Everyday Educator - Help! I Registered….Now What? (Foundations)
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:07.320 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:10.140 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.920 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.880 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.720 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:21.800 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:25.560 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:27.560 | this homeschooling possibility,
00:00:29.760 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:34.000 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:37.880 | But don't forget,
00:00:39.280 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:42.780 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:47.780 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:52.480 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:56.800 | Well, listeners, I'm excited today to tell you
00:01:00.860 | that I have somebody who can answer all your questions
00:01:03.860 | about how to get started with foundations.
00:01:07.000 | And so, okay, automatic disclaimer,
00:01:10.320 | nobody can answer all of your questions probably,
00:01:15.320 | but I do have with me Courtney Bradshaw
00:01:19.560 | who serves as an academic advisor
00:01:21.920 | with Classical Conversations,
00:01:23.960 | and she helps foundations and essentials
00:01:27.680 | and even scribblers parents all the time
00:01:30.600 | figure out which end is up and how to walk forward.
00:01:34.900 | She is a great encourager,
00:01:37.120 | a homeschooling mama with lots of experience.
00:01:40.640 | And so we are gonna talk today about,
00:01:45.140 | oh my gosh, I've registered for this program,
00:01:48.880 | now what do I do?
00:01:50.920 | What does it look like at home?
00:01:52.980 | How am I certain that I've got everything I need
00:01:55.800 | and that I'm doing it right?
00:01:57.420 | And I want everybody listening right now
00:02:00.580 | to take a deep cleansing breath
00:02:03.240 | and realize that if God has called you to do this,
00:02:09.240 | you are enough, you will find your people
00:02:14.240 | and there are resources to help you.
00:02:17.840 | It is going to be, like I said in the intro blurb,
00:02:21.960 | the adventure of a lifetime.
00:02:24.520 | And I'll be perfectly honest,
00:02:26.540 | the homeschooling journey for me and my husband
00:02:31.540 | was one of the hardest jobs we've ever loved.
00:02:36.960 | It has been a blessing beyond all measure to our family,
00:02:42.900 | but it hasn't always been easy.
00:02:46.180 | But then again, nothing worth pursuing is easy.
00:02:50.280 | So all that aside, Courtney,
00:02:52.840 | thank you so much for being with us today.
00:02:55.680 | - Thank you for having me, Lisa.
00:02:57.760 | - I am really excited.
00:02:59.240 | Now I've told everybody that you have all the answers
00:03:01.440 | and I gave the disclaimer,
00:03:03.840 | but that's probably not exactly true,
00:03:06.080 | but you do have lots of years of experience.
00:03:09.460 | How many years of experience does your family
00:03:12.960 | have with foundations
00:03:15.240 | and how old were your children when you started?
00:03:19.600 | - Well, we are beginning our 11th year in foundations.
00:03:24.600 | - That is great.
00:03:26.840 | - Yes, my oldest daughter was seven years old
00:03:31.480 | and she just began challenge four.
00:03:34.440 | - Wow, oh my gosh, you are going to have,
00:03:37.440 | you are going to have a child that has the whole program.
00:03:42.440 | That is super exciting, Courtney.
00:03:45.560 | - It is exciting.
00:03:47.000 | So I will have a child where she's already began
00:03:51.480 | the program that she is in challenge for,
00:03:55.200 | and then I have an infant.
00:03:56.440 | So we still plan all of the ages.
00:03:59.440 | - Oh wow, that's awesome.
00:04:01.520 | That is so cool.
00:04:04.240 | So your oldest was seven when y'all started.
00:04:09.240 | So do you still have foundation students?
00:04:12.840 | - I do, I still have four foundation students
00:04:16.280 | and then one who's not yet old enough.
00:04:19.120 | - Oh my goodness.
00:04:20.680 | - We're starting our 11th year
00:04:22.200 | and we still have about 10 more years to go in foundations.
00:04:26.000 | - Girlfriend, you are going to be so good at memory work
00:04:30.720 | by the time your children graduate.
00:04:33.920 | - I should be.
00:04:34.960 | - You need to sign up for Jeopardy now.
00:04:37.640 | You're going to know all the things, that is so cool.
00:04:42.200 | Well, let me ask you this.
00:04:44.040 | How much did you know about CC
00:04:49.040 | or about classical education
00:04:51.360 | or even about the foundations program when you started?
00:04:54.800 | - Basically nothing.
00:04:57.960 | - Oh my goodness, this is going to be a good story.
00:05:00.840 | - We had moved to a new town.
00:05:04.480 | It was a really small town with very few homeschoolers.
00:05:08.720 | And I was looking for community
00:05:12.440 | and we did a co-op for one year
00:05:17.440 | and it was not really what we were looking for
00:05:21.160 | because they were all older than my kids age at the time.
00:05:25.480 | And so I found, or the director in the next town over
00:05:30.480 | found me, I guess we found each other
00:05:34.720 | and she told me about CC.
00:05:37.320 | And so we just jumped in
00:05:40.120 | with no knowledge of the classical model
00:05:43.920 | of classical conversations,
00:05:46.680 | just community is what I understood and was looking for.
00:05:51.600 | - That is so cool.
00:05:52.520 | Now, did you go and visit a foundations class
00:05:56.120 | before you jumped in as the director of a new community?
00:06:00.800 | - I did not.
00:06:01.960 | I tutored the first year.
00:06:03.920 | I found CC about a month before
00:06:09.880 | community began, it was during the summer.
00:06:12.760 | Practicum had already happened.
00:06:15.880 | So I had not seen it at all.
00:06:20.120 | And my very first experience
00:06:22.800 | outside of the really wonderful
00:06:25.920 | online academic orientation that we had 11 years ago.
00:06:30.680 | - Yes, yes, very brief at that point.
