I’ll just get this out there. We’re one of those families who wishes there was no official stance on the age one could start Challenge. That being said, it wasn’t a deal breaker for us, and we’re making lemonade from our lemons.
CC has an official blog post on what a sixth grader could do to “beef it up.”
photo courtesy of piotr kwiatkowski | unsplash.com
We’ve decided to handle PJ’s year a little differently. He will get a checklist just like the others but his has been designed to be more like a bridge to Challenge. I’m having him work on all three cycles as well as beef up his Essentials memory work. Because our ages and stages don’t match up for most of my kids, this “bridge” will now be what the rest of the kids need to complete to get to Challenge.
Downloads (right click links to save)
Bridge Checklist (pdf or docx)
Instructions (pdf or docx)
*I plan on printing this front to back and sliding in a sheet protector as a reference for the year.
Foundations color-coded notebook pages (pdf)
*This will also get printed front to back each week to save paper.
*UPDATE*
We will also include these catechism questions produced by CC.
Here are a couple things to note:
- A student does not necessarily need any additional exposure to Latin outside of Foundations memory work. PJ is working through Lively Latin because he wants to.
- In lieu of a formal writing curriculum, we’ll be moving him toward rhetoric of the material by having him help his 4 siblings that are in Essentials with their analytical tasks and paper writing/editing.
- PJ has already experienced all three cycles of Foundations at memory master level.
If you have a sixth grader this year, what is your plan?
To see what everyone else is doing, click here.
We are also “bridging” to challenge. DD started in public school, and has a November birthday. We will be starting our 3rd year as homeschoolers and 2nd year in CC this year. Our “bridge” year is actually her 7th grade year. Foundations and Essentials is on the schedule, but we’re beefing things up a bit, and dd will be scheduling her week on her own. We do additional science and art classes as well. She is not interested in Memory Master, but hope I can encourage her to try it.
Vickey, The official process of Memory Masters can be overwhelming. Maybe she can commit to mastering one or two subject areas.
That might just work. She is NOT competitive, and I carefully choose how/where I can push a bit. Great idea… thanks!
My daughter just finished her eighth year of CC. She had MM since 2nd grade. She elected to Mega Memory Master and each week for her memory work she did all three cycles. She was able to help her sisters along. Just an idea. We had three kids do it from our community complete it. It was their idea and worked very hard. I also stepped .up the presentation weekly to were she presented math problems and always had a key word outline. I found our third trek through Essentials the best for her. Hope it goes well for you.
Thanks for the encouragement, Nicole!