Frank Talk About Ensuring Success in Challenge

Avril started Challenge B yesterday. 

This morning of the day after our community day, we sat down with her guide and her schedule and portioned the work out day by day by day... 

We left time for volunteer work, piano practice, art classes, doctor appointments, etc. 

It took more than an hour to get it all planned out. 

It always does take that long to schedule the week. 

But I have found that this time scheduling makes all the difference. 

Planning like this the morning of the first day right after community usually means: 

My kids get a good start on the work for the week; They aren't waiting around a half a day, or a full day, or a full day and a half until they start doing their work. 

Hardly anything ever gets left until the last minute, so it's a fairly stress-free week. The work is portioned out evenly. Even the day before community feels normal, sometimes even light, as far as work load goes. 

My kids actually end up with quite a few hours of free time everyday and several hours of free time on weekends.  

And most remarkable of all, my kids usually manage to do almost all the work in the guide with very little need for scaling. 

I credit the scheduling for all of this.  

Because my kids are regular kids. 

I find that scheduling is one of the most important things I do as a Challenge parent.  

When my daughter gets a little farther into this Challenge year, I will give her the opportunity to plan her schedule herself, and then I'll check it. 

I did that last year after a few months of doing the scheduling with her. 

And by the time she's in upper Challenge levels, particularly Challenges 3 and 4, she'll be scheduling for herself almost entirely. 

I'll still "inspect what I expect," but at that point, she'll be almost an adult, so I'll give her lots of freedom to decide for herself and give her enough rope to hang herself, so to speak, and institute some tough consequences if enough of the work isn't done. 

But I'll wait till she's old enough to actually understand that the failure of judgement and action is hers, because she will have had several years of success in Challenge when her mom was helping her schedule..

That's what I did with my oldest. 

But this daughter is not ready for that much freedom yet, and she won't be for years. 

Even if I didn't feel that I had to help her schedule her work, I would probably want to. 

Reading the guide in detail and helping her plan day by day, hour by hour, makes me aware of what is going on. 

It allows for fellowship and coaching and encouragement and sometimes rebuke and admonishment. 

But we actually laughed a lot today as we talked through everything. 

This skill of scheduling work and life will come in handy. 

My oldest is off to college, and she's scheduling everything for herself now. 

But she's been reading the Challenge guide, which is basically a collection of syllabi, and portioning work since she was twelve-thirteen, so she was good and ready to do that. 

After ten years in and around the Challenge program, I find that the parents who don't inform themselves about what is in their student's guide and who put all or most of the responsibility on their students to read the guide and figure out how to do it all are the people who end up most disappointed in their student and/ or with the Challenge program. 

They usually have to leave. 

When you ask the non-schedulers where they are going, the "better fit" for their student is always a learning environment that provides scheduling, structure, oversight, involvement, accountability- all the things involved in scheduling.  

Of course, people leave Challenge for lots of other valid reasons. 

But those people usually know why they are leaving, and they leave quietly without bitterness or disillusionment, understanding it's not Challenge's fault or their kid's fault. 

It's the non-schedulers who unfortunately seem to suspect something's inherently wrong with their kid and/or wrong with the whole program. 

But when a parent doesn't schedule, it is not the student's failure or the failure of the Challenge program. 

Leaving any teenager to figure things out for themselves, especially as many things as they have to figure out in a Challenge guide, is like tying a millstone around a little one's legs and throwing him in the deep end of the pond then blaming him or the millstone for his drowning. 

Some kids are exceptional. 

In my time, I've seen some of those, too, and I'm always impressed with the students who are self-motivated enough to do all or even most of the work independent of their mom's oversight.  

But most regular kids just sink without this kind of help, support, and accountability. 

My kids are the regular sort. 

So we plan and of course, we work the plan and then I check up to see the plan is mostly followed.  

So my advice to young parents who are still aware that they are weak enough human beings to actually ruin all their plans to homeschool through highschool if they don't get enough things right, who still actually hope their student can get all the way through Challenge, is to stop thinking or expecting their regular kid to be exceptionally, supernaturally mature for their age, and just sit with their student and schedule and then check up after them, of course. 

It's the most important thing I do to ensure success in the Challenge program.  

