How the Make the Most of CC’s Foundations Program

My children aged out of Foundations in 2022, so some of this information is growing stale. Double check with your local Director!

Welcome to our Foundations Page!

Our hope is that this series of pages becomes a great resource for CC families. We cover some of the more general info on other pages:

This page is part of our series on how we homeschool with Classical Conversations. 
Check out a full list of all the resources on our main CC page here.

Table of Contents for This Page

1. For those not familiar with CC:
   • What is Foundations?
   • What To Buy?
2. For those who are in it:
   • Tips for Foundations
   • Cycle Specific Helps
   • Outside Resources

I know there’s a lot of information here, but I’m going to try hard to use headings and bold lettering to make it easy to scan!

I’m assuming you already read about how we do Classical Conversations, and are no longer just considering CC, so let’s move on to the Foundations-specific material!

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What is CC’s Foundations Program?

CC’s Foundations level is for K4 through 6th grade. (4th-6th graders also do Essentials).

Community Day

The Foundations Community Day is one morning a week for 24 weeks a year, usually around 9am-12pm, with a big group lunch at noon. (Essentials then happens after lunch. Challenge usually goes all day from 8-3)

The day starts with a large group opening meeting for 15 minutes. Then kids break off into their classes (roughly arranged by age, to complete 5 fast paced, 30-minutes segments:

1. New Grammar– where they use songs, hand motions, visuals, and other memory helps to memorize tidbits in 7 subjects: timeline, history, geography, English, Latin, math, and science.
2. Art/Music– Quarter 1 and 3 focus on the visual arts while Q2 and 4 focus on music.
3. Science– Students do experiments together to make real the science they are learning and to cement the scientific process.
4. Presentations– this is usually show-and-tell for the young ones and then in progresses to more formal presentations as they get older
5. Review Games– where they play games reviewing previous week’s memory work

At Home

• Each day (the other 4 weekdays), students review the memory work for 15-30 minutes.
• Once a week, students pick out a topic as their presentation for new community day
• Work through your own math and language art programs (4th and 6th graders will use Essentials for part of their language arts curriculum)

I realize that it doesn’t seem like enough, but it is! My boys (class of 2026 and 2028) have worked their way through this program and it’s had beautiful results! Let your K-3rd graders spend the rest of their days exploring, playing games and creating (and keep them off screens as much as you can stand).

What To Buy for Foundations?

• Foundations Guide (one per family- contains all 3 cycles in it)
• Tin Whistle (one per student)
• Timeline cards (optional- same 4 sets used every cycle)
• Memory work flashcards or phone app (optional- new ones each cycle)
• Add on your own math and language arts curriculum!

What’s a ‘Cycle?’

CC has broken their work into 3 cycles, one per year. So every 3 years, the Foundations curriculum repeats. This is on purpose! Kids need this repetition to secure the content into their memory! The 2025-26 school year is a CC Cycle 2 year all over the world! This also means that if you move, you’ll be able to fold in with a new community pretty easily.

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Tips and Hacks for making Foundations better or easier

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How to Set Up a Community Map Challenge Like a Pro

Art Lessons with Classical Conversations

What to do with your Timeline Cards

What to do at home

Cycle Specific

Cycle 1 Art

Cycle 2 Art

Cycle 3 Art

Cycle 3 Science: My Body- assembly instructions and 5 Tips for Beautiful Coloring with Crayons

Other Resources:

• Half a Hundred Acre Wood
• www.colbybooks.com
• Cornerstone Science

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