00:06:34.480 | - Yes, it was wonderful to have it.
00:06:38.560 | But it has definitely come a long way.
00:06:40.960 | But outside of that, I had no experience
00:06:45.800 | and my director led my community day
00:06:49.560 | for my foundations group on our first day
00:06:53.200 | so that I could see what it looked like that week.
00:06:58.200 | And so we just, we went on from there.
00:07:01.640 | - That is so inspiring, okay.
00:07:05.240 | I know, I look back and think the things that I did
00:07:08.840 | in the early days of being involved with CC and the fact,
00:07:13.360 | okay, here's a story too.
00:07:16.240 | I jumped in in 2004 at the Challenge B tutor level.
00:07:21.240 | And I did not realize that I was accepted as a director
00:07:27.760 | because nobody else wanted to do that at the time.
00:07:32.320 | We taught Greek and physical science
00:07:35.800 | and mock trial and formal logic to eighth graders.
00:07:39.600 | And my tutor training in 2004 was one half day.
00:07:44.600 | - Wow.
00:07:47.680 | - And so I look back and think,
00:07:49.880 | well, that was some kind of crazy,
00:07:51.520 | but you know what it was?
00:07:53.320 | It was some kind of belief
00:07:57.200 | that the Lord had led me to this, just like you,
00:07:59.960 | that the Lord had led me to a community
00:08:02.560 | and that He was gonna show me what to do
00:08:05.800 | and that there were other families
00:08:07.760 | that were willing to practice on our kids along with me.
00:08:12.400 | And I look back and I think, wow,
00:08:15.480 | I guess that took either a lot of trust
00:08:18.720 | or a lot of faith or a lot of stupidity.
00:08:24.240 | And I'm not, some days I'm not sure which it was,
00:08:26.560 | but I think that's really cool.
00:08:29.400 | And that's really inspiring, Courtney,
00:08:31.480 | to people who are thinking,
00:08:33.360 | I am tutoring for the first year
00:08:36.040 | and I don't know what in the world I'm doing.
00:08:38.800 | Surely I'm not good at this yet.
00:08:41.080 | And here's the truth, y'all,
00:08:43.040 | probably none of us are really good at it the first year.
00:08:46.520 | We are learning alongside our children,
00:08:50.000 | but God is good and God is gracious.
00:08:52.840 | And there's always a mentor out there who we can follow
00:08:58.400 | and who will answer our questions.
00:09:00.520 | And so I think that's cool.
00:09:02.320 | Your director is to be congratulated
00:09:06.240 | and at bringing you along like that.
00:09:09.520 | So was it community?
00:09:11.120 | 'Cause you said you didn't know a lot
00:09:12.760 | about classical education.
00:09:14.920 | You didn't really know a lot about what CC
00:09:18.040 | was gonna give your kids beyond community.
00:09:21.720 | So was that what drew you in?
00:09:24.000 | - It is, community and accountability
00:09:27.240 | was what drew me in to CC.
00:09:31.360 | What kept me there was that
00:09:35.320 | and wanting and hoping that my children
00:09:40.320 | would receive an education that did not need to be redeemed.
00:09:44.720 | I know at the time I heard a lot
00:09:49.320 | about I'm redeeming my own education through CC.
00:09:52.720 | And I did, but I was hoping maybe to give them
00:09:56.000 | a better start than what I had experienced.
00:10:00.040 | And I'm so grateful.
00:10:04.040 | I remember on the way to community in our first year
00:10:09.040 | and just being overwhelmed emotionally,
00:10:13.000 | listening to the timeline song
00:10:14.680 | and thinking just like what you said, Lisa,
00:10:18.600 | that this was it.
00:10:22.160 | I had found what we needed
00:10:25.120 | and I didn't even know I was looking for it.
00:10:27.520 | I didn't know, I wouldn't have known how to look for it,
00:10:30.720 | but I was so grateful that we found it.
00:10:32.800 | - That is really, I think that is probably the testimony
00:10:38.720 | of a lot of us that whole,
00:10:41.480 | and I'll be perfectly honest, Courtney,
00:10:43.400 | I didn't really think that when we started,
00:10:46.280 | I didn't really think my education
00:10:47.880 | needed a lot of redeeming.
00:10:50.360 | I mean, I had a public school education,
00:10:52.320 | but I love to read and I love to learn.
00:10:55.320 | And I went to a very well-respected liberal arts college.
00:10:59.120 | So I knew a lot.
00:11:00.080 | I felt like I knew a lot about a lot of stuff,
00:11:03.360 | but man, were my eyes opened
00:11:07.680 | to all the connections I had missed
00:11:12.160 | as my children began to gather pegs of information
00:11:17.600 | and then connect them as they matured.
00:11:20.760 | I realized how badly my own education
00:11:23.160 | did need to be redeemed.
00:11:25.200 | And I will tell you,
00:11:26.760 | one of the most exciting things to me
00:11:30.800 | about raising children
00:11:35.800 | whose educations do not need to be redeemed
00:11:40.400 | is the realization that I came to,
00:11:42.800 | y'all have all probably experienced this,
00:11:46.800 | when things get really hard
00:11:49.040 | or when you are really anxious or fearful,
00:11:52.320 | you come upon a subject or an assignment even
00:11:56.280 | that you don't feel equal to.
00:11:58.400 | What most people do when they get scared
00:12:01.440 | is revert back to what they know.
00:12:04.760 | And so I reverted back
00:12:06.560 | to my public school education practices.
00:12:10.640 | It was the teacher's fault
00:12:13.080 | or somehow the book had misled me
00:12:17.160 | or I didn't have what I needed.
00:12:19.720 | Somebody should have helped me know how to do this.
