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These are the tips that helped us survive CC Challenge A. They are the little things that made a BIG difference in our experience.
My 12-year-old daughter helped to create this list to give you the advice of both a CC mom and a CC student.
1. Tracing paper for the mapwork
If your child is like mine and dislikes drawing- let them trace and label the maps for cartography. Tracing takes the pain out of cartography for drawing phobic children. Honestly, if your goal is that your student knows where countries and cities are located, I promise you they can learn this by tracing and memorizing the countries and capitals. A beautifully hand-drawn map is not required. Get yourself some tracing paper and save your child (and yourself) some tears.
2. The Seterra app for cartography
My daughter loves this app! We found it midway through the year and it has been such a huge help! It allows her to easily review countries, cities, and features as she works on memorizing the world for the cartography strand. She traces the maps as well, but this helps with drilling the memory work involved. We love Seterra!
3. Make copies of The Lost Tools of Writing (LTOW) student guide pages
Before classes begin
Our director gave us a “Challenge A Resource Chart for Copying LTW Student Workbook Pages” that I believe is available on CC connected if you have a subscription- it has the number of copies per student page already figured out for you. If you don’t have access to CC connected, just flip through each week of the CC Challenge A guide and write out the student pages that are assigned for each novel. This doesn’t take too long and is very worth the time. Once you have written down how many copies you need of each page, then make your copies, and place them in a binder divided by each novel title. Students will work on their essays for three weeks, so each novel section will have 3 weeks worth of work in it.
As an example, let’s look at the Chronicles of Narnia essay. The CC Challenge A guide for weeks 2-4 will tell you the specific pages to complete in the LTOW student guide. Copy each of those assigned student pages and pop them in your student’s notebook. Now, all your student has to do is open their binder to the novel they are working on and complete the LTOW pages for that week. So much easier than flipping through the LTOW student guide each week to find the assigned pages and then having to write everything out in a notebook or make copies every single week. Instead, you will have all the copy work done upfront so you can enjoy the writing process with your student! This also gives you a place to store their completed essay.
4. Spiral bind the Henle Latin books
Spiral bind the Henle Latin book and the grammar book. Latin is hard enough- don’t struggle with a book that won’t lay flat. It will just add to the frustration. This single tip is a game changer! Our local UPS store did ours for less than $4.
5. Buy an extra Henle Latin book (have it spiral bound too)
If you can afford it- get yourself a Henle Latin First Year book (just the purple textbook, not the grammar book). I love being able to sit with my daughter to do Latin. We can both look at the same exercise without being on top of one another. Just another simple thing that makes a big difference.
6. Use a white board for l essons
Your child is not required to write out every. single. Latin exercise. Change things up by doing some together on a whiteboard. Same for drawing countries, doing math problems, drawing body systems, etc. We like to use magnetic dry erase boards in our homeschool, similar to this one. To read more about homeschool supplies that we love
7. Remember you are the teacher
Tailor the lessons if needed. I
8. Focus on the Latin vocabulary and memorizing endings
Your student is going to do these same Latin exercises in Challenge B. Even if they are not doing Challenge B for the eighth grade, they will benefit greatly from knowing the Latin noun and verb endings and vocabulary. Use the year to focus on building a strong Latin foundation. This will help with higher level Latin study.
I created a Latin Noun Declension form to easily practice the noun endings. Download your free copy below. My daughter used these all year to practice her noun endings. There are two different forms- have your child try both and see which one makes sense for their brain. My daughter preferred the first one. It made memorizing all those endings so much easier. I hope it helps your child too!
9. Purchase the Memoria Press Henle Latin Teacher Guide
The Memoria Press teacher guide and answer key were so helpful. This is an added expense but it was worth it and we referred to it often. The Henle Latin answer guide often just refers you to a section rather than giving a complete answer- not helpful if you are a mom with no Latin experience. Also, to be completely honest, the Henle Latin books do not always clearly explain things. We often had aha! moments when we read about a topic in the Memoria Press guide. It is just much more user-friendly and made things easier. Completely necessary? No. Helpful? Yes.
A couple of other great sites for Latin helps are Latin with Andy and Magistra Jones Latin Instruction. Lots of resources to help you and your child learn Latin.
10. Make a copy of the Challenge A Guide for your student
I copied all the pertinent CC Challenge A guide pages to place in my daughter’s notebook. I left out pages that were mainly for informational/parent purposes. This made her notebook less bulky so it wasn’t as overwhelming. It also allowed me to keep the original guide for myself. This will come in handy if your child ever loses a page or two from their guide.
11. Purchase a wheeled cart
There are a lot of books to lug to class each week. Get your child a nice wheeled cart for taking their books back and forth to CC. Their backs will thank you for it later. My daughter, being the forever practical child, chose a tool bag for her book cart (I provided the Amazon link so you can see the details of the bag, but we found ours cheaper at Home Depot). I showed her photos of cute craft carts and she said, “Why don’t I just use a Husky tool bag like Dad has?” Love this child!
Now that we have almost completed the year, I’m sure that some of those cute carts would not have survived the weight of all those books. The Husky tool bag is still going strong and can go into the garage when she is done with it. I don’t mind spending a bit more for something that is going to last and serves a dual purpose!
12. Use an Online Bibliography Generator
We manually created a few of the bibliographies for practice but once your child understands the main concept, save your child (and yourself) the time and check out bibme.org. Wow-
Are you considering CC Challenge A for your child? Do you have questions about the program? Let me know in the comments below!
For even more info on Classical Conversations Challenge A check out my Beginner’s Guide to CC Challenge A (includes a free weekly assignment checklist to get you started) and our list of Challenge A pros & cons.
To find a CC Community near you go here.
Happy Homeschooling!
~Melissa
