An important part of Classical Conversation's Essentials program (and classical education in general) is copying to learn. Our Essentials notebook has these great charts which break down all the Essentials (hence the name) of grammar. They are encouraged to copy at least one chart a day.
Our awesome Essentials tutor came up with a great idea to challenge the class to set a goal of how many charts they could copy. Their class of 12 was up to 450 in less than a month! It was so impressive!
She also had a mom chart copying contest. It was so hard for me to find time to copy charts, but it was well worth it. I have learned so much in Essentials class and I'm an English major! Once I started copying charts myself I really learned what an effective way to learn that was. I have to confess I may have had doubts about if simple copying was an effective method to learn.
Why do I keep doubting?
I truly learned everything at a deeper level by chart copying! I'm determined to incorporate copying into other areas of things we need to learn which right now is Latin declensions!!!
The best part of the contest was it motivated my daughter to copy charts
We had some intense competitors in her class who copied more than I ever could've imagined possible (they have to have carpal tunnel!) which discouraged my daughter who struggles with writing.
Enter the "Extreme Chart Copying" part of the competition! They had to copy charts in weird places and text the pictures to their tutor. The kids L.O.V.E.D. it. Our Essential's tutor (being the genius that she is) awarded that prize to kids who weren't able to copy massive amounts for different reasons so everyone ended up being recognized and celebrated.
We had fun thinking of places to copy charts, and it helped me feel less guilty about running errands during school hours :)
to the phone store:
Why do I keep doubting?
I truly learned everything at a deeper level by chart copying! I'm determined to incorporate copying into other areas of things we need to learn which right now is Latin declensions!!!
The best part of the contest was it motivated my daughter to copy charts
We had some intense competitors in her class who copied more than I ever could've imagined possible (they have to have carpal tunnel!) which discouraged my daughter who struggles with writing.
Enter the "Extreme Chart Copying" part of the competition! They had to copy charts in weird places and text the pictures to their tutor. The kids L.O.V.E.D. it. Our Essential's tutor (being the genius that she is) awarded that prize to kids who weren't able to copy massive amounts for different reasons so everyone ended up being recognized and celebrated.
We had fun thinking of places to copy charts, and it helped me feel less guilty about running errands during school hours :)
to the phone store:
to Walmart:
watching Dr. Who, cough, cough....
We both couldn't wait to go find some extreme places at my grandmother's farm.
Like the roof:
where she was a little nervous :)
and then, of course, my dad had to lock her out and she became a LOT nervous!
The roof might have won her the contest, but the outhouse sealed the deal!
Yes, my dad has an outhouse, but luckily for her it's more for a conversation piece than use!
She was doing all of this with my dad who was loving it as much as she did (I get my "grab the camera" instinct from him!).
It was nice to not have to nag her about chart copying and to see her get so into it! Of course, with the moms competing too she nagged me quite a bit, but it was so cool to do it together. I still stand amazed that I learned so much from copying, and feel old that my hand hurt so much after copying just one chart!
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