Challenge A at Charlotte

Research Science Journal

During first semester and the first part of second semester, Challenge A students learn how to research various elements of creation and write a corresponding paragraph from their research. Instead of using the recommended science journal book which is available for sale, I prefer to use a 1/2 inch binder with paper and page protectors. This provides more room and space for the paragraph with a picture on the facing page. Another benefit is that in the page protector, students can place their keyword outline, their rough draft, and their bibliography. This keeps everything all in one place and at the end of the year they will have a nice binder with all of their research, outlines, bibliographies, and final drafts. Here is an example of one student's science notebook...

As you can see, this science journal entry is handwritten. The parent decides if they want these typed or written, and if it will be one paragraph or two. The picture should always be a hand-drawn diagram, not a photocopy or printed picture from the internet. The diagram should be labeled by the student from his or her research. There are several great websites to use to research that are safe. Please find these on the list of links on the right side of this blog. I recommend for the two required sources that at least one be a book or encyclopedia. I handed out an example of a bibliography in the parent packet, and there is a sample biblio also on this blog under the label "science". There are two sample bibliographies in the links to the right.

Latin flashcards

Note: master vocabulary list is the first item in the list of links on the right side of this blog.

An easy way to learn vocabulary for a new language is by using flashcards. My kids are also using them this summer to try and learn their multiplication tables a little faster. Even ten minutes per day of reading through a stack will really make a difference. I have found that by having them read the card OUT LOUD actually works better because they are hearing and seeing the connection. By engaging more than one of the senses, the material is more quickly learned. Here is the flashcard method that we use...

Nouns:
PINK cards for 1st declension
BLUE cards for 2nd declension
YELLOW cards for 3rd declension
RED cards for 4th declension
PURPLE cards for 5th declension

front of card: terra, terrae

back of card: earth, land (feminine 1st)
terra terrae
terrae terrārum
terram terrīs
terrae terrās
terrā terrīs

Adjectives: NEON GREEN

front of card: magnus, magna, magnum

back of card: great, large (1st type)
magnus magnī magna magnae magnum magna
magnī magnōrum magnae magnārum magnī magnōrum
magnō magnīs magnae magnīs magnō magnīs
magnum magnōs magnam magnās magnum magna
magnō magnīs magnā magnīs magnō magnīs

Verbs: GREEN

front of card: laudo, laudare, laudavi, laudatum

back of card: to praise (PRESENT TENSE)

singular plural

1st person laudo laudamus

2nd person laudas laudatis

3rd person laudat laudant

Prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, other: ORANGE

Some students prefer to put them all on a big ring. Others use a file box to store them in. If you can't find colored index cards, another option is to just highlight the top of the card in the right color or draw a border in the right color on the card.

The above will be thoroughly explained in class, but I am posting it so parents and students can refer to this example later on and have it in writing. It shouldn't make any sense until you are already in the second week of our year.

Geography Dictionary

Along with drawing the whole world and memorizing all 215 countries, Challenge A students create a Geography Dictionary of geography terms. Each week, 5 terms are assigned and students write the term, definition, and draw a picture to go with it. It looks like this:

I have students write the term at the top, the definition at the bottom, and the picture covering the bulk of the space. They can use blank white paper, divide into fourths using a ruler and a pencil, and then fill in the squares as they go along. This is not mandatory, but I also recommend that they draw a REAL EXISTING feature from the world. For example, instead of just writing CANAL and its definition with a generic picture, this student found there was a Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. So her generic picture now has a specific label of a real place.

To find the definition: students should search in a dictionary, encyclopedia, or on the internet. IF ON THE INTERNET, please use caution and consider having a parent present with you. Type 'geography term ___" in the search box to get tailored results. For example, search for "geography term canal", not just "canal" in order to find the definition. To find a specific example to label your picture, try typing in "famous geo term canal in world" and see what happens. As always, parents have the final say on which websites to search in. Please use caution because there is a lot of ungodly material on the internet.

I will be handing out these blank folders at Student Orientation night on August 8th. Parents and students supply the paper and page protectors.

Dissections in Research

After researching and drawing animals and memorizing systems of the body, it is always fun to do a dissection in class of said animal/body organ. It is a great review to find all the specific parts that match our diagrams. This year, we dissected a lobster (aquatic invertebrate week), cow eyeball, sheep heart, frog, and shark.

Top 3 Skills Gained in Challenge A

I found this great blog article on Challenge A and I totally agree with the writer's observations! Check it out...
http://familystyleschooling.com/2015/05/19/top-3-skills-gained-in-challenge-a/

Overview of Challenge A

Here's a general article covering the Challenge A level in Classical Conversations. It has frequently asked questions listed at the end. The only fact in the article that has changed is the total amount of time spent per day. For 2016-2017, the recommended time spent is 1 hour per class for Latin, Math, Geography, Science, and Writing. For Rhetoric (It Couldn't Just Happen) the recommendation is 15 or 20 minutes per day. So the total time spent on school each day should be approximately 5 hours and 15 minutes. This will vary from day to day, but it's a good benchmark!
https://www.classicalconversations.com/classical/programs/challenge/challenge-a

The Challenge Difference

Field Trip to Body Worlds!

