FINDING BALANCE:
Why Legacy Classical Christian Academy, a University-model microschool, is your child's best educational option... and how it works!
When new families begin to research their school choices, they often stumble onto our website. Most are overjoyed that we exist! All they hear about is public school, private school, and homeschool. None of these provide balance to a family’s home life. The first two options have children on site with 300 - 2000 other children 35 hours a week. Most come home to complete extra school work (called “homework). Many have evening activities like dance, baseball practice, AWANAS, or youth group. Everyone is rushed everywhere and there is no peace (or, what my husband likes to call, “margin”).
The third option, homeschooling, has you at home 24/7 with your precious children that you love and adore. But this option lacks balance and peace as well. When you have a quiet moment, you are reading blogs about homeschooling or writing lesson plans, or scheduling play dates. Some homeschoolers participate in multiple co-ops (the outdoor learning classes, the library story time, the fine arts classes or music lessons plus baseball practice, AWANAS, or youth group!) Either there is no break from your calling or everyone is STILL rushed everywhere and there is no peace.
With a University-model School, you have time to attend Bible study, grocery shop (alone), or go to lunch with friends on the days your children are on campus. On the days at home, you use the curriculum and the school provided checklist of activities and assignments to teach your children. We also provide the art, the foreign language, the music, the scripture study, and the social engagement children long for. To currently homeschooling moms, this sounds like a dream!
To 5-day a week public and private school families, this probably still doesn’t make a lot of sence. Let’s look at some developmental stages, and how a UMS is your best educational option.
For mom’s looking at Kindergarten, the idea of leaving them 35 hours a week with someone else to influence, well, it’s heartbreaking. But, if you are like me, I LOVED Mother’s Day Out. It was the right balance of time to regroup and be a better mom to my kids. Legacy Classical is like Mother’s Day Out for elementary students!
Let’s say your child is in 1st or 2nd grade - these years they are learning to read! Is their nightly homework just to read a list of sight words? Wouldn’t you rather they learn to read by learning the patterns of the English language with phonemes and sounds? Aren’t they more excited to read and “do homework” if they can pick up a book “like what mommy’s has” and decode what is on the page? Doesn’t your child have a greater sense of accomplishment? Aren’t they motivated to “do it again”?
The next grades - oh, my - standardized testing. Beginning in third grade and until they graduate high school, your child is learning how to pass a test (because that is exactly the life skill needed in the workplace! - sarcasm, here). Legacy Classical does assess the children to compare them to educational norms. However, we realize that excellent instruction translates into high norm referenced scores. We use these score to verify that our teaching methods and chosen curriculum is resulting in yearly progress for each child. In fact, we don’t even share the results with the children or families unless we see a serious issue that needs addressing.
No matter what grade your child is in, it is never too late to bring balance back into your home life.
What does it look like on school days at Legacy Classical?
As a microschool, our students are intentionally integrated into combined grade levels. We call these combined grade levels Forms. For more information on this, please refer to the blog, “Do Not Be Conformed To This World.”
Students in Forms 1 - 4 attend classes Tuesday and Thurday. Students in Forms 5 - 7 also attend all day Friday. During this time, qualified teachers provide a quick review of previous learning and then they teach new concepts using direct instruction and guided practice. For teaching fine motor skills such as handwriting or when needing to complete math worksheets, children will be seen sitting at desks. For Bible study, literature or history, they are often in a corner following along or listening and narrating. Science and nature studies is highly hands-on with labs and journaling/drawing their observations like real scientists do!
During a school day, you may hear the children in choral response of catechisms, reciting memorized scripture, poetry, or content-specific songs (i.e. the Nifty Fifty United States) Children learn to share, to use self-control for their turn, to keep their hands to themselves in a line, and all the typical societal norms you want your child to learn!
What does it look like on home days?
Students in Forms 1 - 4 have a Tuesday to Tuesday turn-in schedule. This means Wednesday’s Home Day assignments are not due until the following Tuesday. Beginning in 7th grade, students begin to turn in their Wednesday Home Day assignments into the instructor on Thursday to eliminate the temptation of procrastination!
Home days should not look like a traditional school day. Families do not need to convert their garage or spare bedroom into a classroom. All you need is for a book case to hold teacher manuals and the curriculum we check out to you and a kitchen table!
The younger the student, the less “paperwork” required. This makes it incredibly important for the Home-Day teacher to be consistent with oral excercises and kinestheic learning. For instance, your teacher probably won’t ask you to write their spelling words 5 x each on a piece of paper and turn it in. Most likely, you will practice writing them in chalk on the driveway, or in sand with their forefinger.
You will be asked to read certain stories and literature books out loud to your child. This can be something dad can do when he gets home from work or right before bedtime.
Jump on the trampoline while skip counting. Build a fort in the living room for independent readers to have a fun and quiet place so mom can help a younger sibling with phonics.
Do you have a long commute to school? Use the time to practice memorizing the history timeline, counting to 1000, or practice reading road signs. Keep a clipboard and pencil handy and children can get a head start on math worksheets sitting in the back seat on the way home!
Charlotte Mason’s famous quote is “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.” Both school and home should make learning feel life-giving and joyful. Learning should be like our relationship with Christ - it is integrated into the lifestyle of one’s family, and not a separate category.
If you want to learn how your family can become a part of the Legacy family, please text/call 817-363-3652 or email admissions@legacyclassical.org or visit our website at www.legacyclassical.org.