Growth in Challenge A, First Semester

Wow!  Times really does seem to fly by me and here it is already December!  We have been working hard to tackle the assignments set before my son in Challenge A and he is doing pretty well.  He is enjoying it and taking pride in having his assignments completed.  He can participate well in literature discussions and translate some Latin!  His drawings of the continents may not be the most artistic in his class, but I can see the shapes of the places he is drawing and recognize them.  We have enjoyed great discussions about why the world did not just happen and have learned many scientific facts that actually show that God did create our amazing world.

My son is dyslexic and dysgraphic, so he has needed lots of my support and time with me sitting beside him, helping him to complete his work.  However, I have learned that there is a correlation between which parents are in class and involved at home and how their children are doing during their weekly community day.  So, children who do not have learning disabilities are still needing some help from their parents to learn how to manage their work at this point.

Now, he is preparing to take a blue book exam at home over the break and I am having to help him understand this type of assessment, what it means, and why we do it.  Of course, I am also having to show him how to answer some of the questions and what that would look like because he has never done this type of assessment before.  So, it's all a learning process.

At the end of the first semester, our son can do these things by himself:

• Read or listen to an audio book of the literature
• Read The Fallacy Detective
• Find his geography terms and study them
• Find his catechism questions and study them
• Go to Sheppard Software online and practice geography countries, states, capitals, and features
• Find a World Book Online encyclopedia article for science, print it out, and highlight important information
• Practice his guitar assignments
• Sometimes he can do his math independently, too

These are areas where my son needs me to discuss or explain things in more depth or work alongside of him:

• We watch his math lesson video together and usually do the first assignment or two together, until he doesn't need me
• He prefers for me to read aloud It Couldn't Just Happen to him and talk about each section, then he types a short summary as we go
• We work on Latin together
• We work on the Lost Tools of Writing assignments together
• He is still dictating to me what he wants on his fused Key Word Outline for his science presentations
• Of course, sometimes I also drill him on more grammatical information, like geography terms or maps, Latin vocabulary, or the catechism questions

So, I feel like he has already grown in areas, and he is seeing that studying pays off and we can still see areas where he has opportunity for growth.  I am thankful for his community of friends and a great tutor who challenges, yet encourages him to do his best!