Six in the Northwest: Homeschooling With Work Boxes - Copywork/Dictation

Friday, June 4, 2010

Homeschooling With Work Boxes - Copywork/Dictation - 8yo

Part five in my series on homeschooling with workboxes.

Everyone approaches language arts differently. We tend to follow Charlotte Mason's approach and use copywork and dictation as the basis for early composition which provides for so much flexibility in this area.

With this in mind, as long as my child is working through readers at their level in Sonlight, then I use the corresponding copywork/dictation assignments outlined from them. Makes zero planning on my part. My 8yo is still in the copywork stage though she may be ready for dictation some time soon. So here's how I organize this box:

On Mondays I put in her copybook with the selection for her to copy from her Sonlight reader.

On Tuesdays I have a sheet of lined paper with her Sunday school curriculum memory verse on it to copy as there is only Sonlight copywork two days per week.

On Wednesdays we are back to the copybook and her next Sonlight passage to copy.

On Thursdays and Fridays as there is no Sonlight copywork, I put in a page from her Reason for Handwriting lesson book. By next year sometime, we will need to focus perhaps a little more as we will be approaching learning cursive, but for now this is just enough concentrated practice.

Some families might find this too much work while others not enough. Most passages are only a short sentence or two. If we are focused on a history or science topic, I might forgo our regularly scheduled copywork in favor of something in conjunction with our current project. Another nice change is to use a passage from Draw Write Now which she can add her art work to later. Sometimes I will substitute something from her science reading or most anything that has come up in real life. Lots of possibilities for copywork and handwriting practice.

Do you use a handwriting program? Do you find copywork enough handwriting practice as it is?