The Lost Tools of Thinking

Last year, our homeschool community, Classical Conversations, introduced the Lost Tools of Writing program as parts of the 7th and 8th grade curricula. This was a good, good thing. I am no expert in the Lost Tools curriculum or in the application of all it has to offer, but what I have seen has been fantastic. I offer you one thought in particular to express my excitement.

Classical Conversations students study grammar and composition through our Essentials program from around 9-years-old through age 12 (plus or minus a few months.) Here they learn how to recognize and use the parts of speech, how to classify a sentence from one of the 112 possible choices, how to make a key word outline, how to diagram a sentence, how to write an essay, how to write from a source, as well as from image prompts, how to present their essay in front of an audience, etc. They also do much, much more than this, but being a dad, I'm not in class with them every week, so my list is shorter than it could be.

Hey, CC Dads! Are You Ready for Cycle 3?

(Note: 2015-2016 Foundations families will be going through Cycle 1 Memory work.)

Hey, CC Dads. July is nearing an end, which means that the 2014-2015 academic year is upon us. In just a few weeks, our wives and kiddos will be loading up in the van once a week to head to the local Classical Conversations campus for their community day. Their summer schedule will end. Their school year schedule will begin, and most of our schedules will continue unabated. We will go to work at the same time every morning and come home at the same time in the evening (unless you work the 2nd or 3rd shift.) The day-in/day-out schedule of a working man is not too terribly exciting, but we’re not complaining; a status quo of work is good to have—day-in/day-out.

This can cause a “disconnect” between us and our families as the new school year begins. After all, it’s their lives that are changing, not ours, right? But what if that is entirely the wrong attitude to have—so entirely wrong that we could call it an unbiblical attitude? After all, the Apostle Paul told fathers “to raise their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4) Our wives have been given to us as blessed helpers, but they’re helping us with the mandate that God has bestowed upon us. If this “disconnect” that seems so intrinsic, so seemingly unavoidable, between homeschool dads and their homeschool families is unbiblical, then it is one that can certainly be avoided.

Introducing, Quite Possibly, Your Next Favorite Book

As the 2014 Classical Conversations Parent Practicum season nears its end, everybody and their brother have probably received their very own copy of the 2014 Classical Conversations catalog. CC hands them out like candy at the practicums. (If you don’t have one, visit www.classicalconversations.com to order one, or to save time, view the online catalog.) 

As we get our mitts on each year’s catalog, we might be tempted to flip through the pages and jump right to our areas of interest. I know I tend to do that with Challenge 1 and 2, because those are the Challenge programs that I tutor. Then later, I check out everybody else’s stuff and read the articles. Well, there’s another page near the beginning that doesn’t belong in anyone in particular, because it belongs to everyone reading the catalog (in fact, most of the catalog is not program specific), but the page I’m referring to specifically is page 10: the “Parent Resources” page.