Classical Education Overview

From the book The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Bauer

Three repetitions of the same four year pattern linking history with the sciences mastered in each period.

Ancients (5000BC-AD400) - Grades 1, 5, 9:
Biology, Classification, Human Body

Medieval-Early Renaissance (400-1600) - Grades 2, 6, 10:
Earth Science, Astronomy

Late Renaissance-early modern (1600-1850) - Grades 3, 7, 11:
Chemistry

Modern (1850-present) - Grades 4, 8, 12:
Physics, Computer Science

Trivium:
Grammar Stage (grades 1-4): Lay the building blocks for all other learning just as grammar is the foundation for language. Focus on fact learning - memorization, rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, vocab of foreign languages, stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants, animals, and human body, math facts, etc.

Logic Stage (grades 5-8): Cause and effect, relationships among different fields of knowledge, the way facts fit together into a logical framework. Learn algebra and logic, the logic of writing (paragraph construction), reading (criticism and analysis of texts), history (why?).

Rhetoric Stage (grades 9-12): Apply the rules of logic learned in the logic stage with the foundational info from the grammar stage and express conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. Also specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts her.

DISCLAIMER: I plan to use many elements of the classical education; however the entire program is a little more intense than CM, whose philosophies resonate more with me. I am only including the portions of classical I like on this blog. For a more complete reference, refer to The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.