Copywork ? (Writing)

[Christine]

Let's see

 

I have a starting 1st grader and Ker (technically) this year, but my plan is to do their work together.

 

I have to be totally on the ball this year, and I need help deciding some things.

 

My thought is one line of copywork per day.

 

For example we are doing a farm unit and will be using the Draw Write Now books (book 1). There are about 88 lines of text in there.

 

We will also being doing poetry memorization / recitation, and I thought they could copy their poems (as a keepsake item). They have 20 4-line poems to memorize this year, so 80 lines of text. (There is the problem that poem lines aren't necessarily "good writing" for copywork :confused:)

 

I will be writing their narrations (science / history). . .you know, unless they feel terribly motivated (and I suppose they could shock me).

 

I just don't know. . .different tactic all together?

[PeterPan]

Well my only tip for copywork at that age is to have the lines directly under the text, so they don't have to look back and forth between pages. I typed out a series of things (sentences from our spelling program, nursery rhymes, etc.) where you had a line of text, then lines for writing, repeat. In that way you could just keep going, doing a little bit every day, and flex it as they progress and are able to do more. I also did some where the space at the top of the page was left blank to illustrate. :)

[dcjlkplus3]

My oldest just finished 1st grade and my next is starting k. this year. I ended up last year making them a tracing notebook and a copywork notebook. I wrote out a sentence (or a memory verse) on first grade paper and (for the tracing notebook) scanned it (so I could keep seeing the red and blue lines on the paper). I also always left a blank line for them to do their writing under mine. I started doing this because they love tracing and I get real tired of making dotted words all the time- now I can just print them out. Mine will do the same verse or sentence over and over whenever I would I let her choose. I figured, its still practice writing and it lets them feel in control - they can choose anything from the notebook.

[Christine]

Well my only tip for copywork at that age is to have the lines directly under the text, so they don't have to look back and forth between pages. I typed out a series of things (sentences from our spelling program, nursery rhymes, etc.) where you had a line of text, then lines for writing, repeat. In that way you could just keep going, doing a little bit every day, and flex it as they progress and are able to do more. I also did some where the space at the top of the page was left blank to illustrate. :)

 

 

Okay. . .as to the "how".

 

For the DWN books, I plan to give them a page (space at top, lines on bottom) where they can draw their pic and then write their sentences. The same will hold true for their poetry, except the space at top will have a picture already in the space.

 

I have educational fontware, and want to teach them Italic handwriting, so my thought was to type everything out then cut out each individual line. I could "tack" (paperclip) the example writing above the line that they would write on. My thought for this is so they would have the complete thing in their handwriting, and I wouldn't have 8 lines of a 4 line poem (or similar). But, as you said, it would give them the example on the line above (and I could then remove it).

[kim in ks]

For my first grader last year we used "Happy Scribe" you can pick the topic you want them to copy

http://www.happyscribecopybooks.com/

http://www.thehomeschoolshop.com/sh-happyscribe.htm

 

There are free samples you can look at

kim

[Dayle in Guatemala]

I agree with OhElizabeth in that the text should be right above the line on which they are writing. Another good place to get copybooks is here.