Classical Conversations Co-op Questions

[Josie]

Has anyone done a Classical Conversations Co-op? If yes, I have some questions.

1. What grades?
2. Did your children enjoy it?
3. Did your children learn?
4. Did you find it an enjoyable experience?
5. Was there time for your children to make friends at the co-op?
6. Do you feel a GREAT education can be had by doing Classical Conversations?
7. Did you use Saxon math? They do Saxon from 7th grade up. I am not partial to Saxon and I wonder if I could just opt out of that part. Has anyone opted out of the math?
8. What was the cost for your program? Was it worth it?
9. Did this help you stay on track with classical education?

Please feel free to tell me even more if you like. I just want to get the pros and cons. I am posting this on both K-8 and high school boards.

TIA!

[Another Lynn]

Has anyone done a Classical Conversations Co-op? If yes, I have some questions.

1. What grades?3rd, and K
2. Did your children enjoy it?My 3rd grader more than my K - but then I have been my K's tutor so maybe that's why :) We tried my 4 yo but she wasn't ready
3. Did your children learn?Actually, I'm not sure. My 3rd grader already knew so much history. Honestly we have not given the memory work as much time at home as we should - mostly due to my pregnancy (ms, etc.)
4. Did you find it an enjoyable experience?We have LOVED the other families, the friends we've made. I have appreciated the opportunity for my dc to give presentations
5. Was there time for your children to make friends at the co-op?Yes, I think so.
6. Do you feel a GREAT education can be had by doing Classical Conversations?possibly
7. Did you use Saxon math? They do Saxon from 7th grade up. I am not partial to Saxon and I wonder if I could just opt out of that part. Has anyone opted out of the math?we do not use saxon. It definitely wouldn't matter in foundations - not sure about the challenges
8. What was the cost for your program? Was it worth it?Because I tutored, I ended up being able to pay for my tuition. I'm not sure it was worth it... I'll explain below
9. Did this help you stay on track with classical education?I think there might be some aspects of classical ed. that are clearer to me now, but I'm not sure it's helping me stay on track with my goals... more below

Please feel free to tell me even more if you like. I just want to get the pros and cons. I am posting this on both K-8 and high school boards.

TIA!

For me, I have found it hard to accomplish what I wanted to for school this year having only 4 days at home instead of 5. I was excited about CC because I thought of it as accomplishing our science, music, and art without much effort from me. I also looked at the memory work as an "add on" to my other plans. In hindsight, I think I would have been better off to have structured out entire year around CC. I think someone who really bought into it and structured their entire homeschool around it would have success. I think adding it on to other goals will be frustrating. BTW, we did not participate in essenstials, but the little I know from people who have - they either loved it or hated it. To summarize, I think it's a great program, but just probably not what we are looking for. Clear as mud?

[GVA]

This was a good one and has my post with a link to my CC blog:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7415

It's been great for us, and year after next my oldest will be in Challenge A, Lord willing. I'll note though that I am not a WTM neoclassical educator in terms of their schedule and some of their approach. I have found the CC approach to neoclassical homeschooling much more doable for us, and my style/priorities mesh well with the group we're with.

The exact prices are on the website, but it runs around $450/year per child for Foundations, and about $350/year per child for Essentials. Your best source for the exact cost is the Director of the program you're thinking about because there is some slight variability depending on facility fees, supplies, insurance, etc.

And yes, you can opt out of the math if you like for 7th grade and up, but keep in mind that priority is given to full-time enrollment. I'm OK with Saxon, but I'm a little concerned about getting the exact level of Saxon that we need it. We'll adapt though.

[Staci in FL]

We have a third grader, a five year old and a four year old enrolled. The oldest two enjoy it, but the four year old despises it, primarily because of the presentation time, where they have to stand up and do a show and tell sort of thing. She is shy and hates that part of it. They are learning the memory work, but it is because of listening to the CD at home, following up on the material at home and watching the Power Point; they are definitely not learning during class. Our kids have made friends as the class sizes are limited to about eight and the kids get to know each other very well. I believe that a GREAT education can be provided by CC in later years (middle school and up), but for elementary school age, IMO, it is not nearly enough. For the three children, I paid around $1200 and that does not include the books that we had to buy, or the CDs/PowerPoint.

In general, I LOVE the program for the memory work part of it. The program for the younger years provides a fantastic platform for memorization, which is the cornerstone of the grammar stage. However, I look at the memory work as "extra", and spending the entire day there does not meet our goals for third grade because, as the other poster said, it whittles us down to only a four day a week school week. I don't think of the time there as a good, full day of school. And four days just doesn't work when life interrupts....

Now...all of that said...I am very confident in educating classically as per WTM. If a homeschooler was not confident and needed some direction in this area, I think CC would be a great help to that mom.

One word of caution...the program is only going to be as good as the tutors in your individual child's class. Our program direction is amazingly wonderful, but I've found some of the tutors to not be as prepared or enthusiastic as I'd like them to be (I hope I sound nice saying this!). Because of my dissatisfaction with that, we won't be returning next year. I'd highly suggest attending a class before the end of the year to observe, and inquire who is going to be your child's tutor.

My plan for next year is to do all of the memory work at home because I've never seen anything like it. We'll be adding in IEW's Poetry Memorization program (because CC doesn't do poetry). That will provide us with time to do science the way WTM lays it out, and the same for art and music, which we simply don't have time to do and is not being done they way the founder of CC intended it in our group.

And my kids' presentations will just have to be done for their grandparents!

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Staci

[Kathie in VA]

1. What grades?
Last year I had 3 kids in Foundations (grades 1, 5 and 6). This year I just have the 2nd and 6th graders in Foundations.
2. Did your children enjoy it?
My oldest would have preferred more kids her age and gender but overall they all enjoyed it.
3. Did your children learn?
Yes they are all learning. I have all my kids prep for their presentations by reading more on the current history sentence or one of the timeline cards. This builds some depth in the areas of interest. Even my 3 year old is reciting some of the history sentences.
4. Did you find it an enjoyable experience?
Yes for the most part. It's not perfect but it's working. We are getting lots of memory work done... and zooming thru history.
5. Was there time for your children to make friends at the co-op?
Yes... either during lunch or at recess.
6. Do you feel a GREAT education can be had by doing Classical Conversations?
Yes
7. Did you use Saxon math? They do Saxon from 7th grade up. I am not partial to Saxon and I wonder if I could just opt out of that part. Has anyone opted out of the math?
No we use a different math program but then again it doesn't matter in the Foundations program. We are not doing either the Essentials or Challenge programs.
8. What was the cost for your program? Was it worth it?
That's online but this year is was less for me since I also tutored ... this is a paid position so it off set the cost for me.
9. Did this help you stay on track with classical education?
Actually it threw me off a bit. I was trying to do a 4 year history cycle but *I* couldn't keep up AND do this course. Either way it's still classical, just a different method. It is doing a great job of getting the basics down for my boys.

Classical Conversations offers three programs: Foundations, Essentials, and their Challenge programs. I've only chosen the Foundations program. I have already chosen Classical Writing for our LA, so I don't want to do IEW also... thus I see Essentials as overkill for us. I don't see us going for the Challenge programs either. They just do things different then I had planned. They don't specifically teach history which I think my kids still need. I don't think they specifically teach informal logic and I think they go thru formal logic too quickly ( but I can be wrong here ). I also don't see a specific course on Rhetoric basics, which I do hope to get to study. It's just a different progression then I hope to accomplish... but it's not a bad one.

hth