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Our daughter is 12 years old and in seventh grade. The bulk of her curriculum is from the Classical Conversations Challenge A program. This has been a year of enormous growth and independence. CC Challenge A places the focus on independence and I can say that independence is exactly what we have gained. We started the year with a detailed weekly list that I created to go along with the challenge guide. My daughter and I would sit side-by-side and go through each strand together. As the months went by she gained more and more autonomy. She now maintains her own planner, schedules her daily work, and is able to study and complete assignments independently.
A Year for Gaining Independence and Responsibility
Now, does this mean that I have completely stepped out of her schooling? No, I have not and I don’t plan on ever doing that. I am a firm believer in reading aloud as a family, so we still do that. I also introduce her math lessons and review her work with her, we do spelling together, and then we typically work on one or two other things each day that she feels she needs help with. It may be discussing the paper she is writing and working through some of the Lost Tools of Writing assignments, or completing Latin exercises together, or simply drilling some of the memorization work involved with Challenge A. I think that we have struck a nice balance as the year has gone by!
7th Grade Curriculum
- Classical Conversations Challenge A– This covers geography,
latin , science, reasoning, writing, and math in the following ways:- Geography– In addition to learning how to map the world, they also learn geographical terms.
- Latin– They use Henle Latin 1. It is difficult but rewarding.
- Science– Students research biology topics, complete a science fair project, and memorize body systems.
- Reasoning– They use the books It Couldn’t Just Happen & The Fallacy Detective. My daughter loves getting to discuss these with her classmates.
- Writing– Lost Tools of Writing. We have really enjoyed this systematic approach to writing persuasive essays and my daughter’s writing has improved greatly.
- Math- Saxon 8/7. I will be honest and say that we have not enjoyed Saxon. We chose to switch to it because it is recommended by CC. I can say that it is definitely thorough and I know that my daughter is learning. It gets done but feels boring and cumbersome. We will be searching for a different math curriculum for next year.
- Typing– We’ve used various things for this including Burning Cargo, Diana Hanbury King’s Writing Skills/Keyboarding Skills, and TTRS (touch-type read and spell).
- Spelling- We started the year with Megawords 1 but are now using Sequential Spelling l. We are just starting at the beginning and quickly working our way through. So far it is working so well. We have tried a ton of spelling curriculum so to have something click is amazing!
- Literature– Sonlight History/Bible/Literature H readers and read-
alouds . We absolutely love Sonlight book choices. In addition to attending CC Challenge A, my daughter reads the Sonlight books outside of “school” time or we read them together during morning time. She would be so sad if we did not get the Sonlight books each year. Not only do we purchase the HBL books but we also purchase the summer readers for her age group every year. If you are looking for book lists to fill an insatiable reader or to spur a love of reading- take a look at the Sonlight reading lists!- The CC Challenge A literature books are intentionally chosen at an easier reading level. This allows students to focus on discussion and writing persuasive essays about the books without being bogged down with difficult reads. For my voracious reader, having the Sonlight literature gives us books that she enjoys and we can discuss at home. Plus, she had already read most of the CC Challenge A books.
Read this post for our Classical Conversations Challenge A pros and cons list.
**If you have questions or would like to see other posts about any of this curriculum let me know in the comments below! What are you loving for seventh grade?**
