Classical Conversations Foundations Curriculum

The first level of learning in CC (for ages 4yrs/pre-K through 11yrs/6th grade) is called Foundations. There are Cycles 1, 2, and 3 where one cycle is covered each year. Cycle 1 covers Old World history, Cycle 2 covers Modern World history, and Cycle 3 covers American history. All cycles cover the related sciences of that period. Each cycle consists of 24 weeks. The heart of the curriculum is the weekly “grammar” (or facts or pegs of knowledge) for 6 subject areas: History (8 timeline cards and history sentence), Latin, English Grammar, Science, Math, and Geography. There is a 7th subject/activity that is learned during the weekly group meeting. It consists of a Hands-On Science experiment AND a Fine-Arts activity. Of course, these topics could be incorporated during the weekly review at home. But, it is great to know that enrolling in a Foundations Community, all the supplies are provided for these group activities.

Side Note: Ideally, a student would have completed all 3 Cycles before taking on the additional Essentials curriculum. CC Essentials curriculum is for 4th to 6th graders and is a more intense approach to memorizing the facts. Where Foundations occurs in the morning, say 9a-12p, work continues for the 4th to 6th graders with Essentials from 1p-3p. Those in 7th-12th grade follow a similar schedule learning the CC Challenge curriulum from 9a-12 and continue 1p-3p.

During class, the previous memory work is reviewed and the new grammar (or facts, or pegs of knowledge) is introduced. Because it is a group (think classroom) setting, the teachers are able to incorporate innovative ways of learning such as quiz games and sing alongs. Math is generally skip counting and math facts/rules, therefore CC suggests supplementing with another Math curriculum. Additionally, CC suggests supplementing with a language curriculum, too.

Just a more in-depth look at the 6 subject areas:

History: We learn 8 timeline cards (made by Veritas Press). One side of the card has a picture and title. The other side has in-depth detail and includes references to reading materials and resources such as Kingfisher and Story of the World publications. There are also motions for each timeline cards to help with memorization. There is also a History sentence that is generally sung to a catchy tune. These tunes are provided in the Classical Conversations CD Audio Set. There are 3 CD sets for Cycle 1, 2, and 3. Each set contains 2 Cds – one arranged weekly and another arranged by topic.

Latin: In Cycle 1, for instance, we are introduced to the 1st through 5 Declensions in both Single and Plural forms. There are also catchy tunes provided in the CC Audio CDs.

English: We learn the definitions of the parts of speech and the lists of words for each part of speech. Cycle 1, for instance, are Verbs and Prepositions.

Science: A fact is learned that relates to the weekly Science group activity or experiment.

Math: Consists of skip counting (more catchy tunes to help remember are provided in the Audio CD set), conversions, formulas, and laws.

Geography: Consists of memorizing an area and 4 or 5 features of that area. Review of this involves use of line drawn maps, tracing, coloring of the various features, and writing the names (this makes for great penmanship work, too).

So think of this Foundations stage of Classical Conversations as the Who?, What?, When?, and Where? facts. The How? and Why? are covered in the next stage called Essentials.