Classical Conversations- Week ONE

What a beautiful picture of Godly friendship.  THIS is what community is all about!  I love these ladies. 

Gearing up for our first assembly of the new school year. 

Excitement was in the air!

Thank you, Mrs. Mullins for leading our devotions and praise.  Thank you for staring our morning off right.  Great IS His faithfulness!

The Challenge Directors selflessly give extra time each week to be a part of our community assembly time.  Thank you for leading the Pledge.

We're Better Together!

The Buxbaum family did a great job introducing us to their family.  It's hard being the first up there and they did a beautiful job getting us started.

Mrs. Martin and her family are here from Ohio.  They are a perfect example of God orchestrating our days.  Jennifer had attended tutor training to become a tutor in her home state of Ohio.  Shortly afterwards her husband was deployed to Florida for a short time.  God knew that here in Florida we would need an experienced tutor and so he sent her trained and ready to go.  WOW!  She did a stellar job!

I still remember talking with Danielle's husband last year and telling him that I felt like God was going to use their family in a mentoring role.  Here she is....God is FAITHFUL!

I loved watching the moms participating with their children.  This is truly a family affair.

Another first time tutor today.  Mrs. Higgins and her precious young ones doing timeline on the floor.  Mattie, has such a gift for gently introducing material and managing her students.  Her moms were right by her side and hands on.  What a wonderful example of  teamwork.

Mrs. Buxbaum is our all girls tutor.  She did an excellent job introducing the timeline cards using the 1,2, 3 system.  I so deeply appreciate Gabi's attention to detail.  

I loved watching our very youngest students!  They were PRECIOUS.  How blessed we are to have Mrs. Kronz pull her little ones into the new grammar.  They had a BLAST!

Mrs. Dennison had our all boys Masters class and she was the perfect person for the job.  Thank you, Mrs. Lejano for being an excellent room mom.

SCIENCE 

Today our classes did two experiments.

Measuring the power of the sun!

Ben placed the thermometer under the tree as we measured the difference in temperature from shade to sun.  

Mrs. Dennison placing the thermometer in the sun

WOW!  Huge difference.

Mrs. Kronz's class talking about how much hotter our world would be without shade.

Mrs. Kronz's mama's

See the long rope?  Those little legs had to run fast in order to keep the line tight and the earth moving.

Mrs. Martin's class walking through the scientific process.

CHURCH STAFF

 Oh how we love our church staff.  How very thankful we are for their gracious hospitality.

 ESSENTIALS

 We had a great time playing around with sentence structure, style, and purpose!

 Mrs. Williams all boys class

 Mrs. Mullins all girls class.

 We brought the classes together for math games and it was FUN!

CHALLENGE B

 Sipping tea while discussing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

CHALLENGE A

Have a GREAT week, everyone!

For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future!  Jeremiah 29:11

S.T.E.M. Conference

It is always a delight to work with out local homeschooling community.  This year the FPEA (Florida Parent Educators Association) put together their first ever Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math conference.  It had wonderful companies, businesses, and vendors come out for a day filled with information, inspiration, and encouragement.  

Classical Conversations had a booth and it was such joy to get-together with our sister directors from all over the area as we reached out to those wanting to know more.  I am so sad I missed my early morning directors, as my schedule had me come in at 12:30.  I loved talking with families and reconnecting with old friends working in the homeschooling community.  My precious friend Lynn and I had a great time networking with many. 

It was a blessing connecting with this lovely mom from Vero Beach.  Her director and Support Manager has become a dear friend.  She is so excited to begin her school year. 

Though this was one of the slower conferences we still had plenty of opportunity to answer questions and share the vision.  

Our location was absolutely beautiful.  It was held at a local resort called, The Tradewinds.  I'm so thankful for the many who invested their time behind the scenes. 

I love this picture.  It shows Lynn's heart.  She went out of her way to help a mom get the most out of her Saxon program.  Together they discovered that this child could actually move to a different level.  The meeting took time and patience and the sweet mama walked away feeling a sense of relief and direction. 

Kathy and Emma have become precious in my life.  We were able to tie our hearts together after working many different Practicums this season.  Kathy has such a servant heart and her daughter Emma is a perfect work partner with her mom.  This is truly a legacy season of them working together.  

