Camp Hain

011 Navigating Homeschooling for 9-11 Year Olds: A Guide to Classical Conversations Essentials

• Tia Hain • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Exploring Classical Conversations Essentials: Homeschooling 9-11 Year Olds

In this episode, Tia Hain, a Classical Conversations Challenge A Director, delves into the Essentials program of the Classical Conversations homeschool curriculum, specifically tailored for children ages 9-11. Tia explains how the program functions, covering its weekly schedule, grammar and writing instruction, and its integration with history lessons. She highlights the use of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and the upcoming Math Map component. Tia also offers insights on how Essentials prepares children for middle and high school Challenge programs, discusses the cyclical learning approach, and shares personal experiences on the benefits of this curriculum.

In-Depth Honest Review of Classical Conversations - https://youtu.be/5JEpBEuKSfU
Classical Conversations - https://classicalconversations.com/

00:00 Introduction to Homeschooling and Classical Conversations
00:16 Overview of Classical Conversations Essentials
01:38 Essentials Program Structure and Content
02:47 Grammar and Writing in Essentials
07:42 Math in Essentials and The Math Map
09:31 Cycles and Tours in Classical Conversations
15:01 Foundations Program and Transition to Essentials
16:29 Conclusion and Personal Experiences
18:46 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Episodes

011 Homeschool 9, 10 and 11 Year Olds

Tia: [00:00:00] Is it possible to homeschool your 9, 10, or 11 year old? Is it possible to do it well? Will they learn anything if you homeschool them? Would you even want to homeschool them? The answer to these questions is yes, yes, yes, and, well, that depends on your personality. Before we go any further, I am going to be talking about a very specific curriculum called Classical Conversations and their very specific part of their curriculum called Essentials, which as you might have guessed, is geared to 9, 10, and 11 year olds.

Have you been looking at Classical Conversations as a homeschool curriculum? Have you been trying to figure out essentials? Or are you already using Classical Conversations and are about to move into essentials, but trying to get a handle on it? What is it? Who is it for? Why does it exist? How does it fit into the rest of Classical Conversations, also known as CC?

All these questions and more will be answered in this podcast episode. But first

Welcome to Camp Hain, the adventures of a [00:01:00] Catholic family that homeschools, public schools, online schools, and has one super obsessed with baseball kid. Currently, I, Tia Hain, am a Classical Conversations Challenge A Director. A lot of this podcast is related to that for now. I upload a new podcast every Friday, other videos on YouTube as well, and I also post videos about math, mostly algebra, because that's what I'm tutoring right now, and our life.

We love our adventures, so come along for the ride, and click subscribe or follow if you are a homeschooler or are thinking about homeschooling, or even if this content just interests you. I've said the things, now let's move on into the content.

If you are wondering what Classical Conversations is or looking for an in depth review of the overall program, I just did that a couple of weeks ago and I'll put a link in the show notes description.

 How most Classical Conversations communities are set up is you meet one day a week. If you listen to the review that I did a couple weeks ago, it goes over exactly how this is set up. [00:02:00] In the morning time is when you have the Foundations kids, which are the littler kids, and they learn the stuff that goes into Essentials.

It gets them ready for Essentials. But in the afternoon, after lunch for two hours, the 9, 10, and 11 year olds do the Essentials program. Now, this is a quote from the Classical Conversations website. Essentials is a bridge between the grammar and the dialectic arts that prepares students for the middle and high school Challenge programs.

As you guessed by the age range, they go along with how public schools are set up. After the kids are done with Essentials at 11 years old, the next year, when they are 12, they go into the Challenge program, starting with Challenge A, which is what I direct right now, this year, as I'm recording this podcast.

 Some basics of what they go over during that two hours is they go over grammar. The type of grammar that we would think of as the public school system [00:03:00] grammar. Sentences, they go over structure of sentences, the purpose of sentences, sentence patterns. How to parse and diagram a sentence, so you know what all those parts are doing. What they're supposed to be doing. Where they are. How they work in our English language.