00:12:23.360 | And I realized that what my children were learning
00:12:28.360 | was I'm responsible for my education
00:12:33.440 | and I have the tools
00:12:35.960 | to learn anything I want to know in the world.
00:12:39.000 | And if there's something I don't know now,
00:12:42.000 | I know how to find out what's missing
00:12:44.560 | and then know how to replace that piece of information
00:12:47.400 | so that I can move ahead.
00:12:49.440 | That's what my girls got.
00:12:51.400 | That's the classical model.
00:12:53.800 | And so when they get scared
00:12:56.200 | or they come up on an assignment
00:12:58.680 | or a class in college
00:13:00.840 | that they don't know what to do with,
00:13:04.080 | they do have the skills.
00:13:05.680 | So when they revert back to what they know,
00:13:08.960 | it's classical.
00:13:11.080 | - And it is so beautiful.
00:13:12.720 | And so I agree with you.
00:13:14.840 | That's what our hope for our kids
00:13:16.560 | is to receive the education
00:13:18.720 | that doesn't need to be redeemed.
00:13:21.840 | All right.
00:13:23.800 | So when you were getting ready for foundations,
00:13:27.000 | getting ready to tutor foundations
00:13:28.840 | and getting ready to do it at home
00:13:31.160 | with your seven-year-old,
00:13:32.280 | what did you do to get ready?
00:13:37.360 | - Well, I trusted my director when she said,
00:13:42.360 | "All I needed was the foundations curriculum
00:13:46.120 | and a tin whistle."
00:13:47.680 | - All right, right.
00:13:48.840 | - So I got that.
00:13:49.960 | And we really have not changed very much
00:13:56.000 | in the past 11 years
00:13:58.520 | as to what I needed.
00:14:00.240 | So for foundations specifically,
00:14:02.960 | I got the curriculum
00:14:04.880 | and I prepared weekly.
00:14:06.760 | I just, I looked at it.
00:14:08.480 | As a tutor, I looked ahead,
00:14:10.280 | but as a parent,
00:14:12.160 | I probably would have just waited
00:14:14.200 | and let the tutor introduce it to me.
00:14:17.240 | But we really did the very basics
00:14:21.360 | that we needed to do in that first year
00:14:24.760 | and did not add very much for foundations.
00:14:31.200 | - Yeah.
00:14:34.040 | So I guess you were doing
00:14:36.400 | what everybody does.
00:14:37.880 | You had a teach them to read
00:14:40.440 | or a reading program
00:14:42.400 | and some kind of math computation program.
00:14:46.080 | But as far as everything else went,
00:14:51.440 | did you mostly just work on memory work?
00:14:54.000 | - I did.
00:14:54.840 | We worked on memory work.
00:14:56.200 | We would go to the library
00:14:59.560 | and find some books about some of the things
00:15:02.440 | that went along with memory work.
00:15:05.480 | And there were times
00:15:06.800 | that I would try to add in something different,
00:15:09.560 | another history or a science curriculum.
00:15:13.880 | And I never finished any of those
00:15:16.120 | because I didn't,
00:15:19.280 | I would just, we wouldn't need it.
00:15:22.040 | We would take the memory work
00:15:24.320 | and we would go,
00:15:26.480 | we would learn about what we wanted to.
00:15:28.080 | We would take from it
00:15:29.400 | what we would wanted to learn more about.
00:15:32.960 | And on this side of it
00:15:35.400 | with the Challenge 4 student,
00:15:37.680 | I'm so glad that we gave up anything extra
00:15:41.720 | along the way,
00:15:43.680 | because everything we did in foundations,
00:15:47.920 | we've repeated in challenge
00:15:50.240 | and they were ready for it.
00:15:51.600 | They were ready to take it further
00:15:53.640 | once they moved on to the challenge level.
00:15:57.880 | And so we still in my home,
00:16:00.560 | I have set aside any extra curriculum
00:16:03.960 | outside of a language arts and a math.
00:16:06.440 | We just use what we have from the library.
00:16:11.640 | I do have the Scribblers at Home curriculum
00:16:14.320 | and I love that so that I can open it up
00:16:17.480 | and say, hey, we're gonna,
00:16:20.000 | we're talking about this today.
00:16:21.720 | Maybe I can find something that's open and go
00:16:26.120 | from the Scribblers at Home,
00:16:28.240 | or I've learned how to use those recipes,
00:16:31.520 | make it my own and that helps as well.
00:16:34.920 | But I have, I think the longer we've been in CC,
00:16:39.680 | the less I try to do
00:16:41.840 | outside of the grammar of foundations.
00:16:46.480 | - Wow, that is so encouraging.
00:16:50.400 | Okay, all you moms and dads out there
00:16:53.800 | who are listening here thinking,
00:16:55.520 | oh, I've got to get a unit study on this
00:16:58.080 | and we've got to have a field trip for that.
00:17:00.080 | And I've got to find another curriculum
00:17:02.400 | to teach this little niche.
00:17:04.400 | Take a deep breath and listen to what Courtney said.
00:17:08.200 | The memory work is a spine.
00:17:12.160 | It is a skeleton,
00:17:14.640 | but it is a complete spine and skeleton.
00:17:18.400 | And if you stay right there connected to that memory work
00:17:23.400 | in all of those areas,
00:17:26.280 | your child is gonna be well-prepared
00:17:29.480 | when they hit the challenge years
00:17:31.120 | and start fleshing out all of the memory pegs
00:17:35.200 | that they have hammered in over the years.
00:17:38.000 | It is beautiful to see.
00:17:40.240 | And I think it's really freeing
00:17:45.760 | and energizing, Courtney, to parents
00:17:48.680 | for us to be able to say, yeah,
00:17:51.280 | chase your child's interest,
00:17:54.080 | especially within that memory work.
