Basically CC is a one day a week co-op that is academically strong. You
can look at Sonlight® as your curricula and at CC as academic enrichment. It is
the one day you can get out of the house and CC enhances what your children are
learning, gives your kids timeline and historical “hooks” to put their
information on when they learn it.
In Foundations [done in the morning] they learn memory facts on
different subjects: Bible, history, science, Latin, Math, Grammar and Geography. They memorize time line information and one sentence summaries of various historical events.
They also cover art, music and a science experiment along with a weekly
presentation in front of their class of peers and a family presentation in
front of the whole group once a year. These oral presentations in CC give them practice with something that isn’t easy to replicate at home.
Essentials [afternoon classes]
covers
grammar in-depth, IEW writing and math games (to help them get the facts down
pat). There
isn’t any reading or in depth study. It is mostly an academically strong
enrichment that compliments Sonlight® nicely. You would still do a full core but
usually you start each day with about a 15 minute review of their
CC memory work for that week. If
you do the afternoon Essentials in CC you will not need to use the Sonlight® Language Arts as it includes grammar and writing.
All
this to say Classical Conversation and Sonlight® work well together. If the CC
cycle of the year matches your Sonlight core theme, that is great, but it
is not necessary. If your child is doing Sonlight® American History, for
example, and the CC cycle is Ancient History, it can still work. Just look at
SL as your curricula and the memory work your child is doing in CC will serve
him well when he gets to Ancient history. Even though he may not be currently doing a full study in that time period, he will memorize information that
will be reinforced when he studies that time period in more depth in later
years.
If you have anything to add to this I would love to get your input as I would like to be able to help people put together the best curriculum for their family...whether it involves using Classical Conversations or any other program.
Take care,
Jill
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Thank you for this. I've been pondering this question. This is our first year with SL and enjoy it. We also just started CC and my two LOVE it. The community is great as well.
ReplyDeleteThank you for answering my question! Sonlight is our first love, academically, and I wanted to find a way to seamlessly or not so much work on my part, keep memorization in. My daughter loves to memorize, yet, I found it a dreaded task for me to constantly prepare what to memorize, when, etc. This way I could just facilitate it. :) I was struggling to find out how the cores could align with the CC cycle. I am thankful to know that it really does not have to. :)
ReplyDeleteso how did it go?
DeleteHi Lynette,
ReplyDeleteI want to be sure everyone understands that I did not do Sonlight with Classical Conversations. My children had already graduated when CC came to my area. I gleaned a lot of this information from friends who did combine the two.
I think what many people don't understand is that CC is NOT a curriculum. When you get to the high school age it is, but in the younger years it is a once a week supplement. Your kids will learn lots of facts, do experiments and projects and do oral speaking, but they will not get in-depth study. By learning the facts, they will have the pegs to hang the information they will learn from other disciplines through the years.
ReplyDeleteThe CC model is useful, but is not complete in and of itself. By combining Sonlight and CC you have the best of both worlds. Your kids learn through the power of stories--they are able to put themselves into the shoes of other people in different places and times and to immerse themselves in joyful learning. CC gives them the timeline to put their Sonlight stories on. You do not have to have your CC rotation and your SL rotation match up--in fact I almost think it is better if they don't. If your kids learn about the ancients in CC and then next year they learn about the ancients in SL, it will reinforce what they have already heard about.
Either way works great. For my money, Sonlight provides everything your child needs to learn and for you to teach. But, if you want to supplement with memory, fellowship, experiments and public speaking, then CC deserves a close look.
I hope this helps,
Jill
I cannot decide what to do. I used Sonlight for 2 yrs and felt like I could not keep up with the reading. I have been debating on CC but it is very expensive. Not sure what to do.
ReplyDelete