My Chocolate Moments

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Classical Conversations Challenge A {Organization and Prep}

My oldest is staring Classical Conversations Challenge A this year. This is a very big change from Foundations – different format, different topics, just different all around. We are very excited! As I’ve done with all the other levels of CC, I’m sharing with you all the things we’ve prepped, how we’ve organized his materials, etc. Of course take this with a grain of salt that we have no experience! This is all based off all my research and reading and talking to other Ch A parents – we may get a few weeks into the year and realize that we need to make changes, but for now this is how we’ve prepped.

Here’s the video I made.  I recommend watching this because I go into more detail and show many of the resources.  This blog post is mostly meant to be a companion to the video with links to all the things I referenced.

This post contains some affiliate links.  If you purchase a product through an affiliate link I make a small commission at no cost to you.  Thank you!

What is Classical Conversations Challenge A?

Challenge A is what Classical Conversations calls their 7th grade program – it’s for students who are 12 years old, so basically the age of a 7th grader. The Challenge levels A, B, 1, 2, 3, and 4 correspond with 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades.

Challenge A consists of 6 “strands”. The simplest way to explain that is that a “Strand” is CC-language for a subject. The more accurate answer is that

  • Logic = Math
  • Grammar = Latin
  • Research = Science
  • Reasoning = Analogies & Reasoning
  • Exposition = Literature & Writing
  • Debate = Cartography

I’m sure by the time we’ve been doing Challenge A for a few weeks the strand names will be second nature but right now I’m still having to look at both to remember what they mean. If you’re a new Challenge A parent then I’m guessing you are too so for the purpose of this post I am going to include both items when I talk about them to help you (and me) remember what we’re talking about.

A tip I heard that has helped me with this whole “strand” language: the strand is the skill the students are working on and what I would call the “subject” is what they are using to teach that skill. So the strand they are working on is Grammar, they are using the subject of Latin to teach the skill of Grammar. If the strand they are focusing on is Logic, they use math to teach the skill of Logic. And so on.

What do I need to start Classical Conversations Challenge A?

These are the must-have items for Challenge A that are required by CC. All of these can be found in the CC bookstore.

  • Logic (Math)
    • The Math Map (Complex is the suggested level for Ch A but other levels can be used as well)
  • Grammar (Latin):
    • Henle Latin Grammar (blue book)
    • Henle First Year Latin Text (purple book)
    • note: CC will be switching to their own Latin program in the 2027-2028 school year
  • Research (Science, specifically Natural Science & Anatomy)
    • A notebook (CC sells a Lab Journal you can purchase or you can just use any notebook of your own)
  • Reasoning (Analogies & Reasoning)
    • Reasoning Together Analogies (1st semester)
    • Reasoning Together Puzzles (2nd semester)
  • Exposition (Newbery Literature & Writing)
    • Lost Tools of Writing Teacher book & student book
    • Words Aptly Spoken
    • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
    • Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
    • The Magician’s Nephew
    • Number the Stars
    • Amos Fortune Free Man
    • The Secret Garden
    • The Door in the Wall
    • A Gathering of Days
    • Crispin, the Cross of Lead
    • The Bronze Bow
  • Debate (Cartography)
    • Exploring the World Through Cartography

Tip for those who are reading this prior to starting Ch A: make a note on your phone with this list so when you’re at used bookstores, a homeschool curriculum sale, see people selling curriculum on Facebook Marketplace, etc. you can be keeping an eye out. By doing this and starting early I was about to get almost all of this used for great prices!

(You will also get a Challenge A guide from your tutor or director which has a ton of important info in it. It changes from year to year and is included in your tuition fee so don’t worry about trying to find a used one or anything.)

What do I do with it and how do I organize it?

Hereeeee is the big question, isn’t it?? We have been in CC since my oldest was 5 and even after 7 years of CC, and hearing about Challenge for all of those years, I was still left with my head spinning when it was time to start planning for our first year.