00:17:55.760 | If they are really into knights and castles,
00:17:59.240 | read more of that stuff.
00:18:01.120 | If they like to build forts in the backyard
00:18:04.960 | or out in the woods, do that.
00:18:07.360 | You know, if dinosaurs and fossils are their thing,
00:18:12.360 | then go to the library or go find a history museum.
00:18:16.200 | I love that, I love that.
00:18:19.800 | So you didn't worry about buying a lot of extra supplies
00:18:25.440 | or stocking up on extra curriculum,
00:18:29.200 | at least after you realized you didn't need it.
00:18:31.600 | No, I didn't.
00:18:33.320 | I don't now.
00:18:34.520 | Anyway, I've learned to set it aside.
00:18:37.760 | I tried it.
00:18:38.600 | I tried several things a few different times,
00:18:41.600 | but we never finished.
00:18:43.120 | We never, it was a waste of,
00:18:45.120 | it was a waste of my resources, honestly.
00:18:47.640 | For me, it may not be for others, but for me,
00:18:52.760 | it was not something that I utilized often.
00:18:57.480 | Yeah, everything looks like a good idea,
00:19:00.480 | and I have a lot of stuff on my shelf
00:19:02.440 | that looks like a good idea.
00:19:05.040 | That, like you said, it wasn't necessary.
00:19:07.840 | There was enough for us to chew on,
00:19:10.000 | and we learned enough with what we had, with the basics.
00:19:15.000 | Okay, so you jumped in to foundations,
00:19:18.360 | 'cause I suspect we have a lot of families
00:19:21.720 | who maybe are joining a foundations community
00:19:25.200 | for the very first time this year.
00:19:28.680 | So how did you learn what to expect
00:19:32.760 | from the foundations day?
00:19:34.200 | Were you surprised by anything?
00:19:37.200 | I was surprised that in the beginning
00:19:44.080 | that we just did memory work for the new,
00:19:48.360 | we just learned and memorized from those strands
00:19:53.360 | for the new grammar section.
00:19:56.560 | I thought maybe we would talk a little bit about it
00:20:00.800 | during the community day,
00:20:04.000 | but then after that first day
00:20:05.560 | where my director modeled it for me,
00:20:07.920 | I realized we really are chanting and singing,
00:20:11.680 | and I was also surprised at how fun it was,
00:20:16.000 | how fun it could be to do that in a day,
00:20:19.440 | and really surprised at how much my children retained.
00:20:24.440 | Yes, yes.
00:20:29.440 | That's really true.
00:20:31.480 | There are lots of people that I've talked to at practicums,
00:20:34.600 | and they come up and they say,
00:20:36.680 | "Well, I know that on the foundations day,
00:20:40.480 | "it's just about these crisp components,
00:20:43.400 | "and we're just going to go through the memory work,
00:20:46.560 | "but tell me the truth,
00:20:48.120 | "that's not really all we're gonna do, is it?"
00:20:50.680 | And you have to say,
00:20:52.520 | well, I mean, it's not that long of a time.
00:20:57.400 | It really, you won't have time to do a lot
00:21:00.560 | because you will do hands-on arts,
00:21:04.600 | and you will do hands-on science,
00:21:08.600 | but yeah, pretty much what you're gonna be doing
00:21:11.360 | is memory work.
00:21:12.200 | And people think, like you said,
00:21:14.440 | that that's gonna be boring,
00:21:16.400 | but your kids don't find it.
00:21:18.200 | Why is it not boring?
00:21:20.000 | Well, children love repetition.
00:21:24.440 | They thrive on it, especially when they're young.
00:21:27.680 | And so that's really,
00:21:32.280 | I think that it's not boring for them,
00:21:34.240 | but we're doing hand motions,
00:21:37.000 | and we're moving our bodies,
00:21:39.920 | and doing exercises,
00:21:41.880 | or the hands-on science and the hands-on art
00:21:46.720 | are very much fun for my children
00:21:51.200 | because I'm not the most fun parent at home
00:21:54.640 | with things like that.
00:21:56.360 | There's a lot of them,
00:21:57.480 | and so it gets very messy in my house.
00:21:59.440 | - Yes, oh my word.
00:22:01.320 | - I love being able to leave that for community days.
00:22:05.440 | - Yes, yes, yes.
00:22:07.200 | - And blow up somebody else's kitchen or do that.
00:22:11.200 | I mean, can you imagine wanting to like finger paint
00:22:14.400 | or clay or use lots of glue
00:22:16.440 | with six or eight little children at home?
00:22:19.480 | - Well, I have seven.
00:22:20.640 | - Foundations, it's fun.
00:22:22.320 | That's right, Courtney, oh my word.
00:22:24.000 | I can't even.
00:22:25.600 | - So I can imagine, Lisa, I can imagine.
00:22:27.720 | - Oh, and that's why you love foundations,
00:22:30.640 | and that we do art and science in class.
00:22:33.720 | - Yes, yes.
00:22:34.560 | - That is so great.
00:22:35.840 | That is so great.
00:22:36.680 | Now, listen, the moms and dads come to foundations,
00:22:41.680 | mom and/or dad or grandma,
00:22:45.640 | somebody comes with the foundation student into class.
00:22:49.560 | Are the parents not bored?
00:22:51.280 | What are they supposed to be doing?
00:22:52.600 | Are we supposed to be chanting and finger playing
00:22:55.640 | along with our kids?
00:22:57.120 | - Absolutely.
00:22:57.960 | - Oh, cool.
00:22:59.400 | - We are, we are to help,
00:23:01.600 | and really the foundations day
00:23:06.360 | is a time for the tutor to model what we can do at home.
00:23:11.200 | And so as a parent,
00:23:13.400 | we come and we learn new ways to introduce the concepts,
00:23:17.640 | to introduce the memory work.