Scheduling is the greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it: Check up to see the plan got followed. 

 

The Cloisters

We spent Friday at The Cloisters. What an other-worldly place! The gardens were magical and beautiful with medicinal and edible and even poisonous plants. The herb room with all the drying herbs was the most delicious thing I’ve ever smelled. Think of prying the lid off a tin of the best loose leaf tea then multiply that sensation exponentially.

We sat here for lunch and enjoyed sights of interesting carvings hidden on all sides of the columns and walls surrounding us, the birds that flew over the roof and into the garden, and the flowering plants and  busy bumble bees. 

We watched two juvenile pigeons peck, peck, peck their mom and each another for several minutes. The nest was in one of the fruit trees inside a cloistered garden and close enough to touch. 

So many images and symbols to interpret and inspire the imagination! 

We begin Cycle 2 on The Middle Ages in Classical Conversations soon, so the timing of this visit was perfect. As we admired and discussed each piece, we could often recognize the images from the Bible stories we know, or place it on our Classical Conversations timeline, or locate an items original place using our memorized geography facts, or use our Latin Grammar to puzzle out meanings of words. I think we enjoyed pouring over the details drawn on the playing cards and in the illuminated books best of all. We were thrilled to see a set of the playing cards in the gift shop. We use a set of playing cards everyday for our math calculating games in Quick Flip Arthimetic, so we got a set to bring home for our games. 

 

Sunday in Franklin

The day started with church at Cornerstone Presbyterian where Norah and at least one of her roommates plan to attend. This is also where New College has its classes, so much of Norah’s life will be spent in this church building for the next few years, Lord willing. Each weekly order of service at Cornerstone is a small book, a true gift, a treasure filled with rich and beautiful Scripture, hymns, sheet music, prayers, etc. The opportunity to attend Cornerstone was a major affirmative reason for Norah to come to New College. Norah and her roommate have both said they plan to save these weekly books for all the years they are here… Wise girls. After church, we had lunch right next door at Biscuit Love… Wow! Then we went over to Norah’s place and started working and working and didn’t stop till all the boxes were empty and almost everything was in its place and that was sometime around dinnertime. Each of the girls who has arrived so far has at least one parent on hand helping them as they move in, so the apartment is full of all ages, and there is a lively fellowship as we all work around each other and with each other to move our daughters into their home. It’s just another confirmation and comfort that this is a community filled with people who love Christ and therefore, make loving others and sharing life with others a priority. All the boxes are broken down and piled now waiting to go to the dump when it opens tomorrow. And we did a big portion of the necessary shopping after dinner, but there’s still at least another full day’s worth of work waiting- curtains to hang, shelves to put up, etc. I thank God for Dwayne’s presence, his power tools and skills and willing attitude and Dad jokes. We are all of us so exhausted. Even the younger siblings are spent. We just managed to unload the shopping bags into Norah’s apartment and hug Norah and her precious roommate and say, “Goodnight.” Our feet ache, but our hearts are so full.

Raising Monarchs

The caterpillars are eating so much that we just brought home an entire plant. We put the stem in a glass bottle filled with water. Note: We "plug" the hole of the bottle with a paper towel wrapped around the stem. This keeps the caterpillars from crawling down into the bottle and drowning themselves or forming their chrysalises inside where they would not be able to get out.   

 

Trip to Franklin

After two long days of driving, we made it to Franklin. Norah’s spending her first night in her new apartment! We managed to put her bed together in time. We’re in our vrbo. It’s a bit surreal. We get to spend several days here before actually leaving her. We will attend her church in the morning, and there are some college functions to attend this week, and lots of unpacking left and shopping to do. We’re thankful for a few more days together before we say the big goodbye. Every few moments brings another confirmation or comfort of some sort that God is ordering her steps and this is a really good place for her to be. I guess the tears will come, maybe on the long ride home? We’re wondering who will cry first. But for now, we’ve just been laughing alot, working together, enjoying each other.

Raising Monarchs

The caterpillars keep eating, growing, pooping, and sleeping; We keep replenishing the leaves. We don't have to keep them inside a butterfly habitat. We have found that as long as the leaves are fresh enough, they have no reason to stray, and they will just stay on the leaves and never leave the platter. 

