Window into Community Day & More!

Director
May 24, 2016
3 min read

Our community of 4-12 yr olds meets Thursdays from 9am-3pm 24 weeks per school year. We hold 12 meetings in the fall, break after Thanksgiving, return in January, and meet 12 more weeks. Here's a typical day at CC.

9:00-Opening assembly begins. Our entire community practices learning a timeline of historical events, reciting scripture, and participating in the pledges. One family per week makes a brief introduction or presentation about themselves.

9:30-Foundations classes begin. These classes consist of five parts and are led by a parent tutor. The tutors build strong relationships with their students, and the students are in the same class with the same students and tutor each week.

Memory work: each week students commit to memory geographical locations, math, history, and science facts, English and Latin grammar, and part of their yearly timeline. This is all done in an age appropriate, fun, and engaging manner. Students are moving, acting out, using motions, and sometimes singing (or yelling!).
Fine Arts: For six weeks at a time we study either drawing fundamentals, music theory, great artists, or famous composers. (Think...art is done at CC rather than your kitchen table. No trying to round up the supplies at home.)
Science: During this time, students either participate in science experiments or science exploration. This is a hands on time focusing on learning and implementing the scientific method.
Public Speaking: Each week, every student makes an oral presentation to their class on the topic of their choosing. The goal of this time is to increase the student's confidence by practicing skills of public speaking such as volume, pace, eye contact, posture, and more.
Review Games: This may be every student's favorite time of class. The tutor engages her students in fun memory work review games.

12:00-Lunch and recess as a community.

1:00-Essentials class begins. This class is for 4th grade and up, and is led by a trained parent tutor each week and consists of three parts:

English grammar: Students learn sentence patterns and structures, the parts of speech, capitalization and punctuation rules, and diagramming. Students learn to analyze and classify sentences. This in-depth study of the English language will make the future study of foreign languages and advanced literature much easier.
Math Games: Students gain speed and improve accuracy in mental math computations by playing games with numbers. Tutors use dice, whiteboards, cards, and fun games to drill students in multiplication tables and other operations in order to improve their success when they move into more advanced math topics. Competing with fellow students is much more fun that just competing with mom!
Writing: Students learn to outline, compose paragraphs and essays, and practice using stylistic techniques in a fun environment. In 2016-2017, the source texts for the written papers will cover medieval history, which aligns with our Foundations history studies. Tutors model writing techniques in class each week, allow students to practice the techniques, and then correlate a writing assignment to complete at home. Students then present their papers in class to their peers.

Special Events for CC Owasso Southwest Students:

Faces of History -After completing an independent research paper, Essentials students, in full costume, make an oral presentation summarizing biographical information of their selected historical figure. (held in the spring)
Marketplace-Students practice their entrepreneurial skills by making and selling goods or services on selected community days during our lunch break. (all ages)
Junior Achievement Biztown-Combines in-class learning with a day-long visit to a simulated town. This popular program allows students to operate banks, manage restaurants, write checks, and vote for mayor. The program helps students connect the dots between what they learn in the classroom setting and the real world. (For Essentials Students)

Outside of community day, our families join together for social events, field trips, park days, and more.