00:23:19.640 | I take notes, I write it down
00:23:21.920 | right into my foundation curriculum,
00:23:24.280 | and I say, "Oh, she did this, I really enjoyed that,"
00:23:27.600 | or I have notes, I'm tutoring again.
00:23:30.400 | I have not tutored in a few years,
00:23:32.800 | and I'm tutoring foundations again this year,
00:23:34.800 | and I have all of my notes from the last time
00:23:36.840 | we went through cycle one, which is wonderful.
00:23:39.440 | Very helpful this year as we're going back,
00:23:43.280 | but parents are very involved on community day.
00:23:46.960 | We are chanting and singing right along.
00:23:50.160 | We're also just being helpful.
00:23:51.960 | Someone needs to help little ones to erase maps,
00:23:56.000 | or sometimes they help them open their snacks
00:24:00.160 | if they're really little.
00:24:01.720 | - Yeah, oh yeah.
00:24:03.160 | - They're there to support the tutor.
00:24:04.640 | So the day flies by for parents
00:24:06.400 | just like it does for the children.
00:24:08.480 | - That's so cool.
00:24:09.520 | I know the first weeks in foundations,
00:24:14.520 | a lot of times are very eye-opening for parents
00:24:19.200 | who were not educated classically,
00:24:22.880 | and that's most of us, still, that's most of us.
00:24:26.200 | And just that whole idea that drilling memory work,
00:24:32.120 | I mean, nothing sounds more horrific to say,
00:24:35.680 | you're gonna spend hours drilling memory work
00:24:38.880 | with five and six and eight-year-olds,
00:24:41.440 | but the practice of it is delightful.
00:24:45.720 | The doing of it is actually delightful
00:24:49.120 | because tutors have learned from each other.
00:24:52.920 | They've shared ideas about finger plays and body motions
00:24:57.320 | and changing your voice and different ways
00:25:01.880 | to get that memory work into these little minds.
00:25:05.720 | And I can remember, I still remember way back
00:25:08.840 | when my girls were in foundations,
00:25:10.920 | I was determined that I was gonna learn
00:25:14.600 | all the things that they learned.
00:25:16.440 | And so I was pretty good at keeping up
00:25:20.720 | with all the timeline stuff for about the first six weeks.
00:25:25.720 | And then, man, they outstripped me.
00:25:28.360 | Their little minds memorized so easily.
00:25:33.320 | I mean, it sounds like when people outside say,
00:25:37.000 | you just memorize like hundreds of pieces of information
00:25:41.080 | with little children, don't they hate it?
00:25:43.640 | No, they love it.
00:25:44.920 | And they're so stinking good at it.
00:25:47.360 | And they are so much faster to retain information
00:25:51.560 | than we are that it's amazing.
00:25:55.600 | And so I think I'm glad that you brought that out,
00:25:58.400 | that parents, listen, parents, you need to sing those songs.
00:26:02.880 | Let them become an earworm for your soul
00:26:05.320 | because that way you can redeem your own education as well.
00:26:10.320 | All right, I wanna ask you this, Courtney.
00:26:15.720 | I think we've convinced everybody
00:26:19.360 | that the Foundations Day is super fun
00:26:22.040 | and super profitable, both for kids and parents.
00:26:26.240 | But how can families incorporate Foundation's memory work
00:26:31.160 | into their at-home days or into their weeks at home?
00:26:35.680 | How do most families use the memory work?
00:26:38.560 | I think the quick answer is that most families
00:26:43.440 | practice the memory work together at some point each day.
00:26:49.440 | So the great thing about it is for,
00:26:54.440 | I have a six-year-old and I have an 11-year-old
00:26:58.400 | and I have a couple in between,
00:26:59.880 | but we can all do this at the same time.
00:27:03.040 | 'Cause all the classes, no matter how old the children are,
00:27:06.080 | all the classes are learning the same things every week,
00:27:11.080 | even if their tutor might use a different song
00:27:13.840 | or chant or finger play, right?
00:27:15.960 | Right, yes, it's all the same information
00:27:18.840 | no matter their age.
00:27:19.960 | And so most families will get together at some point
00:27:24.840 | and practice that together.
00:27:28.640 | We, in my home, do a morning time.
00:27:31.120 | I love that from where we get together,
00:27:35.320 | we do a morning meeting.
00:27:36.400 | Even my challenge age children join us for that,
00:27:41.760 | as we get together and spend some time praying
00:27:45.240 | and doing devotion together.
00:27:47.760 | But then my challenge girls go off about their business
00:27:52.760 | and then we practice memory work at the table together.
00:27:56.400 | It takes about 30 minutes or less a day.
00:28:00.880 | And if we do that every day,
00:28:02.480 | we're pretty well equipped for at CC the next week.
00:28:09.280 | Many families will take the memory work with them
00:28:12.200 | in the car, as they go to appointments,
00:28:15.840 | that's something we do in the waiting room.
00:28:20.560 | Right, right, right.
00:28:22.200 | We take our memory work with us because it's easy.
00:28:25.040 | It's just one book.
00:28:26.760 | It's just one week and we practice.
00:28:29.240 | And it really does not take long.
00:28:32.280 | There's different ways to take it with you.
00:28:34.800 | There's the CDs you can take and have memory work.
00:28:38.880 | And there's also a brand new CC Connected Lite app
00:28:43.880 | that has all of the audio files from CC Connected
00:28:47.640 | that you can download into the app
00:28:50.040 | and just take it with you in your phone, which is helpful.
00:28:53.440 | And so most families, that's how they incorporate
00:28:59.640 | specifically the memory work.
00:29:02.720 | And then they take it further as they like at home.
00:29:07.760 | - Yeah, we did something very similar to what you guys did.