It was such a delight seeing Gina (left)  at her first official event.  As a director she representing Classical Conversations by working our booth.  Ericka on the right was one of my first new hires this year.  She is a brand new Challenge A director and has a heart and a passion for walking out dialectic discussion with her families.  This season with CC is filled with rich relationships.  I'm so thankful that God puts such incredible women in my life. 

From start to finish!  Brian and Angela Sackett came up to help pack us up and move us out.  I am in awe because this day also happened to be Angela's 40th birthday!  She was full of gracious joy and gladly jumped in and began helping us close shop.  I celebrate you, Angela Sackett!  There is a Strength's book on it's way to you.  I am grateful for all you do!

 

To God Be The Glory!

Our CC St.Pete campus held our Foundations & Essentials Orientations yesterday.  It was filled to overflowing with HIS presence, tender love, and precious fellowship.



Families were able to meet their tutors and vice versa.  It was a day filled with anticipation and excitement.  

From left to right:  Anastasia, Mattie, Gabi, Jennifer, Danielle, and Angela.  

Moms had  wonderful dialectic discussion as we talked briefly about bringing CC to life in practical ways at home.  My very favorite part of the morning was when the new moms were asking the veteran homeschool moms questions and idea's began to flow.  You could see peace take root as HE connected our hearts first to HIM and then to each other.  



For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a HOPE and a FUTURE!



The purpose of orientation is to paint the picture of expectations and goals.  Anastasia walked us through the true Classical purpose of the fine arts portion of our program.  She breathed understanding and clarity into why we do what we do.

Gabi walked us through geography and how to work on blobbing the countries at home with our children.  Blobbing is something Leigh Bortin's teaches us in her book, "The Core".  We also brought in and talked about the Classical Conversations teaching tools such as the laminated geography trivium table map, flash cards, etc...


Above Marilou (middle) is our facility coordinator and next to her Debbie over sees the office management.  (I love these women)

We were so honored to celebrate the wonderful Faith Covenant leadership team who so graciously cares for us each and every week.  I did not get a shot of Pastor Rick and Jim, but they were there and encouraged us to use the building without fear of dents and scrapes. Their humble hearts of humility breathed peace into our experience.  It's always about the relationship!  




One of the things I loved (and had not planned) was having Mrs. Doto's class visit our orientation.  It was a God moment.  I  began the day by reviewing the three stages of Classical Christian Education and how Classical Conversations help us to walk those stages out.  God's timing was perfect in having Mrs. Doto's Challenge IV class stop by towards the end to introduce themselves and welcome our new moms.   



We were so honored to have Linda Wooldridge stop by from the Pinellas Parent Educators Association.  She shared the blessing of membership into the oldest and largest support group in Pinellas County and whet our appetite for upcoming events.  Her humor and genuine heart to help homeschooling moms breath a sigh of relief into any situation.  i

Angela Sackett came to orientation to introduce our CC Families to her incredible photography at Legacy Seven Studio's.  They will be doing our school pictures for our entire community.  What I love about her is that though we will have a portrait style staging area, she never does boring or simple.  God has gifted her with the ability to help each persons personality come alive and shine through in her pictures.  



Dee Dee Larreau graciously shared the fab three Thirty-One products that many of our CC families use to help them organize their homeschools and simply community day.  She sweetly offered all of our families a 10% discount on any orders we place together this next week.  We really are Better Together!

Terri Ulrich stopped by to talk about the power of storing God's Word up in our hearts.  She shared her love for a very specific bible program called, "Picture This"!  She graciously has offered to mentor moms through a workshop who would like to learn more.

Once we finished the orientation portion of our program we encouraged our families to check out their children's classes and to personally meet and greet with each of their tutors.  As I walked through the hallways I heard laughter and watched moms lay hands on one another in prayer.  

THIS IS WHAT I LOVE ABOUT WALKING IN COMMUNITY!

 
Some of our dads

A time of fellowship

Gabi meeting her mama's

Moms connecting


ESSENTIALS PROGRAM ORIENTATION



After a short lunch our afternoon Essentials program moms met to get ready for an exciting year of writing, grammar, and math drill.  These students are 9 years old and up

 Mrs. Mullins will be our girls Essentials tutor this year and did a wonderful job introducing us to our Essentials Of English Language program.

Tonya (On my right) is our boys Essentials tutor and did an incredible job showing us how to walk out the IEW portion of our writing program. (I couldn't find a picture of Tonya yesterday so I had to go back to my archives)

Our moms walked through the manuels and asked lots of wonderful questions. 

It's going to be a great year!