I had the opportunity to chat with Pam Barnhill on The Homeschool Snapshots Podcast. It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that we talked about books, but I won’t give it all away. You’ll have to go listen and tell me what you think!
I had the opportunity to chat with Pam Barnhill on The Homeschool Snapshots Podcast. It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that we talked about books, but I won’t give it all away. You’ll have to go listen and tell me what you think!
Hi Heidi,
ReplyDeleteI am a CC mom too (of four years). I have a question. What are your thoughts about the Challenge A program? I know you have had experience with your oldest son. Is there any particular reason you decided not to do Challenge in a community this year?
Tina
Hi Tina!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question. I've started writing a few posts about what we did this past year (and why) and where we're heading next year. I'll try to give the condensed version here.
Challenge A is a fantastic program. Some students will really excel. Others will really struggle. Some students will whip through all of their work independently in a short amount of time and some will diligently work all day and some will need a bunch of hand-holding and will always be distracted and behind (and often frustrated). ;) Every family situation is different, as well. My oldest son in particular is NOT product/check-list oriented. He is all relationship and conversation. Challenge A would have worked so much better for him if I could have spent all day discussing and working through the material with him or if he had another sibling in Challenge A and they could have worked together. He just ended up feeling left out and isolated from the rest of our family learning and he was always behind and distracted. I also think his body was working on growing physically rather than mentally and emotionally. ;)
For those and various other reasons, we skipped Challenge B in community this past year. He did work through ChB Latin, logic, and literature/Lost Tools of Writing with his best friend (and either me or his best friend's mom) during the week on two different days.
He is registered for Challenge I this coming year, and we'll play it by ear. I'll probably do quite a bit of scaling back. He'll also continue to work during the week with his best friend rather than in isolation.
My middle son is registered for Challenge A, so our style of schooling will change quite a bit. Each boy will be doing something different. Throw Lola into the mix (Kindergardent reading, writing, and math), and it might be a crazy year. Ack!!!
I'll be scaling and tweaking some of the Challenge A material for my middle son. He's using Khan instead of Saxon, and probably Latin Alive! instead of Henle. I'm not sure how much geography drawing he'll do, and I'll probably be more focused on having him master locations using the online site Sheppard Software.
Does that answer your question at all? I'd be glad to answer specific questions if you have them.
Thank you for answering my questions. I will have a son going into Challenge A this coming year too. I am a little nervous, but I think it will be a good year for him. The nice thing is that the same group of kids in his Foundations class will be in his Challenge A class.
ReplyDeleteI am a lover of books and am very curious about your Book Detective club. It sounds so wonderful.
Tina