00:29:12.400 | We would pick, we worked on the memory work every day too.
00:29:16.600 | And I had, when we started,
00:29:18.080 | I had a second grader and a fifth grader.
00:29:20.400 | So they were both in foundations
00:29:22.600 | and that was our first experience.
00:29:25.520 | So it was all new to us.
00:29:27.080 | All the memory work was new to us.
00:29:29.200 | Even the strands that repeat every year, you know,
00:29:33.000 | like math, it was still our first year.
00:29:35.680 | And so we practiced memory work together
00:29:37.960 | and then we would use it, like you said,
00:29:41.000 | as a jumping off point to decide
00:29:45.280 | what will we study for history?
00:29:47.840 | What kind of history focus will we have this week?
00:29:51.360 | What kind of science focus will we have this week?
00:29:54.880 | But I, like you, stuck really close
00:29:58.480 | to the foundation's memory work as our spine.
00:30:01.200 | And I was not ever disappointed.
00:30:04.640 | I didn't find huge gaps for my girls as they got older.
00:30:09.640 | But we did mention there are things
00:30:16.000 | that families need to add to foundations.
00:30:19.080 | What are they?
00:30:20.520 | - You'll need a math of some sort and a language arts.
00:30:25.240 | So although they are memorizing math facts
00:30:29.320 | and English grammar facts, they're not learning to read.
00:30:33.720 | And they're, you know, through the foundations program.
00:30:36.920 | So you'll need to add something
00:30:39.200 | for those two subjects specifically.
00:30:43.480 | - Right.
00:30:44.400 | With my younger daughter,
00:30:46.520 | she was only in the second grade when we started.
00:30:49.080 | So she was not a great reader.
00:30:51.560 | She was still learning.
00:30:52.920 | She was still gaining proficiency.
00:30:55.760 | And I guess we all gain proficiency.
00:30:58.000 | But she was still really working on the basics of reading.
00:31:01.760 | My older daughter was ready to do essentials.
00:31:06.760 | And so she was getting writing practice as well.
00:31:13.000 | And once your student is old enough for essentials,
00:31:18.080 | then that might very well be enough language arts
00:31:23.080 | for your family if you add essentials to it.
00:31:26.120 | If your student is proficient in reading already.
00:31:30.360 | So that's really good.
00:31:33.920 | And I always try to tell people
00:31:35.400 | that it is a complete curriculum,
00:31:38.080 | except you still need to teach your child to read
00:31:42.680 | and you still need something
00:31:44.280 | that will help you practice math computation.
00:31:49.280 | So, and things like simple geometry.
00:31:54.240 | But it's what my girls, when they were little,
00:31:56.480 | they called it mama made math.
00:31:59.120 | I mean, I went to enough practicums
00:32:01.560 | to know what are the things,
00:32:03.440 | what are the building blocks that they need to do.
00:32:06.440 | And I would just make it up.
00:32:07.720 | And sometimes we would do it on a whiteboard
00:32:09.920 | and sometimes we'd do it out on the patio in chalk.
00:32:13.360 | And sometimes we would draw, we would do math flashcards
00:32:18.360 | if they were going up and down the steps.
00:32:21.120 | We made it fun, but we did have to add a few things.
00:32:24.320 | So I just mentioned the essentials program.
00:32:28.920 | Tell, some folks on our call
00:32:32.760 | are already familiar with essentials.
00:32:35.520 | Some have heard of it,
00:32:37.160 | but they're not quite sure what to make of it.
00:32:39.480 | Tell us a little bit, give us a thumbnail of essentials.
00:32:43.720 | And then I might have a couple of questions
00:32:45.600 | for you about essentials.
00:32:47.560 | - Sure, essentials is a language arts program
00:32:51.000 | that meets usually in the afternoons
00:32:53.480 | after foundations is over
00:32:55.960 | for students beginning who are nine years old,
00:33:00.720 | about nine to 11 years old.
00:33:03.000 | And it's a three-year program that,
00:33:07.080 | or it's intended to be a three-year program.
00:33:10.040 | And we have several who start in their last year
00:33:13.160 | and that's okay, but it is intended to be.
00:33:16.200 | But it is, we take 45 minutes for English grammar
00:33:20.960 | where we learn concepts
00:33:23.800 | all about different parts of speech.
00:33:25.800 | And we learn to diagram sentences and parse the sentences.
00:33:30.720 | And then we have 45 minutes of writing.
00:33:34.640 | And then we have 30 minutes of math games
00:33:38.760 | where we work on speed and accuracy for math.
00:33:43.680 | So that in a nutshell is what essentials is.
00:33:48.120 | It is led by a tutor who introduces what you will do at home
00:33:54.160 | on your community day.
00:33:55.840 | They'll take you through what you will do
00:33:58.640 | after you get home and help you to know what's coming
00:34:03.120 | and what to expect for the week.
00:34:05.400 | - And so families have an essentials manual,
00:34:10.400 | a curriculum, and they take home.
00:34:12.360 | And there are things that they work on during the week
00:34:15.880 | that go along with what they were introduced to
00:34:19.000 | in community.
00:34:20.520 | - Yes, and it really is a complete language arts curriculum
00:34:25.400 | for those ages.
00:34:27.640 | Like you said, if they are proficient in reading.
00:34:30.360 | So there's spelling involved.
00:34:32.920 | They have your editing or punctuation and capitalization.
00:34:37.920 | It's all encompassed.
00:34:41.640 | You wouldn't need something in addition to that
00:34:45.240 | once they are in the essentials program.
00:34:47.760 | - That's cool.
00:34:48.600 | Okay, so what would you tell parents
00:34:50.880 | who are just coming in?
00:34:52.040 | Because I've met lots of families
00:34:54.240 | who are brand new to classical education
00:34:57.080 | and brand new to CC communities and their child is nine.
