Jennifer Bradford and Jessica Wingrove are the parents over the Challenge I program. Jennifer Bradford is the director, and Jessica Wingrove is the tutor for this level. My oldest daughters attended classes with these beautiful ladies. There were about five other students in the class. Jessica and I talked about the program and what the students had accomplished this year. She discussed her prep time which was a day of getting ready for her areas. Jennifer and Jessica split their areas of expertise into two parts so each one has a more focused tutoring subject. In other words, I feel like they are more specialized in their areas.
The students had studied American Government, Latin, Economics, Physical Science, Introduction to Debate, Shakespeare, Music Theory, Algebra and business math, and American Literature. Their reading list was quite impressive for this level,
Reading List Challenge I
The Sign of the Beaver
The Call of the Wild
Johnny Tremain
The Red Badge of Courage
The Scarlett Letter
Gold - Bug and Other Tales
Billy Budd, Sailor
Through Gates of Splendor
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
To Kill A Mockingbird
Born Again
Up From Slavery
Narrative Life of Fredrick Douglass
The Old Man and the Sea
An Old-Fashioned Girl
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
These books are taught with a perspective of learning to pick out the good and bad by making a list of Good, Negative, and Interesting facts regarding characters and situations. The students then pick positions based upon their lists and then discuss/debate these opinions. I have not seen anything like this in any school setting anywhere. Here is a link with a similar process to explain the idea further. Positive Negative Interesting
In Shakespeare, the students studied Tales from Shakespeare and The Taming of the Shrew. I still remember this from my high school days. After reading the book my 9th-grade class watched Elizabeth Taylor as the "Shrew".
The students studied Apologia Science's Exploring Creation with Physical Science by Jay Wile. For Dr. Wile's website, click here. The students did experiments on the days they were in class. They prepared and read a module a week or sometimes a module every two weeks, depending on the difficulty level. this is quite impressive. Parents are responsible for the completion of the work at home and how difficult or in depth, it is covered. All lab equipment and supplies are covered in the supply fees.
The day I attended the students had done their lessons, rehearsed for an end-of-year program, and were playing Monopoly Empire to mimic the elements they had learned in Economics. These students have a full day ending at 3 pm.
It was a busy day that was impressive, to say the least. I did not get pictures of this group. I apologize!
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