Is my child on track with his reading skills? It is natural that parents and teachers want to measure student literacy. You may have heard your student’s teacher use the term “dibels” before. DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills and is pronounced, ironically, “dibbles.” (I say “ironically” because it is a […]
K-12 education
Math Facts: Proficiency Through Memorization
By Kim Sukta and Caroline Hummel Lately, I have been saying—jokingly, but actually quite seriously—that I want a sign outside of my 4th grade math classroom that reads, “You must know your multiplication facts to ride this ride!” Over the course of my teaching career, I have seen many students excel at math and I […]
Why Do Folk Songs Belong in a Classical Christian Education?
As a part of the Kodály-based music education at Cedar Classical Academy, folk songs are utilized to teach musical concepts. Folk songs originate from a particular region and are passed down through generations by means of oral tradition. Aside from their value as a stepping stone towards music literacy, why do these songs rightly belong […]
Why Did You Assign This Book?
“Why did you assign this book?” At Cedar Classical Academy, we choose books for each grade’s literature curriculum by committee. Individual teachers do not independently choose their own literature books, but occasionally do have the freedom to select books from among the larger list. We follow the principle of multum non multa, which is Latin […]
Why We Say “Well”
Every morning at Cedar Classical Academy, the Cedar community—staff, students, and parents—gathers together in the Great Hall for Opening Ceremony. During Opening Ceremony, we sing a hymn, recite a patriotic recitation or sing a patriotic song, pray together, and sing again while students walk to class. Sometimes students or staff share an individual or all-class […]
Handwriting
Within the first week of school in my classroom, I begin teaching the first and second graders how to hold their pencils correctly and how to form their letters properly. Why do I begin so early? Because many of them enter my classroom putting their index and middle fingers on their pencils. The longer they […]
Kodály Who?
If you are a Cedar parent, you may have heard your student sing about a horse that caught a whooping cough, rain that will not go away, Queen Caroline, or John Kanaka. Learning these folk songs is part of the Kodály (pronounced code-EYE) approach that is focused on singing-centered music literacy. Folk songs (our musical mother […]
Why We Have High Expectations in Kindergarten
This is adapted from a talk that Mrs. Ackerman gave at a parent education event called Lightning Talks on September 28, 2022. Watch it here. Download our Kindergarten Readiness Checklist here. On the front end I want to warn you that this talk may make kindergarten sound like a battlefield, but in this short time […]
Cedar Hallways
You come into Cedar Classical Academy for the first time and many unique practices fill your first impressions. You notice our uniforms, the orderliness of the students’ boot mat, the friendly greetings of students when you enter a classroom. You say, “Wow! A school in a church!” (To see how the Lord orchestrates this weekly, […]
In Defense of Mastery: Our Approach to Assessment
One of the primary goals outlined in our mission statement is to “offer a rigorous course of study in the Western liberal arts tradition, teaching students to discover goodness, truth, and beauty in every discipline as a reflection of God.” A great deal of preparation goes into the fulfillment of this statement. The governing board supports the school by upholding the […]
Harvesting Where We Did Not Plant: The Story of a Brick-and-Mortar School
In the summer of 2017 on a sweltering weekday morning, I parked just south of the Capitol and walked to the Michigan Department of Education, holding the hands of my two toddlers, in order to get a letter of approval declaring us a school. I had tried and failed to register our school with the […]
The Value of Reading Together
If you have a student in Cedar in Kindergarten, 1st Grade, or 2nd Grade, then you are familiar with this instruction on their take-home sheets: “Read at home with your student.” But what exactly does that mean? What should reading at home with your student look like? The Secret Sauce Let’s start with an encouraging […]
Introduction to Latin
While reading Washington Irving’s book, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., the 3rd and 4th graders came across the phrase terra incognita. A student asked what it means, but already knew half its meaning since he knew that terra, a vocabulary word they learned in their first year of Latin at Cedar, means “earth” or “land.” Why do we teach […]
Count the Cost, Part IV: Failure
Count the Cost is a blog series designed for prospective parents. In our fourth installment, we asked Miss Katherine Bradford about how a classical school’s high standards inevitably mean that students will deal with failure. (Spoiler Alert: We think that is a good thing.) Katie was a founding teacher at Oakdale Academy in Waterford Township […]
Introduction to Singapore Math
At Cedar Classical Academy, we teach mathematics in a way that is very different from the way you were likely taught. American math curricula tend to show a pre-solved example equation, explain the steps that were taken to solve it, and then assign a number of similar problems. The student solves these problems by copying […]
Count the Cost, Part III: Tiny School
Count the Cost is a blog series designed for prospective parents. In our third installment, we asked the Poortenga family about the steep costs of pioneering at such a small school community in which each family plays a major part in shaping the school culture. The Poortengas co-founded Trinitas Classical School, a Michigan K-8 classical […]
Count the Cost, Part II: A Singing Culture
Count the Cost is a blog series designed for prospective parents. In our second installment, we asked our music teacher to explain why we spend so much – so much – time singing. If you a spend a day at Cedar Classical Academy, you will quickly notice that we constantly sing together throughout the school hours. The […]
Count the Cost, Part I: Money Etc.
Count the Cost is a blog series designed for prospective parents. In our first installment, we asked the Liebing family about the financial sacrifices they have made over the past 21 years of their involvement with Mars Hill Academy. Our core conviction is this: we have a responsibility as parents to do the best we […]
Training to Serve: Our Physical Education Curriculum
Human beings are composed of Mind, Soul, and Body. As a classical and Christian school, you are right to assume that we care about the mind and soul. But how many classical school graduates do you hear about in the NFL? Did we forget about the body? (The short answer is “no.”) The education of […]
“Beauty out of dust”: Our Art Curriculum
God the Creator has formed us to be worshipers, creators in his image, and stewards of what he has made. He creates universes out of nothing but words! He forms living beings out of dust and calls them good! We create art with lowly paper and paints, clay and scissors. In studying and practicing art, […]