00:35:02.080 | And so they've heard a nine-year-old
00:35:04.840 | should do foundations and essentials
00:35:07.080 | and they come into essentials.
00:35:09.120 | And maybe the parents don't have a great English grammar
00:35:13.960 | or writing background.
00:35:15.400 | But anyway, they come into essentials the first week
00:35:17.560 | and they're like, oh my goodness.
00:35:21.960 | I don't even know what this tutor is talking about
00:35:24.720 | the whole time.
00:35:25.840 | How am I supposed to help my child?
00:35:27.600 | What is essential to remember?
00:35:29.960 | - Well, it is essential to remember
00:35:33.440 | that you are not intended to master
00:35:38.440 | all of the information in the first year.
00:35:41.560 | You can take from it what you can
00:35:47.040 | and then come back again.
00:35:49.040 | It will repeat in the three years
00:35:51.640 | that you are in essentials.
00:35:53.480 | And it's intended for you to take a little bit
00:35:56.240 | of a deeper dive each week or each year.
00:36:00.040 | And so you don't have to know really anything
00:36:05.040 | before you begin because the curriculum is there.
00:36:08.960 | Your tutor is there to help as well as the other families.
00:36:13.360 | So we learn from one another
00:36:15.720 | and you're not expected to be a grammarian,
00:36:19.000 | an expert in English grammar.
00:36:23.120 | I am not or was not before I began.
00:36:28.120 | And I'm a nurse.
00:36:29.960 | I don't have an education background either.
00:36:33.760 | And so you get what you need from the program.
00:36:38.760 | You will be given what you need
00:36:40.560 | to lead your family each week.
00:36:43.440 | - Oh, I love that.
00:36:44.960 | I want to write that down.
00:36:45.920 | You'll be given what you need each week.
00:36:50.760 | That is very encouraging, I believe,
00:36:58.760 | for new families.
00:36:59.880 | And I love what you said.
00:37:01.320 | In the beginning, you started talking about essentials
00:37:03.760 | and you said it's a three-year program.
00:37:06.480 | And then I love it.
00:37:07.880 | You said if you don't get it the first time around,
00:37:12.720 | you'll get more of it the next two times.
00:37:16.280 | So this is a three-year program,
00:37:18.560 | but it's not three years of material.
00:37:22.440 | It is material that you go through for three years.
00:37:26.760 | You're gonna do the same thing every year.
00:37:30.120 | And like you said, go deeper every year.
00:37:34.360 | - Absolutely.
00:37:35.680 | That's very helpful.
00:37:36.640 | I like the way you said that, Lisa.
00:37:38.160 | I need to write that down as well.
00:37:39.960 | - Add that to my orientation.
00:37:42.840 | - It is such a classical way to learn
00:37:45.720 | that repetition over time is what gives us mastery.
00:37:50.720 | And I think that's really helpful for us as parents
00:37:54.200 | to realize, look, it's repetition over time
00:37:59.200 | that builds mastery.
00:38:01.120 | So you are not expected and you should not expect
00:38:04.960 | your student to get it all the first time.
00:38:09.520 | You have to repeat it.
00:38:11.400 | And it actually helps if there's some time separation
00:38:16.280 | that you're gonna see this again.
00:38:18.840 | You will be a slightly different student
00:38:22.000 | the second year that you come through.
00:38:24.560 | You'll have more context.
00:38:26.760 | Some things will be easy for you,
00:38:28.840 | and then you can breeze past those
00:38:32.080 | and narrow, hone in on the things that are harder
00:38:36.840 | or that you still aren't good at.
00:38:39.240 | That's really encouraging that it's gonna take a while
00:38:43.200 | and that we should all expect it to take a while.
00:38:46.280 | And there are some kids who are more natural grammarians
00:38:51.280 | than others, and that's okay.
00:38:56.120 | Your child is going to get so much out of essentials.
00:39:00.200 | I know my older daughter was one of those natural readers,
00:39:04.360 | natural writers.
00:39:05.400 | It was like I was reminding her of something
00:39:08.320 | she already knew when I was teaching her.
00:39:10.600 | My younger daughter, it didn't come as easily,
00:39:13.280 | and she bemoaned the fact that she didn't enjoy writing.
00:39:18.280 | And she would say, "I'm just not a good writer.
00:39:21.160 | "I'm not as good a writer as,"
00:39:23.360 | and she met her older sister.
00:39:25.040 | But when she finished essentials, it was beautiful to me.
00:39:31.000 | She stood up and I said, "Oh, this is such a good piece
00:39:34.520 | "of work," her last little essay.
00:39:36.880 | I said, "You need to go read this to daddy."
00:39:38.680 | And she read it out loud.
00:39:40.240 | And I think that as she read it out loud to herself,
00:39:44.920 | she heard it.
00:39:46.800 | She heard what she had written and she got to the end
00:39:51.080 | and her eyes were so wide.
00:39:53.200 | And she said, "I can write, I am a good writer."
00:39:58.200 | And it just, it brought me to tears to think
00:40:02.880 | that just that perseverance.
00:40:07.200 | And I started to say patient perseverance.
00:40:09.440 | She was not always patient.
00:40:11.080 | She didn't always want to do it, but it paid off.
00:40:16.080 | And so I'm excited now about how she will parent
00:40:21.480 | and homeschool her own little children.
00:40:25.000 | I'm looking forward to watching that.
00:40:28.480 | - All right, I have just two questions to ask you.
00:40:33.000 | One is, what is the biggest misunderstanding
00:40:38.000 | about foundations that you've heard over all your years?
00:40:42.840 | - I think it's the same misunderstanding
00:40:45.000 | that comes in two different ways.
00:40:46.960 | Without an understanding of the classical model,
00:40:51.040 | really I think that's the core of it.
