does while we do school.  It's pretty impressive in its own right. 

The two big ones also watched, with alternating disappointment and awe, the Disney movie Pocahontas.  Awe because, well, it might be one of the most astonishingly beautiful movies Disney has ever done.  And the soundtrack?!  It wow-ed us.  Having read several accounts of  both Pocahontas's and John Smith's life, the plot line left something to be desired.  

BUT --- the fact that they recognized and discussed that all on their own?  I'll take it!