Children with learning challenges will require more intentional thought and attention at home or in school. These twenty-one reminders can serve all of us no matter the educational setting. 1. Be Active Teach in short bursts, alternating between physical activities and seated activities. Low muscle tone or distracted minds can lead to fatigue. Provide movement […]
Category Archives: Simply Classical Journal
We often receive questions about teaching children with specific conditions classically. In this issue we focus on intellectual disability and Down syndrome, but we trust that the articles and resources herein will provide help teaching any child with learning challenges. We begin with some facts: An estimated 93 million children globally have special learning or […]
The Prince and the Pauper is a long-ago case of mistaken identity set in Britain’s glorious crown London, in what we in nowadays-America would call the suburbs. A poor boy (Tom Canty) and a rich boy (Prince Edward Tudor) exchange garments and lives for what they think will be a few vain, fleeting hours that […]
Cheryl Swope: Andrew, you have devoted much of your adult life to classical education. Why? Andrew: When I started, it was because I smelled something beautiful. It sang to me. I thought, “That makes sense. That’s the kind of education I want for my children.” I think you could say I pursued classical education on […]
Written years ago on April 24, just after Michael & Michelle turned thirteen. We rose on schedule, accomplished our morning jobs, and began schooling at 8:25 a.m., as is our custom. I gave an overview of our day and week with our visual schedule and calendar. I read our daily Bible lesson as my children […]
The first race I ever trained for was a marathon. I was twenty years old and had never run more than a mile in my life. I simply needed an outlet—and a goal to make progress toward. Running became my conduit for stress relief. At the time, my uncle was an active runner and marathon […]
Letter from The Editor Winter 2021 C. S. Lewis says, “the right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments.” How do we inculcate just sentiments in our children’s minds? In our own minds? We can do this with good books. Good books impart just sentiments and soothe parched thinking. It is said that […]
Most adults can recall feeling a momentary panic in a math class at one time or another, but some children feel despair about math daily. They may struggle through math lessons for many reasons: attitude, handwriting difficulty, poor number sense, language-based learning disability, or difficulties with memory, fear, or discouragement. We can address these effectively […]
On the Feast of St. John the Evangelist in 1571, a baby boy named Johannes Kepler came into the world. Born prematurely, he was weak and sickly as a child. By the time he was born he had two brothers and a sister. When Johannes was five years old, his father left the family. When […]
How long can you stare at hieroglyphs you can’t decipher before you shrug your shoulders, smile, and move on? Without a cipher, or the ability to translate the pictograms into meaningful sounds or images, they would be just fancy lines and dots to you. I sometimes imagine that to the child with a language impairment, […]