00:40:53.960 | But people will feel that foundations is either not enough
00:40:57.720 | or too much.
00:40:58.840 | And what I mean by that is that they'll feel,
00:41:04.560 | they will feel like they have to add to the memory work
00:41:08.160 | with things like worksheets or tests
00:41:10.840 | or additional curriculum if they feel
00:41:13.120 | as though it's not enough.
00:41:14.520 | On the other hand, some people will think
00:41:17.640 | that maybe their six-year-old should be a memory master
00:41:22.640 | or that their 11-year-old needs to have mastered
00:41:27.640 | every aspect of the material.
00:41:29.920 | The memory work in foundations is meant to be a peg
00:41:36.600 | that you will later hang more information on.
00:41:40.080 | It's not something that has to be so completely mastered
00:41:48.680 | that they can regurgitate it
00:41:52.720 | without thinking about it every time.
00:41:56.720 | - That is awesome.
00:41:58.880 | That is such a good thing for us to keep in mind
00:42:01.680 | as foundations parents, that we are building a foundation,
00:42:06.680 | but that's not the end.
00:42:10.560 | That's not actually where we intend to stop.
00:42:15.280 | Nobody ever goes around to say,
00:42:16.800 | well, let me just go and look
00:42:17.880 | at this neighborhood of foundations.
00:42:19.880 | No, you want to go look at a neighborhood
00:42:21.920 | of beautiful homes.
00:42:24.080 | But what we're doing in foundations is building the basis
00:42:29.080 | of what we're going to construct
00:42:31.160 | that will be beautiful later on.
00:42:34.400 | That's really, really good.
00:42:36.520 | So what is the key to enjoying foundations?
00:42:41.520 | - The key to enjoying foundations
00:42:45.760 | is to make play the focus.
00:42:48.720 | You will find in the foundations curriculum
00:42:50.760 | that that is how it is written.
00:42:53.120 | There's lots of articles at the beginning
00:42:55.200 | and play is one of the main components of all of it.
00:43:00.200 | If you play with the memory work,
00:43:03.840 | if parents and children play together with the memory work,
00:43:08.440 | then everybody is going to enjoy it.
00:43:11.720 | - Oh, I love that.
00:43:13.360 | I love that.
00:43:14.240 | I have been reading, I can't find the copy of it.
00:43:17.360 | Now it must be upstairs, about a book,
00:43:21.280 | about play and how important it is for our children
00:43:25.400 | and how play really is the work of childhood
00:43:30.040 | and that that's what we should be about.
00:43:32.080 | And the cool thing about joining a foundations community
00:43:36.360 | is that your tutor will model ways to make
00:43:40.920 | quote unquote, just memory work fun and like play.
00:43:45.480 | And so that's the perfect place to end.
00:43:48.120 | That was a great encouragement, Courtney, to us.
00:43:51.560 | If play is the focus,
00:43:53.640 | then we can all enjoy our foundations day.
00:43:56.520 | I really like that.
00:43:57.960 | I really also want to highlight one other thing
00:44:03.880 | that Courtney said.
00:44:05.720 | There's lots of joy to be found in reading with your kids.
00:44:09.520 | If you just read about the things
00:44:13.640 | that are part of foundations memory work,
00:44:16.200 | you will learn so much together and reading together,
00:44:20.680 | especially as part of a gentle easing into the day
00:44:25.160 | during morning time can be just such a revival
00:44:30.160 | of family relationships for your family.
00:44:35.720 | I want to remind you guys that Copper Lodge Library
00:44:40.000 | is a great book series that helps us present
00:44:45.000 | timeless stories to families
00:44:47.760 | that they can read and use together
00:44:49.720 | and build their storehouse of memories,
00:44:52.520 | but also build family relationships as they read.
00:44:57.280 | They are collections of stories.
00:44:59.120 | We've got echoes, the echoes readers,
00:45:02.560 | lots of fairy tales and poems and folk tales.
00:45:06.520 | We have stories of Rome that give the history
00:45:09.960 | of Western civilization.
00:45:12.000 | When they study the history of Rome,
00:45:14.120 | we have Uncle Paul readers
00:45:17.160 | that delve into all kinds of science topics
00:45:20.640 | that your children will find fascinating.
00:45:23.720 | And then there are even Copper Lodge Library editions
00:45:28.400 | of classical literature that you might want to read aloud
00:45:32.920 | with your children,
00:45:34.400 | even though they're not assigned to study it this year.
00:45:38.000 | The Copper Lodge Library offers collections of stories
00:45:42.440 | that will help you build community.
00:45:44.520 | So if you wonder what titles are out there
00:45:48.200 | and what you could add to your morning read aloud time,
00:45:51.640 | go to copperlodgelibrary.com
00:45:55.520 | and see what we've got to offer, okay?
00:45:58.400 | And I will give you guys a heads up,
00:46:00.680 | next week on the "Everyday Educator" podcast,
00:46:04.240 | I'm gonna be talking to Amy Jones
00:46:06.400 | and we're gonna dive a little bit more deeply
00:46:09.200 | into this whole idea of morning time
00:46:12.760 | and what do you do with it?
00:46:14.200 | So that thing that Courtney mentioned
00:46:16.720 | is gonna be explained more detail next week on the podcast.
00:46:21.720 | So Courtney, thank you so much for being with me today.
00:46:26.480 | I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom
00:46:30.680 | and your inspiration with our listeners.
00:46:33.320 | - Thank you for having me.
00:46:34.440 | I enjoyed our time, Lisa.
00:46:35.760 | - I'm glad.
00:46:36.600 | All right, see you guys next week.
00:46:38.480 | Bye-bye.
00:46:39.800 | (upbeat music)
00:46:42.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]