Information Meeting

I will be holding a Challenge A information meeting on Wednesday, February 24 at the Panera Bread across from Concord Mills Mall. Time is 7 - 8:15 pm. You can email me to rsvp at beehive4@carolina.rr.com

We will be going over the basic outline of Challenge A: the hows and whats and whys of what we do every Tuesday during the school year. Registration begins on March 1, 2016 for the 2016-2017 school year.

I hope to see you there!

Henle Latin Master Vocabulary List

Henle Latin Level 1

Bibliography Help

During the first semester, students will be researching and writing a paragraph or two on various animals and plants each week. This paragraph will include a bibliography of at least two sources. Here is a sample bibliography to help with this task:

Book: Mills, John. My Book. New York: Random House, 1992.

Book with 2 authors: Jeffers, Anne and David Miller. Their Book. London: Pearson, 2001.

Work in Anthology Green, Terry. "His Article." Collected Book. Editor Tim Roe. New York: Scribes, 2005. pp 54-61.

Newspaper: Harris, Tom. "Big News." The Washington Post 14 May 2004, A2

Journal/Magazine: Brown, Alice. "Her Article." Literary Journal 35.4 (1998): 13- 21.

Website with author: Smith, George. "His Web Text." Research Foundation (2005). Accessed 4/14/2015 from [http://www.research.org/webtext].

Website w/out author: "About Science." Science Forum Online (2007). Accessed 7/22/2015 from [http://www.sfo.org/about].

The sources should typed up in the above format and put in alphabetical order using the first word of each entry. So for the above list of sources, "About Science" would come first and Brown, Alice would be listed second.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

I remember taking a "career test" in high school. We were all so excited to imagine the possibilities that lay ahead of us in college and beyond. Unfortunately, I don't remember my results, nor do I have any inkling of where they are now. Probably in a landfill somewhere.

I recently found a website where you can take a FREE test online and they provide a list of the best areas of study for you based on your personality, interests, and talents. I am definitely going to have my kids take this test in early high school to help us all figure out what they should pursue after graduation. It does take about an hour to complete, and it is recommended to not rush through but instead to allow ample time to really consider each multiple choice question.

Interestingly, I took the test and scored fairly low on "education". My top three highest scores were in science, mathematics, and administration. Hmm......

career test

Supply List

Here are the additional supplies your student will need, other than books:

One 1/2 inch 3 ring binder
One 2 inch 3 ring binder
Subject dividers - pack of eight
Dry erase markers (white board supplied by tutor)
Index cards, you choose colored or white
Highlighters, pens, pencils, colored pencils
Looseleaf paper
Blank white paper for map drawing
Clear page protectors

Teaching discernment

So I just read an awesome article by Matt Bianco. He introduces the four types of stories. Every song, movie, book, or tv show will fall into one of these categories. I think it is especially apropos given what we are seeing happen all around us in our world today - even just in this past month! Let's teach our kids to be able to identify what they see and then to discern if it's the best choice of our time. Does it match up with our biblical worldview?

Four types of literature

video fun with LTW

We will be using LTW level ONE this year in challenge A. The first several essays are super short and focused on form and learning the basic model and structure of a persuasive essay. Many parents and students wonder why they are not required to write as they did in IEW in the past. They are used to seven sentence paragraphs, five of them, loaded with flowery adjectives, creative similes, and adverbial clauses. They know how to write well. They've learned it. Keyword outlines can be completed without barely a thought - like breathing or digesting.

But what if we didn't have a text to rewrite? Instead, what if we read a book together and then decided to create a thesis and write an essay? What would we write about? How would we arrange the proofs of the thesis? That's LTW.

We will spend the first couple of months learning the model of the persuasive essay and how to think about and analyze a book in order to create a thesis that is relevant and personally fulfilling. Students will be choosing characters and themes that they are excited about - which always makes writing more fun! Yes, it might seem like we are taking a step backward in our writing and using less creativity. But we are learning the parts of a persuasive essay and practicing them over and over until they are as engrained in our brains as the keyword outline. By the end of this first year of LTW, students will know how to craft and organize an essay from a piece of literature. They will certainly be reading books more analytically. This ability will serve them for years to come: in the writing section of the SAT, any AP tests they take, and any future classes in high school and college.

This silly video shows how even a "boring" and "simple" persuasive essay model can eventually be used to create beautiful masterpieces. It's just under ten minutes long and I think will be encouraging to anyone just starting out with LTW. Enjoy!

the line and the dot - a romance

Latin Flashcards

The Challenge A way to make awesome Latin flashcards!!

Latin flashcards

inspiration

The Highlighting System

Please click on this link to access the information on the highlighting system that is being taught and used this year in all the Challenge levels...

the highlighting system

Cutting Back on Glowing Screens

I remember my summers...full of swimming, reading, playing outside, making up new games, and writing and illustrating my own mini-books. We didn't have to deal with the constant pull of devices calling our names. Now that official school in this house is on a severely abbreviated schedule, the electronics usage was starting to drive me crazy. So I am so glad I read a post on Facebook the other day that addressed this very issue!! I added and tweaked a couple of items and here is our new plan for the summer to reduce the time the kids are spending on "glowing screens". This includes tablets, ipods, iphones, computers, netflix, and television.

Autobiography for First Day of Class

Please answer the following questions and bring them on the first day...
I can't wait to hear all of your answers!!