 They also go over parts of speech. There are eight basic parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, conjunction, interjection, preposition, and adjective. All of our English language can be broken up into one of those eight parts of speech. The kids learn those parts of speech. How they work. How they're supposed to work within a sentence, et cetera, all that good stuff.

They also work on a writing program called Institute for Excellence in Writing. Now, this is an absolutely fabulous writing program. 

How the writing program works is it starts off with teaching the kids how to come up with what is called a keyword outline. It gives them a piece of writing, something that is simple. Cause remember they know they're [00:04:00] working with nine, 10 and 11 year olds here. In fact, Institute for Excellence in Writing makes a very specific part of their program just for Classical Conversations for this age range.

They make it just for them. They have a whole different other program that you could go onto their website and find and order. And it is fabulous also, but they make a specific one for Classical Conversations for the kids in this age range. 

For your first week, the kids are going to get a very short piece of writing. It's usually informative, something that's more research based, but sometimes it's also more in story format. And this is where they're learning how to make that keyword outline. They would take the first sentence and they would rework that ... they are only using three written words, but they can use as many numbers or symbols as they want to represent what it says in that sentence.

Tia: They can look at what they wrote in their keyword outline and come [00:05:00] up with the same idea of what was in that sentence in the actual piece of writing. 

 Hopefully that makes sense. Sometimes it's a little easier to see it done. One of the nice things with Essentials program is you get access to the videos of, his name is Andrew Pudewa. He teaches how to teach this to kids. 

 He has a program where he recorded him showing actual teachers how to use this program with their students and being part of that Essentials program, we would go to what's called watch parties. We'd all get together all the moms and dads the ones who are teaching their kids. We would go to someone's house, and we would watch these videos on how to teach this program to your kids. It's really wonderful and it makes it so easy to do.

That shows the kids how to have a keyword outline . They're not just copying something verbatim . Using this Institute for Excellence in Writing program, the kids learn [00:06:00] how to do research type writing really well. And this is a very good age for doing more research type writing because kids are very fact based at this age . They aren't as into creative writing. Some are, don't get me wrong. You've got some kids that are very much into creative writing at this age, but the majority of kids, they're very fact based.

This is a good time for them to learn how to do this type of writing. In the future, when they need to do research type writing, they know how to take notes from what they're instead of copying whole sentences verbatim and possibly plagiarizing. 

 They use this keyword outline format. They go through the entire piece of writing. It's usually only maybe five, six sentences when they're first learning how to do this. They put it into a keyword outline, then they put the piece of writing away and they take their keyword outline and recreate what the piece of writing is. This way it's not verbatim, [00:07:00] but they're still getting the same idea across. 

 They're learning how to do this and they do different examples each week over the year that you're doing your Essentials program. This helps them develop those skills. And then as they do this each year, because they're going to do this exact same three years in a row, they become really good at it. 

 By the time these kids are going into the Challenge A program, these kids are actually pretty good at writing, and then they learn a different type of writing program that helps them more with creative writing when they're older and their brains are more wired to develop that kind of creative writing.

 The kids have now been going over grammar, how that works. They go over writing, way to develop their writing skills. So you may be asking, what about math? Currently in the Essentials program, you are on your own for math. They recommend the Saxon program, but technically you can use whatever math program or math curriculum you want to use on your own.

There are many different ones to choose [00:08:00] from when they are. In the Essentials program in that two hours after lunch, they do work on like games and drills to increase their speed in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, roots, and exponents, if you remember your PEMDAS, and it gets them prepared for higher math.

They will be implementing something called The Math Map. Currently, it is only in the Challenge A level. 

The Math Map is something that is done by Classical Conversations. It is something very specific to them. Leigh Bortins came up with that along with some other people. And so this is their program, but they have only opened it up to the Challenge A level.

They plan on opening it up to the younger kids. They haven't done it yet I think it's going to be within the next couple of years. They start at the Challenge A level which is seventh grade and goes on up and then I think they're going to open it up to the younger Levels.

I [00:09:00] do plan on having a review of The Math Map coming up soon. Personally, I really like The Math Map, but I do wish they had started it at the younger levels.