I have spent HOURS researching and reading and comparing and all sorts of things trying to figure out what we’ll actually use, how to organize it, how to plan our days and our weeks and just trying to get game plan together so that we don’t walk into the first week feeling totally overwhelmed. Will there still be some overwhelm? Probably. Will we change how we do things once we see how it goes in practice. For sure. But I’m feeling pretty good that at least I have some preparation and organization going in to it, and we can adjust as we go.

Lucky for you I have compiled allllllll that research into once place so that you can hopefully save yourself some time and use what I’ve gathered.

Everything that I could link is linked. Unfortunately a LOT of the links are from the Challenge A parents Facebook group. If you don’t have Facebook you will be unable to access it. I’ve tried to link to things on CC Connected when I could, but the majority of items are shared in the Ch A FB group only. So, sorry in advance if you can’t access them.

I’m going to go strand-by-strand (subject-by-subject) and share what resources I’ve found as well as what I’ve decided to use for my son. Please note that that I am NOT using everything that I link, by any means. I’ve tried to provide multiple options so that you can peruse them and pick what works best for you and your family. Treat it like a buffet – take what serves you, leave what doesn’t.

Ok let’s go!

Planners

Your Challenge A guide (which your tutor or director will give you) has a breakdown of what is to be completed each week. Some people find the guide to be enough, but many want some sort of planner for their child to help them with weekly planning. Here are some good options:

Those are all blank planners. If you’d like to see an example of how another family plans out their week, I found this post to be really helpful (semester 1 / semester 2)

What we’re using:

I made my own planner using the spreadsheet I use for my own weekly planning (you can see my video about that here) and set it up very similar to those example planners I linked above. At some point perhaps I can make a tutorial on how to do that yourself.

Logic (Math)

This is the only strand that I am, right off the bat, planning on tailoring. We are still continuing with the math curriculum that we have used since he was in kindergarten (RightStart Math) as our primary math curriculum at home and will be using The Math Map as a supplement.

Some handy resources:

What we’re using (in addition to the required materials):

  • Math Explorers videos
  • The Notations flashcards (he learned these last year but we will continue to review them this year)

What’s in his binder:

  • Seeing the Unseen (I’m using a little booklet in place of the official Seeing the Unseen book because we are not writing in his Complex booklets)
  • His weekly TMM booklets/worksheets

My reference book

I found two amazing videos where CC moms had made their own TMM reference book/teacher manual (here and here). I didn’t do one nearly as detailed as theirs since we aren’t going full in with TMM right now, but I did make a similar one for my own use. It includes:

Grammar (Latin)

Note: Latin will be changing after the 2026-2027 school year. CC has written their own Latin program, called Common Latin, that will launch in the 2027-2028 school year. So when my oldest goes to Challenge B he will switch to Common Latin, and my other kids will all start with Common Latin when they get to Challenge A. However, for our year of A we will still be under the old curriculum CC has used for years: Henle.

This post currently contains all the info I’ve collected about Henle for those who are prepping alongside me for the 2026-2027 school year. Then next year I will come back and update this section to reflect the new Common Latin curriculum for those who are reading this post in the future.

Ok, so Henle Latin. From the research I’ve done and the people I’ve talked to, basically everyone finds Henle *extremely* difficult to teach/learn and the majority of people use outside sources besides just the blue and purple Henle books that are required for CC. There are a LOT of options out there, so I’m just going to list some of them.

Video courses

All of these I’ve seen recommended many times, but Jam with Latin and Zoom Through Latin are the two that I see recommended the most. I have decided to use Jam with Latin for a variety of reasons: it’s so highly recommended, it’s a one time purchase for the class and you can use it for subsequent children, and I’ve heard that she intends to update her classes to align with the new Common Latin curriculum so I’ll still be able to use her Challenge A class with my other kids.

Flashcards
(Note: CC’s recommendation is that students create their own flashcards and it is not “best practice” to purchase flashcards. That being said, a lot of families decide that buying flashcards is a better choice for their child/family so I am linking some options here)

  • These are very popular among people who want to buy pre-done flashcards for Latin
  • Here’s another option
  • If you want a digital file so you’d have to print/cut yourself but not have to write them out from scratch, here is an option for that
  • These are the Jam with Latin flashcards you can purchase

Workbooks/Worksheets
These are workbooks other people have created to go alongside Henle and help students practice their Latin

Latin charts and other helps
(I am so unfamiliar with Latin that I don’t really know what I’m looking at and what might be helpful, so here are some charts that I’ve seen recommended but I don’t know what you need)

What we’re using (in addition to the required materials):

What’s in his binder:

(I have no idea if either of these will be needed in community but I put them there for now just in case)

Research (Science)

Research is broken into three parts during the year – 10 weeks of natural science, 10 weeks of science fair/science project, and 10 weeks of anatomy.