Packing the Cars

 We leave to take Norah to college tomorrow. The cars are packed and decorated for the trip. 

Quassy with Friends

Our friends invited us to meet up with them at Quassy, a local amusement park. We hadn't been to Quassy since our oldest was very young, at least ten years. We just didn't think we were amusement park people. But I'm so glad we went, because it was great to spend the day with our friends and we enjoyed the park so much more than expected, especially the waterslides. We may very likely buy season passes next summer.   

Packing for College

Stuff on her floor, 

on her spare bed, 

on the hallway floor, 

stuff filling the corner of the basement, 

piles piled on her desk, 

in my room, 

in her sisters' room;

we're moving Norah out and into college. 

We're emptying her room altogether so that her younger sister can move into it once she is gone. 

It seems unfair and impractical to shut her room up like some mausoleum for her memory and continue making her younger sisters share the other room when she'll be gone most of the year.

So there's a lot of decisions to make.

We're packing the stuff to take, 

putting other stuff in storage in the attic, 

passing clothes down to younger siblings, 

donating stuff we're done with, 

throwing stuff out. 

It's exhausting work, 

and I knew it would be, 

so I set aside four days for this endeavor, 

clearing the calendar of everything else. 

It'll take every minute. 

Draw Write Now

Adele has finished every drawing/ writing exercise in Draw Write Now Book One. 

She filled an entire red report cover with her work. 

Notice she even drew a cover page for her collection. 

Now she's starting to work Draw Right Now Book Two. 

She requested another report cover wherein to keep her work, so I obliged. 

I found the entire set of Draw Write Now books on sale at our co-op. 

At the time, Adele had been begging for a new handwriting book, and I was looking for a fitting solution, so I bought them and brought them home. 

These aren't my favorite handwriting books, but I figured Adele could use them over the summer to stay in practice. 

When my daughters were learning handwriting early on, I preferred to use a combination of Abeka, Zanier Bloser, and Prescripts materials instead. 

Those programs did a better job of teaching letter formation.

Those resources had guiding arrows to remind students about where to start letter formation and which direction to go with their pencils. 

They also provided rows and rows of the same letters or simple words to give opportunity to drill proper formation and gain muscle memory. 

Draw Write Now doesn't do that. 

It just provides a few simple sentences to copy, and a picture to draw, of course. 

(Adele loves to draw, so this is a great fit in that way.) 

Draw Write Now is a better fit for a student who already knows how to properly form letters and just needs some guided practice. 

Thus, it is working well for Adele at this stage.

I'd warn against using these books if your child hasn't had enough practice and drill in letter formation. 

If your child has any bad handwriting habits, if he isn't starting letters in the right place or if she isn't going the right direction, etc., these books are only likely to reinforce those habits rather than give opportunity and encouragement to retrain new, more efficient habits. 

But since Adele just needs some guided practice, some given sentences to copy, and since she loves to draw, I plan to let Adele just keep on working through the books as we move into our new homeschool year this fall. 

Mullein

I started to see the beauty in mullein in fields and meadows where I would see it growing wild. So this year, when it started to grow in my side yard, I just let the "weed" stay instead of pulling it up. Today we saw a downy woodpecker perched on the side of it for several minutes vigorously eating the seeds. What a treat! A weed is only a plant growing where it isn't wanted. Well, now it's wanted. It stays!

Reading in July

This month I finished, almost finished, or I spent time reading in these books. 

Life Together by Bonhoeffer 

The Great Tradition Edited by Richard Gamble 

The City of God by Augustine

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin

Beauty Chasers by Timothy Willard

Faith, Hope, and Poetry by Malcolm Guite

Ember Falls by SD Smith

Ember Rising by SD Smith

Five Elements of Shape

I made my own Five Elements of Shape poster for my Foundations class with a piece of foam board with a grid, a pencil, a good eraser, a yard stick, and a permanent marker. Mona Brooks suggests doing this if you can't obtain a photocopy of the Five Elements of Shape. She says, "...I recommend that you fashion a handmade version to put in your drawing space." (Drawing With Children, 61) In my case, I had a photocopy; I just didn't have one large enough for my entire class to use at once. But now I do! This firm poster will sit nicely on my white board tray where everyone can see it.