A classical education is one that is highly focused on language. This means that students will be exposed to material through READING, LISTENING, and WRITING. A classical education also recognizes three stages of learning: Grammar (grades K-3), Logic (grades 4-8), and Rhetoric (grades 9 and up).
In the Grammar stage, the building blocks for all other learning are laid. Children at this age (K-4) actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts.
The Logic stage (5-8) is when children begin processing the information to which they have been exposed. Much of this processing is accomplished through questioning. Students at this stage begin to think more abstractly than they have previously. They begin to ask why? during this stage rather than taking a teacher (or parent's) word for it.
A classical approach also seeks to connect what students are learning, so books assigned may be from the same time period as the history lessons. Science may introduce scientists or inventions that are from that same period, and writing assignments may be focused around those same ideas and concepts.
A classical education also strives to use Bloom's Taxonomy effectively. Bloom's Taxonomy says that there are six levels of learning that build upon each other: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.