By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

The Chilton County Classical Conversations community celebrated the end of its first year with a showcase to family and friends featuring what they had learned.

Older students read reports they had written on historical characters, including a female Viking warrior, Robin Hood, princesses, scientists, Jesus and other leaders in history. Each student was in costume.

Younger students recited a sentence or two about their character.

“I’m very proud of them,” Sharon King, who is homeschooling her children and serves as a tutor in the program, said. “They’ve all worked very hard, and they are pretty young to have done a research paper.”

King said each student had to use multiple sources for their report.

After a few weeks of research, students began developing paragraphs that would be used in the report.  Then, they focused on specific aspects of improving the paper, such as verbs or adjectives.

Sadie Grace Martin portrayed Theodora of the Byzantine Empire.

“I really like empresses … and I liked picking out the costume,” Martin said. “It took a long time to write the story but it was fun.”

She said the bravery and faith of Theodora stood out to her.

Titus King portrayed Copernicus. King said he enjoyed doing the research for his project. What stood out most to him was that Copernicus disproved the theory that the earth was the center of the universe, which had been widely accepted at the time.

“We are a supportive community. We have encouraged each other. We have been praying for each other.  We have been doing projects together,” coordinator Tara Littleton said. “We show students how every subject is connected to each other.”

“Intense memorization,” Littleton said, is an integral part of each subject.

Martin received special recognition as a Memory Master.

“[A Memory Master] is one who demonstrates a mastery of all seven foundations, subjects … and can recite 100 percent of the information learned this year,” Littleton said.

To receive the award, Martin correctly recited the information four separate times to four different adults.

“I was so impressed with your determination,” Littleton told Martin.

This information included more than 100 historical events in chronological order, more than 100 geographical locations, multiplication tables, Latin verb endings in first conjugation, English grammar facts and 24 science facts.

Art projects and history displays were also featured during the event.