If you want to grade your child, here are some grading sheets you might like:

Weeks 1-10: Natural Science

Really all you need for this 10 week portion is a science journal (CC sells one but you can also use just a plain composition book or this printable one) for jotting down notes, making an outline, drawing pictures, etc. That being said, a lot of people like to print out KWO/Fused Outline papers (just like they used in IEW in Essentials). There are a gazillion versions people have made so pick your fave option 1 / option 2 / option 3 / option 4 / option 5 / option 6 / option 7 /

If you just want an IEW checklist:

What’s in his binder:

Weeks 11-20: Science Fair

(We will wait until closer to time to print anything for science fair, these are just some options I found interesting and will revisit them later)

Lab journals

Weeks 21-30: Anatomy

(I am not going to worry about printing out anything for anatomy or deciding what we will use until Christmas break. But I’ve gone ahead and gathered some resources so I don’t have to go digging)

Workbooks

  • option #1 (tracing/labeling, list of definitions, anatomy dictionary, and includes quizzes too for each week)
  • option #2 (really lovely watercolor illustrations – tracing, labeling, and anatomy dictionary)
  • option #3 (drawing practice, flashcards, and a variety of worksheets) Use the code CHOCOLATE20 for 20% off anything in her shop.
  • option #4 (drawing/tracing, definitions, facts, experiments, quizzes, and more)
  • option #5 (labeling/tracing and definitions)

Dictionary/definitions

Other resources

What we’re using (in addition to the required materials):

  • Apologia Anatomy – I bought a used copy of Apologia Anatomy and my plan is to have him read cooresponding sections about the different body systems he is learning each week

Reasoning (Reasoning & Analogies)

There is not much prep needed for this strand – all they need are the two workbooks.

Here are a few additional extras, if you want them:

What’s in his binder:

Exposition (Newbery Literature & Composition)

With Lost Tools of Writing there are several pages that need to be copied from the student workbook. Lots of people have created “workbooks” to help students with their Lost Tools of Writing outlines and not have to make all the copies from the book. If you want to make copies straight from the book, this document has a list that tells you exactly what pages to copy. If you want printable worksheets instead, here are several options:

Workbooks

  • option #1 is the one I ended up printing
  • option #2 is very similar to #1 but does not have the specific books listed (so it could also be used for Challenge B or 1)
  • option #3 is also super good. I was very torn between this one and #1 – those were my two favorites and they each had thinks I liked better about each of them. Ultimately I went with choice #1 but definitely check out this one too.
  • option #4 also on CC Connected

Other handy links:

What’s in his binder:

Debate (Cartography)

The two main components of Debate are learning to draw the world (continents, countries, features, etc.) and creating a dictionary of geographical terms. There are a lots of ways different families approach this and how they have their child complete these tasks.

Drawing helps & workbooks:
You can simply trace/copy from the Cartography book, but some people prefer to use some additional drawing resources like workbooks or video courses.

  • option #1 – part 1 here / part 2 coming soon (hand drawn maps for tracing/copying, these are the ones I see people recommend most often)
  • option #2 (includes daily instruction and also a geography dictionary)
  • option #3 (lots of tips for drawing, also includes flashcards, quizzes, games, etc.)
  • option #4 (semester 1 here / semester 2 here) this one has tracing/labeling as well as flashcards for the geography terms and countries and capitals (Use the code CHOCOLATE20 for 20% off anything in her shop)
  • option #5 has step-by-step instructions and you can pick from a written form as well as a video course option!
  • Draw the World book series (example of USA one here) this is not specifically CC but you can get books for each of the continents

Dictionaries:
Students are supposed to create their own dictionary of a large list of geography terms. There are several blank templates you can use to fill out.