I think it would have worked better with the families to have started math doing this way because it is a new way of doing math. I'll go more into depth than that in my review of The Math Map. But just to let you know, if you are going to do Essentials, you will be on your own for math currently.

But in the upcoming years, in the next year or two, they will be adding in The Math Map. 

As I stated before, I don't know if you caught it, because I said it quickly. You do the Essentials program for three years. So the 9, 10, and 11 year olds, generally. It is done in cycles and tours, and I know that's gonna sound totally foreign to you, because it was foreign to me until I was probably halfway through the second year.

 I finally understood how it worked. So I'm going to explain it to you and hopefully this [00:10:00] will make sense to you. 

We have three cycles and three tours that you do. I'm going to go over cycles first. Now in Foundations, the younger kids, and in Essentials, they go through three cycles and it is what CC is doing at the time.

 It is what Classical Conversations is doing each year. There is cycle one, cycle two, cycle three, and then they start over again with cycle one, cycle two, cycle three. Everybody that is doing Classical Conversations that year over the entire world is on the same cycle. 

Right now we are on cycle one. The cycles are based on the time in history. Hopefully when this is done, this will all make sense. In Essentials, we mainly use this for the writing program.

The time in history for Cycle 1 is Early History. For Cycle 2, it is the Middle Ages. And for Cycle 3, it is the Modern Time. Everything that the [00:11:00] kids are doing in writing in Essentials, is in that institute for Excellence in Writing program is based on early history. 

 All of their writing examples that they get, all their pieces of writing, the things that they're going to redo, etc is all based on before the Middle Ages. It actually uses different historical things that we know, different historical stories and facts that we know, and it picks writings from there. But it's all based on early history. And then next year when they're in cycle two, it will all be based on Middle Ages. .

 This is how the kids are actually learning history when they're doing the writing program. It's not like history just gets dropped. They're not just dropping social studies altogether. They're actually learning it, but they're doing it through the writing program. It's really awesome how they combined the writing program and the history slash social studies.

Because my child went [00:12:00] through all three years of it. He knows a ton about history from actually doing this writing program in Essentials. It's not like a whole separate program that he has to spend another 45 minutes of his day on. He's learning it as he's learning how to write. And then for cycle three, they will go through the modern times. That's after the middle ages on up through today. 

For example, last year we did all modern time. It was a little easier for the kids because they knew a lot of what was going on. It's how they're learning history while they're doing it. That's how CC is doing it. That is the cycles.

Tia: Now the tours are based on what you are doing and how many times your child has gone through Classical Conversations Essentials. 

 For example, my son just finished up the third cycle, but he also finished up his third tour because when we started with Classical Conversations, he was nine.

He just happened to be the perfect age to start the Essentials [00:13:00] program. So his first year of going through Classical Conversations Essentials was the same year that they had the first cycle again. 

It's weird to say that because you're actually cycling through the cycles, but they were going through cycle one as my son was also going through his tour one. Now some kids actually start later obviously because not everybody was born the same year as my son.

 A child that was starting Essentials last year, that would be his first tour that he went through. 

Ideally, they go through at least three tours. They're doing the same type of writing program over and over again, three times. It helps them to really understand that writing program, but it also takes the pressure off of when you are doing it the first year.

In fact, I will have another episode coming up about what you should really focus on for [00:14:00] each year that you are doing your tour of Essentials. Because the first year is going to look way different than your third year of doing it. 

You're doing the same type of writing program, you're just using different history information. Hopefully that makes sense.

 You have to look at it like CC's cycles, so they just do their cycle 1, 2, and 3 and that's based on history and then you personally and your child personally it's their tour. It's how many times they go through it. And like I said optimally, they will go through it three times. They just might not do it in the same chronological order in history.

We just happen to work out that way. Like I said, when we started my son's tour one, it happened to be cycle one. He just got to go through his chronologically through history. It just happened to match up, but it doesn't have to. And this way the kids get all the information of the different historical times.

