Celebration Day!

We've come to the end of our first year with Classical Conversations. This program has been a fantastic addition to our homeschooling adventures. The kids have grown socially, emotionally and of course, academically. For celebration day, each of the classes put together a creative way to share with family and friends some of the memory work, fine arts and science that they have learned through the year.

Connor and Cailin's class put together a 20 minute skit that displayed various talents and memory work.

Cailin played a flute piece from Dvorak, a 1800s composer from Czechoslovakia. She practiced beautifully and was quite good with her piece, however, during the performance her hair fell into her face and got in the way of her mouth piece and she didn't do it perfectly. I was quite proud of how well she kept her composure and continued on with grace. Well done.

She also portrayed Claude Monet. She wrote a brief bio of him, dressed up and acted it out for the audience.

Connor, along with Elijah and Blake, quoted memory work-- Latin, history sentences and timeline cards in a dialog form. Blake is also an excellent violinist, he performed quick lively music from the baroque era of Vivaldi They had many 'guest appearances'. Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis's on the door again, William Shakespeare quoted from his Julius Caesar play, Beethoven performed on the piano, Benjamin Franklin (shown above), rediscovered electricity and gave us sage advice from his 'Poor Richard's Almanac. Artist, Rembrandt, Morisot, and Monet also shared events and artwork from their lives. Greta tied the information together as the narrator. At the beginning of our school year with CC, Delaney was quite apprehensive about joining in this group--alone. She did quite well when I was there, but without me, well, that's another story. For the first half of the year, during Essentials class, she chose to stay with me in the classroom, quietly coloring and reading books....and being quite bored! After a few months, I had her sit in the hallway, so as not to disrupt the grammar lessons. She saw the kids in the gym playing and having fun. Still, it took her a few months to overcome fears, but she now gladly joins the younger kids having fun playing in the gym, watching videos or play outside while the older kids are writing and learning grammar. She's come quite a ways in emotionally being strong. Way to go Delaney!

Here's one of her class mates, Emma. Emma is sharing the flag of Ireland.

For celebration day, their class took the word 'CELEBRATION' and each kid picked out a favorite bit of memory work that they learned and shared it with the audience.

Emma had fun learning about Ireland at home--in geography they learned the countries, cities, and features of Europe, Asia and parts of Central America and Africa.

Delaney's letter was 'C'....for the Cold War. All of the history sentences were put to music. Some weeks the music was fun and upbeat....these became a favorite sentence for all to sing. The song of the cold war was one of these. It had a definite 1980's theme to the beat--it brought me back to my teen years.

'In the 1980's....Oooooo, British Prime Minister Ma (aaaa)rgre(eeee) t Thatcher, and the US President Ro(oooo)anld Re(eee)agan, fought together to end the cold war, lessen big government, strengthen the conservative mo(ooooo)vement." She also shared her favorite way to learn memory work. When the weather is nice I will go out with them and sit in the middle of the trampoline as they jump around me in circles shouting their memory work.....weird, but it works!

Delaney's Class--(on floor) Emma, Jake Ansley , (above) Ansley's brother, Emma , Kayla , Meredith , Jackson

Giving Mrs East a great big HUG!!

It's not a celebration day with out goodies....Yummy!

L to R(on floor) Emma, Celia, Asia, Cailin, Greta.

Essentials class was two hours of intense learning and FUN!! Mrs. Jacobs was an incredible tutor who helped the kids unlock the mystery of grammar (and for me too) and the structure and style of good writing. Some of their favorite times with grammar were the diagramming races, playing charades with vocabulary words and Cailin's favorite racing the tutor with mastery work.

Cailin's award for the year was "Most Subtle Spitfire." She was rather quiet, but occasionally her charming fighting spirit came out and--Watch Out!

Connor was presented with the "Most Witty Writer" award. He is quiet clever with words and Mrs Jacobs always look forward to reading his witty charm.

She told me how remarkable each of them had done, being their first year with CC, they kept pace with their classmates and surpassed all expectations. Well Done!

A Great 'High Five' for a super year!!