Flashcards:
Some people like using flashcards to help them memorize the geography terms and/or the countries and capitals

Other:

What we’re using (in addition to the required materials):

  • Draw the World book series (for step-by-step instructions on how to draw the continents & countries – we already had most of these and have been using them for a couple of years so we’re going to continue using them)
  • These maps (for adding in the additional features that the Draw the World books don’t include; for labeling practice, and for quizzes)
  • Geography terms dictionary (dictionary to write terms / pictures to attach with glue or stickers / answer key)
  • A regular Webster’s dictionary to look up terms
  • CC’s “official” cartography glossary (planning to have him use a dictionary to look up the terms but if it gets to where we need to trim some things down then I’ll just have him copy from the CC glossary)
  • flashcards for terms (note: these are from when CC had semester 1 weeks 1-15 and semester 2 weeks 1-15 instead of just weeks 1-30 for the whole year, so they are labeled the old way which wasn’t a big deal to me but I wanted to point it out in case it is confusing to someone else)
  • Seterra app for practice learning countries and capitals

What’s in his binder:

General Challenge A resources

Here are a few other resources that didn’t fit into a specific strand so I’m adding them all here.

Grading sheets
I shared a couple of other grading sheets that were specific to certain strands in the section on that strand, but I’m re-sharing them here along with some others in case you want any sort of grading resources

All-in-One Student Binder

Helpful links
These are links that have been useful to me as I’ve been researching & prepping

(and of course don’t forget the Learning Center and the Forums on CC Connected!)

Binder

I’ve mentioned his binder multiple times through this post but I’ll consolidate that info again here. There are so many ways people choose to organize their Challenge A materials. I showed my son several ideas and let him decide what he thought he would like best. This could certainly change as we get into the year but for now this is how we’re starting out.

He wanted to use the same 3 ring zipper binder he used in Essentials and keep all of his loose papers in there rather than have multiple notebooks/folders. I put this set of 8 tabbed dividers in it – they have a pocket on each one which will be nice for any random things he wants to tuck in them, and since they are wide they stick out wider than any page protectors so you can still see the labels.

(Note: we chose to have his Challenge A Guide spiral bound so he will carry that separate from his binder. Had we gone the hole-punch route I would have added that to his binder, made that Tab #1, and shifted the rest of the tabs down.)

Supplies

  • Zipper binder
  • Tabbed dividers
  • Sticky Tabs (I got a lot of these in a variety of sizes so he could feel free to tab whatever he wants)
  • Accordion folder (planning to use this to store maps and any other loose papers we want to save but don’t want filling up the main binder)
  • Sketch books (bought a 8.5×11 for cartography/science and a 12×18 to use later in the year when he’s putting all the continents together and working on drawing the whole world)
  • 3×5 index cards (mostly for Latin)
  • index card box
  • A to Z index card dividers (for the Latin flashcards)

As far as how kids lug all this stuff to and from community, the most popular options are a rolling crate, a rolling backpack, a rolling suitcase, a rolling sewing machine bag, a rolling toolbox, or just a regular backpack. My son wants to try carrying his regular backpack from last year so we’re going to start out the year with that and then if he wants something bigger that rolls we will get something else.

WHEW! That was A LOT! I hope having all this info in one place is helpful for you, researching and compiling it into this post was certainly helpful to me as I planned out our Challenge A year. Now we’re all prepped and I am so excited about this upcoming year!

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Supplies for Prep

Here are a few of the office supply type items that I use a ton when prepping for CC each year.

Printer – you can print at places like Staples (I think CC has a discount with them?) but I prefer to print at home.  I’ve been very happy with this printer.

Paper cutter – I have had this for over 15 years and it has been a total workhorse!  I use it for everything!

Laminator – I joke that I started homeschooling just so I had an excuse to buy a laminator ;) I love laminating stuff.

Proclick binder – I love using this to make my own spiral bound books.  I loooove it.  I use these coils.

Corner rounder – I use this to round the corners of things I laminate and cut which makes them less pokey

Here’s to a great year of Challenge A!

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