A Break from Classical Conversations and Our New Homeschool Plans

Our new homeschool plans: I wanted to write about our autumn plans for homeschooling sooner. The words were hard to come by. Hard to process. Hard to live. We had been mulling over the idea of taking a year-long break from Classical Conversations for a while now.

Our last year of CC was, well, I find it hard to describe it so let's say hard. It felt that from out of the gate I was never "woohoo excited" about the school year. The kids never got woohoo excited about it either. We slowly started talking about it and came to a mutual agreement as a family that we all felt homeschooling had become more chore like than something any of us were actually enjoying.

Please don't misunderstand, we've enjoyed Classical Conversations. We are not kool-aid drinking fans by any means but we definitely see the value of CC and this isn't a "here are the reasons we hate cc" kind of post.

In the early spring I knew that the registration for the 2020-1 school year would be approaching and we had to make a decision. Nick and I talked together. We talked to the kids together. We talked to them individually. We prayed about it a lot. In the end we felt it was needed to take a step back from Classical Conversations and embark on homeschooling on our own again.

Then Corona hit.

Oh, 'Rona.

With all of the quarantining and all of the being in our house alone, I must tell you, I really am thinking Classical Conversations and having the kids with friends again would be great.

But we are sticking with our decision to take a break.

Why are we taking a break? Why switching things up?

Some factors have included:

We've got a girl who wants to be a vet and needs to have schedule flexibility to volunteer at animal shelters.

We've realized after talking to people and looking at the high school program that science is not super strong in CC. We need to get going with some strong science skills and our schedule with CC was not affording us a lot of extra time.

One of our kiddos is not ready for the next level of CC that is offered. We are kind of calling this their purgatory year because they are just kind of in the middle, waiting. ha

We've got a kiddo who expressed that they would like to be able to spend a bit longer mulling things over before moving on with a group.

Being completely transparent here, Classical Conversations is a lot of money. I am not very good at being a business owners wife, yet. The variable income gets me a little sweaty under the collar and until I can make sense of any regularity I feel like Scrooge McDuck, scooping up all the money to save, just in case. I know I need to trust God, to let it go. Let's just say I'm working on it. :)

We've got another kiddo who feels like a failure when they don't get all of their work for CC done. Despite the tailoring and modifying suggestions offered, it has always been a battle. Which is why I said above that it feels like there isn't a lot of extra time. There can in fact me as much time as we'd like but we as a family put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get the make the most out of the program, to get the best value, and to do all of the work of the program. Again, self-inflicted expectations.

I am working full time and Nick is running his empire. Time is stretched a bit thin and we were finding that we were not devoting time to the kiddos like we should have.

So what is our plan for this upcoming school year?

Well we've got some super fantastic friends in a nature group, our new homeschool plans include joining them.

We are doubling up on science to make it very challenging.

We are going to devote more time to math than we ever have before.

We're embarking on some new curriculum companies in an effort for this mama to live outside of her comfort zone.

We're going to be spending time volunteering.

We are going to be spending a lot of time on therapies for Cal. Trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn't.

We are going to be working on staying hyper-focused while also not letting this mama become too tightly wound. I'm not sure that there is actually a sweet spot in between those things but we will see. When I go into new homeschool plans I'm always aware that my focus, or lack there of will affect the entire operation. But I'm thinking it we'll have a lot of fun while still getting oodles done...We can always stay hopeful, right?

I'll share soon what we are using for our curriculum this year. There are a few subjects I am still mulling over but for the most part I have a good idea on what I want to use.

This may change but we are looking at this as simply a year-long break from CC. We are planning on going back for the 2021-2 school year and rocking it out. I don't necessarily believe that CC is made for every child, so we're seeing how some new curriculums affect the learning in our home.

We love our friends and the groups experiences that Classical Conversations has afforded us. But I think in the place we are right now as a family, a little breathing room is what we need.

So those are our new homeschool plans for this upcoming school year.

I know school decisions are crazy confusing and hard...especially this year! I wanted to share how we've had the same struggles here and how I totally get it!

If I can help you in any way please feel free to reach out!

I am happy to help with whatever questions you may have... I have 10 years of homeschooling experience so I get what you are going through.

Happy schooling, friends!

Need some help: Here is some encouragement for you for when homeschooling gets hard!