We have loved cc. New sub here. I like a lot of your resources especially explode the code. I also have a channel mainly about homeschooling and would love to be friends and connect here!

That was helpful thank you! I am the same the I like to have the house stuff caught up so I’m less distracted during schoolwork time (doesn’t often happen but if the house is clearer so is my brain)!

This was helpful! Thank you

i hate it ;(

Smoking 🚬 🔥

Thanks for only making this a 6.5 minute video! I don’t have time for a 45 min conversation and I was able to take notes! Good stuff that I will be using during our homeschooling today.

Very helpful review! I’m considering joining foundations with my two boys and it’s really hard to navigate the waters of polarized opinions. Your thoughts are quite refreshing.

I see this was 3 years ago so if you stayed with it you would bring in Essentials now. I wonder how your opinion has changed?

Thank you for giving a video that isn’t 45 minutes long

Thank you so much, this was so informative, exactly what I was looking for. I am attending an information meeting tomorrow. I am on my second year of homeschooling, have not joined a group yet, and decided it is time to!!!

Hi there we are a traveling family as well and that is my biggest concern doing the program and having to commit to a day a week for community since our trips are so random. Do you feel like your kids miss out of you skip a couple weeks? Do they get behind or miss their friends?

You are adorable! I’m watching this on someone else’s behalf to help them convince their husband. Very good tips! Thank you so much 😊

Thank you for this video!

Yay!! LOVE all of your content! Greatly appreciate the update! So happy for all y'all <3

Today , your video just jumped in front me.

Thanks God, I was looking for you recently. I kept checking Kingdom Mum which somehow how I remembered you.

Yes, Essentials scares me! My oldest is 8, and we’ve been with CC since she was 4. I’m loving foundations and will definitely watch the videos as you’ve recommended. I love the practicums too!

I am also working from home.. my daughter is in kindergarten and my sons are in preschool and 8 months old, what do you for work?? I would love to see a ditl working from home and homeschooling and housekeeping!

Omg I had to pause the video at 6:22 to leave this comment 😂😂. I already FEEL you, lol.

What blog course do you recommend?

I am 6 minutes in and I lovvveee your video! So helpful!! And love your honesty! Thank you!

I'm enrolling into this for my son he's currently 3. How do I find the informational meetings?

You talked about the seeing the “fruit” so it seems it works but I’m curious have you seen the perspective of the child? As in do the older kids seem like they really enjoy being in the program or are there any testimonials from “graduated” students.

I want to become a coach. I love supporting other mothers and I wanted to see if its an actual thing lol

Well I have a different issue I have two daughters who are generations apart one is 40 and the other one is 23 and one day they are best friends and then the next day they seem to be generations apart in the way they think and then they become it seems quite sharp tongued. At this point my youngest one is not speaking to her older sister and as a Christian I don't know how to help them

I do not want anything to do with KZbin. But I definitely want to do this

Thank u for sharing🌸

Most schools don't allow family vacations during the school year due to each state's mandatory school attendance laws. Here in Pennsylvania, where I live at, children have to be in school for 180 days a year. The schools consider family vacations during the school year an unexcused absence. Six years ago, there was a guy here in suburban Philadelphia who took his two kids out of school for five days because he was running in the Boston Marathon. He then got a letter from the school's principal saying that it was an unexcused absence. He said that his two kids learned more in the five days that they were in Boston instead of them sitting inside of a classroom. The schools have very strict attendance policies that they have to enforce. If the kids aren't in school, the parents are notified. The parents could be charged with truancy. They could also end up going to court, or even to jail! Each school determines which absences are excused and unexcused. And if a family decides to take a vacation during the school, the teachers won't give them any make-up work. I have ready some of the reasons why some parents take their kids of out of school to go on a family vacation. It's much cheaper during the school year than it is during the summer and on school breaks. Some of them have jobs where they can't get any time off during the summer. But to the schools, that is just too bad. I also read that if kids miss to many days of school, it affects their state funding. At least this woman doesn't have to worry about the school calling her wondering why her kids aren't in school, receiving a truancy letter, or having a truant officer show up at her door either. I also read that this one woman didn't have kids just so they can be controlled by the school system. And believe me, she is right. The schools today are taking away parental authority over their kids. And I strongly believe that is one of the reasons why parents are taking their kids out of school and homeschooling them.

A huge misconception is that homeschoolers are all introverts. Community day is a vital part of CC. It’s all about socializing. All the cons aren’t really cons. As a challenge 1 student CC is incredible.

My [problem is that son is supposed to go to what we call high school in UK in Sept at the age of 11. I properly took him out of school at age 10 and he is flourishing and loves homeschooling and works so hard. But husband is scared he will miss out on something in high school. My son and I are so happy. And husband CAN see the change in my happy son. But he still won't budge. I want to cry.

