Classical Christian curriculem

Question:
After doing a lot more reading, I'm also curious in the classical Christian approach. My situation is that I'm am seriously contemplating homeschooling in the future for my 3 1/2 year old daughter and a 14 month old son. My husband and I were both educated in both public and private Christian schools, but feel homeschooling may be the best choice for our children. His siblings are all currently homeschooling all their children; so if we don't homeschool, we'll be the black sheep of his family But then, most of my family is pretty heathen, and I will probably be the black sheep of my family if we do

I've done some reading from various web pages about the methodology and suggested reading lists for classical Christian. But I would be curious in getting specific information about possible umbrella or satellite schools in this approach, or even more detailed curriculum suggestions and/or lesson plans. And obviously, I am more geared to information for the lower grades as my children are still very young (K-2). I have seen Tree of Life page, but would be looking for something similar in the U.S. My church persuasion is very much of the Pentecostal/Charismatic flavor, but all that really matters is that I live and will die to love Jesus and His word. I should mention that I am deathly allergic to legalism, but pray everyday for wisdom to do what Jesus would do if he were living my life.

Answer:
-We're using a place called Kolbe Academy (Catholic) - they have an online guide to curriculum choices. They don't publish their own stuff (well, not much of it); mostly they've sifted and winnowed through the materials that are out there and recommended what they think best fits the Classical model. You might find it useful just to browse through what they thought looks good. They've also got some booklets on their take on Classical schooling (using St. Ignatius' Ratio Studiorum as their basis).

I'm afraid I'm too new at this to be able to help (only started homeschooling last fall), but I'm corresponding with Angela Polk right now about classical schooling and she has an email list and a few more links that I'm sure she'd share with you.

Here's Kolbe:

http://www.kolbe.org

-http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html http://www.muscanet.com/~trivium/hsing_w_trivium/hsing_w_trivium_3.html

http://www.muscanet.com/%7Etrivium/ http://www.gbt.org/res.html

aol://5863:126/mB:256853 (I think only for AOL members) http://www.verinet.com/~djgame/1000.html

Those should get you started. Joan or somebody else might have more information. Veritas Press and Canon Press, both online although I don't have URLs handy, are both classical. I'm sure there are others. For what it's worth, CM and classical dovetail nicely in the later years (probably 10 and up, definitely high school). It's in the earliest years that they differ much. The Bluedorn's site can tell you more about that.