I have spent the past school year directing Classical Conversations Challenge B and I have learned so much. It has been an incredible year of watching the kids grow and mature, develop opinions and be able to back those opinions up using persuasive writing, logic, and public speaking skills. That growth happens over time–don’t rush it all over the summer. The theme of Challenge B is discipline. Discipline is daily practice, so the overall lessons of Challenge B take a full year of repeated daily practice to get right. But there are some simple things that can be done over the summer to prepare for each of the six strands of B.
Latin
The shift from Challenge A to Challenge B in Latin is that instead of just focusing on vocabulary, we now need to start memorizing the rules in the Henle Grammar book. If your student did not already make note cards with each rule from Challenge A, spend the summer doing it. Start at semester 1, week 1 of Challenge A and each rule that is listed in the homework should be written on a notecard. A good way to do this without it getting overwhelming is to write two week’s worth of rules out per day (which should not be too many!). When all 30 weeks of rules are written out, spend 10 to 15 minutes per day studying them. Memorize them, actually. Set a goal with your student for how many to memorize over the summer and work on it daily. This is also great practice at discipline. And don’t lose those notecards! Your student will need them for all of Challenge B.
I’ve also written a Henle Latin Study Guide that helps students focus on the grammar aspect of Latin. Instead of skipping over the reading and trying to guess their way through the exercises (as SO MANY students do), it helps them slow down and read the rules and explanations of the rules. I used it with my Challenge 1 Class this year with great success. You can purchase a downloadable copy in my Etsy shop. This listing is for the Lessons covered in Challenge A — a great way to prepare for Challenge B in the summer is to review what was covered in A. They will repeat lessons 1 -15 again first semester in B, and the more repetition, the more it sticks. That’s the classical model, after all!
Logic/Reasoning
Challenge A does not complete The Fallacy Detective. It is a really good idea to have your student finish reading it over the summer–and it’s doubtful anyone would complain. The Fallacy Detective is a fun read. If you want to really drive home the concept of fallacies, another great book is The Amazing Dr. Ransom’s Bestiary of Adorable Fallacies. Challenge B is categorical and propositional logic but the last few chapters of the first semester do go back and review fallacies.
Research
The first semester of research involves researching different astronomers and writing papers and doing fun projects. If your student struggles to write research papers, you could review key word outlines and fused outlines from IEW. If you want to get a little bit excited for the upcoming semester’s topics, a great audiobook to listen to is Galileo and the Stargazers by Jim Weiss. Anything narrated by Jim Weiss is excellent, but this particular audiobook is perfect for Challenge B research. The added bonus is that if you have younger kids, they will enjoy it as well. If you have a planetarium nearby, visiting it would be a great summer field trip.
Expo/Comp
Challenge B continues in Lost Tools of Writing so most of the first semester is review. Virtually no prep necessary for that. Some parents like to have their students read the books over the summer. I personally am against that but I understand why some do it. If your kids read the books over the summer, it may be worthwhile to have them choose an issue and make their ANIs over the summer as well. The rest of the work can wait. But the reality is that if they read The Hiding Place in June, they aren’t going to be prepared to give it a full 100 item ANI in December.
The only other thing that you can have your student do to prepare for Expo/Comp in Challenge B is to read Pilgrim’s Progress. We do not read Pilgrim’s Progress in B. We read the short story The Celestial Railroad which is by a different author but it continues on, as if someone made a railroad to bypass all the stops Christian had to make. If the student has not read Pilgrim’s Progress, reading Celestial Railroad is miserable. You can also check out the cartoon on Right Now Media if you happen to have an account (and if you subscribe to CC Connected, you get an account for free!).
Math/Logic
Just do math every day in the summer. Keep plugging away at your curriculum. Or use the Classical Conversations Quick Flip Arithmetic book to review math facts. Or play National Number Knockout. Keep math fresh in their minds!
Debate
There’s really not much to do in the summer for debate. You could watch Twelve Angry men. You could watch Legally Blonde (believe it or not, there’s a lot to learn for mock trial from that movie!). You could watch Law & Order. Take a field trip to see a courthouse. Get comfortable with what a courtroom looks like and what a trial is like. DO NOT GOOGLE anything about next year’s case. If your director finds out, you can be disqualified from participating. If there are mock trial teams in your area that compete using different cases, you could go watch one to get a feel for what it looks like when a mock trial takes place.
Take it easy. Enjoy the sunshine. Review Latin and math every day. Take some field trips. Challenge B is an amazing year. Get ready to go conquer it!
Great list. One comment: I have my student read the books in the summer and RE-READ during the school year. That way he can leisurely enjoy the story in the summer, and read it for the ANI in the winter. It has worked great for all three of my boys, the oldest of whom will be in Challenge III next year (for the really difficult books in Challenge I and II, I suggest reading abridged versions in the summer and the real thing during the school year).