Greetings, good to hear honest feedback about CC. I am a registered Director and I totally understand your pros and cons list. I love the structure and curriculum of CC. Meeting at community day keeps me in touch with moms for friendship and support and allows us all to make connections and form friendships among the Christian community outside our own church. We are also more motivated to do our best and keep going, when we see our friends each week who are working on the same challenges. I also agree that "community day" can be totally crazy, and a deterrent for some. I am someone who enjoys doing things on my own and feel like I could go without the crazy as well but the friends we have all made really start to make the homeschool journey a joy when you've been with most of them for 5 or 6 years (in my experience). In my opinion and especially if you've worked with the curriculum for a few years, you can do CC at home. I know many families who have continued with the curriculum at home during the pandemic acting as mom, tutor, and director for themselves. I also understand the $$ issues. I have chosen to Tutor or Direct all of my CC years to offset the cost of attending. That said, when you have put the time into tutor training, planning meetings, and community day prep. you start to understand the amount of work they put in to make each half hour segment run smoothly and be productive each week. You mentioned looking for fruit, over the years I have been skeptical of paying the fees as well and wondered, can't I just do this on my own; but have seen the evidence that CC cooperate continues to strives and provide the most relevant curriculum, assistance and training to families such as the Free Parent Practicum, and Free Training for Tutors and Directors and new online resources through CCC. Essentials and Challenge years are great! The Foundations work really starts coming together when students start directly applying the grammar in all subjects. :) Rae

Memory work sounds absolutely terrible. I think the community day would be great, but as an educator, memory work is lower brainstem work. 🤷🏻‍♀️

"My opinions are completely unbiased" She is wearing a CC jacket

Very very helpful. Thank you!

Hi, I'm a challenge student. I've been in CC since 2012, my mom tutors, etc. If you're wondering what to expect going into essentials and challenge, this is what I'd have to say. The program is extremely cumulative, as you were saying. I have found that having foundations and essentials has made my challenge experience much easier- I have classmates who came into CC in Challenge and their experience has been more difficult. As far as the travel aspect goes, I did my challenge A and B years without a community because we moved to an extremely rural area and our closest community was three hours away. It's definitely possible to do essentials and challenge without a community, but it's also really sucky. Especially challenge, which is so conversation based. The payoff of challenge is that you spend alot of time doing work during the week and introspecting about it, and a lot of it is forming your own ideas around what you're learning, so if you can't bounce them off of other people, it can feel discouraging. My mom was really helpful during that time because we would have lots of conversations about it, so I guess if you can't make community day I'd encourage that you still put quite a bit of discussion into your time at home, because talking about what you're learning is really important to make Challenge lucrative (so to speak). For anyone reading this who isn't sure about the challenge program, it is a really great followup to F/E. It may seem daunting and it definitely is quite a bit of work, but it is worth it. Getting to Challenge is in some ways the point of F/E, because it's when all those skills come to fruition (the three stages of learning- grammar, dialectic, rhetoric). And CC definitely isn't for everyone. I grew up on it and it matched my personality very well, I'm a social person when it comes to academia so having a space to form my own opinions and think for myself was good for me. I have friends who quit CC because it just didn't work for them, and they're having much more success in public school, private school, or in other homeschool programs. It all really depends on what works for your family so I'd just recommend any person who is considering CC to weigh your options and figure out what is important and financially feasible for your family.

Timer is my favorite thing too !!! I set times for timer for cleaning too And I usually give them little more time and they clean so fast and they are happy that they finished cleaning so much faster that I “expected” them too 🙏🏻

I have a challenge IV student. She has done foundations, essentials, and all of challenge. Challenge is impossible without community. It’s so dependent on discussion and classroom interactions. Foundations and Essentials can be managed without community, but I wouldn’t do it without it. In fact, I’m a former director. We are taking a year off of CC after I resigned and we aren’t doing CC at all. Well except for my challenge IV student. Community is so unique to CC.

New sub here! Great tips! I am also a KZbin homeschool mom of 4 kids!

What do your children think about their time with Classical Conversations? Between the lessons at home and community day?

I was just watching your video we are a traveling family as well do you have any better suggestions for homeschool we have never homeschool before

I find it funny that a con is having to pack lunch once a week, when Im happy to start homeschooling and not have to pack lunch EVERYDAY at 6:30am. for people paying 700$ a month for private School, paying that once a year is magical. I guess it really is a personal experience and every family is different.

REMOVE THE BLUE EYE SHADOW

Do you have an email where I can send you a message? I checked on your page but couldn't find one.

I'm so happy you are back! Looking forward to all your ideas!

I have an introductory meeting this week. I found you by searching classical conversations and I just loved listening to you! I am so overwhelmed right now thinking about homeschooling! I have a 5,4,2, and 4 month old! ☺️🤪

New subscriber here and homeschooling mom to four girls! Great ideas! We are huge fans of letting them read things they are interested in over the summer too to help them develop a love for reading!

New subscriber here! 👋 Thank You for sharing what you’ll be doing during this summer! I could use all the ideas! 👏🏽

“I’m not the best with other people’s kids” hahahahaha same here! Lol

Community day was critical for me in the middle school ages. Grammar was never my strong suit and I as a parent would have been lost with helping my child without the weekly tutoring.