If they go through it for three years, they're going to hit every single cycle. It just might not be [00:15:00] in exact chronological order. 

 Essentials is designed to come after Foundations. The younger children do the Foundations program. If you want to know more about that, you can listen to my full honest review of Classical Conversations.

But that one is geared toward the younger kids where they're learning songs. And they're memorizing songs for different things that they will be using later on. They memorize different random historical facts that mean absolutely nothing to them when they're younger. But as they get older, they're like, Oh, I remember learning that historical fact.

I can sing a song about it even. And now I'm starting to understand how that works. in history. That makes sense now. 

 How it would work is those younger kids do Foundations in the morning, and then they would go home or go to the nursery, and then the older kids would do Essentials, everybody would go home at the end of the day. 

If for some reason, like us, your child isn't starting Classical Conversations until later, you're like what about Foundations? They don't get to learn those fabulous songs and memorize them that help them with [00:16:00] their learning of Latin later etc. You can have them go through at the same time. It just turns into a full day for them. 

 My son, he started three years ago. He would do Foundations in the morning and then we'd have lunch break and then he'd do his Essentials in the afternoon. It was still less time there than you would spend at a regular day in a public school.

We only did it one day a week and he learned all the things. It was very helpful for him. He could do the Foundations and Essentials concurrently before he went into Challenge A.

That's it. That explains how the Essentials day works in Classical Conversations on your community day. Just two hours of one day a week, whatever your community day is, and then you go home for the other four days of your week and work on those particular things, work on the writing, et cetera.

And that's all. All it is, you can give your 9, 10, or 11 year old a great education, pretty much exactly what they're learning [00:17:00] in the public schools. My personal opinion, I think it's better than what they're learning in the public schools. And I can tell you for a fact, My son is going, my older son, I have two, he is going to our public high school right now and he pretty much blows them out of the water with his writing.

His math is just another story because he's just always been good in math but learning the stuff that he did in the Essentials program and the Challenge program, those types of things, has him blowing everybody else out of the water in the public school system. I know I said that twice. 

But he's getting A's. He's halfway through his sophomore year and has had straight A's, if not A pluses the whole time. They actually give A pluses now. That's strange to me, but whatever. 

Tia: It is a very good program. It is a very good way to educate your kids and it doesn't take a lot of time.

 If one of the reasons why you want to homeschool your kids is so you have more freedom in your day to learn other types of [00:18:00] things actually follow their personal interests or just do things as a family. Right now I'm staring at a bunch of snow coming down so the idea of going to a lake or something is not popping into my head, but my son and I, we could go out sledding right now. When everybody else is in school, we could totally go out sledding and enjoy this day and still get all of our work done. 

Classical Conversations is a wonderful program that we are in our fourth year right now, and I absolutely love it. I think their Essentials program fits perfectly for 9, 10, and 11, year olds. 

If this is something you're thinking about, I would seriously suggest looking into it. You can go to classicalconversations dot com and just ask to be connected with a local community near you. There is pretty much a community anywhere you could possibly think of on this planet now.

Like I said before, I will be doing an upcoming episode on the most important things to focus on for each year of Essentials. For each tour you would be doing, it can get really overwhelming the [00:19:00] first tour you do because not many people will come up to you and say, no, this is what you actually need to focus on.

When we joined it was right after the whole COVID thing, and so a lot of families were joining at the same time. We didn't really have people there that had done Classical Conversations a lot, so we didn't have anybody telling us, Hey, This is what you actually need to be focusing on. Don't worry about all the rest of the stuff. 

I have made it my mission for people that I know coming into Classical Conversations doing Essentials, when it's their first tour, it's like, hey, this is what you actually need to focus on. Don't worry about the rest of it till year two or year three. You'll get there. Don't worry. You'll be just fine.

That is basically what the episode coming up that I'm going to do. It's going to be all about that. So be looking for that if that is something you are interested in.

Now if you like this episode, give it a thumbs up, let the algorithm do the work, and I can make more. And subscribe or [00:20:00] follow for more like this. Until next time.