60-day returns • free shipping on USA orders $129+
copy work
- This topic has 8 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 2 months ago by
.
Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
- Posts
What do you do for copywork? My DD is in 3rd grade, but struggling in language arts/reading. I’ve discovered she cannot copy definitions from a dictionary, just so you have an idea of her ability level. I’m starting with the free printables but after that what should i be having her copy? And how much, and how often should she be doing copywork?
Take this for what it’s worth. I have a first grade boy who is just now getting interested in doing neat work. Some things I’ve tried are all or part of our memory verse for the week from the SCM modules, his Sunday School verse, a nursery rhyme or other poem. I have him work for no more than five minutes per day.
We do copywork as part of our getting started routine. The girls fill in their 100 chart, Pizza Hut Book It calendar, and copywork while I am getting our work out and getting organized. It takes very little time. My 5 year old uses the blank copywork pages from SCM that I write our current Bible verse on and I ask her to complete one line with excellence but she often does 2 lines (she like to complete the page). My 2nd grader is working through Handwriting Without Tears cursive book right now but when she is done, she will go back to doing the same copy work as her sister only in cursive. We have done poems or book excerpts that we love, but I am sticking with Bible verses for now and prefering that. For as little effort as it takes, it helps a ton and gets us in the mindset for school in the morning. Are you having her copy directly from the dictionary? Are the words too small? Too much distraction on the page? You could have her run a blank 3×5 card under the line she needs to write out. If you want her to copy the definition, could you write it out on the blank copywork pages or something similar and have her copy from your writing so it would be bigger and have fewer things to block out? Not sure it that is the problem, but that is what came to my mind when you mentioned the dictionary.
We use the http://www.zaner-bloser.com site for copywork. I type in what I/we choose, skipping a line for my 8yo to copy…we have done scriptures, poems, hymns, the States, days of the week, name and address, etc.
We did start with all of the copywork that was free to print from SCM then moved on to other resources we have around the house.
We begin our morning with copywork as well. I usually have my 8yo do one page (working on excellence and paying attention to what he’s spelling, although I don’t really tell him that), if he wants to do more, I let him, but remind him that it’s not a race and that if it gets sloppy then we are over doing it. One page daily is usually good enough for my 8yo and he likes to do it so it’s not difficult to get him to sit and get to work. I just don’t like to over do it and keep it enjoyable and interesting (changing up what he copyworks). He always reads everything he copies, or sings it…he’s rather dramatic:)
My DD is only in K this year, but what I have found helpful for motivating her is to let her choose sentences from whatever her favorite story book from her book basket is that week. She chooses the book, tells me what her favorite part of the story was, and then I pick a sentence from that part, trying to choose things with different types of punctuation so as to draw her attention to the various types. Then I copy that sentence onto some handwriting paper, skipping a line in between so she can copy directly underneath what I have written. I think there are computer programs that you could use to make your own copywork too, but since it takes her a whole week to do one sentence (I only ask for 2-3 words each day), this is working for us right now and not too much work for me. I found just giving her that little bit of choice has helped her tremendously in putting forth good effort in something that is otherwise hard work since she is still gaining fluency with her letter formation, and also just being able to copy right underneath saves the effort of trying to copy out of a book until she is more used to it.
HTH some!
Poetry, Bible verses, lyrics from songs or hymns, sentences from her favorite book – these are good ways to get started.
My kids like to copy a poem over the course of a few days and when they finish they draw a picture to illustrate the poem. Perhaps your child would like to do something like that.
Thanks for reminding me, MamaSnow, to use the sentences in the stories that we are reading…I had not used those resources yet, but had been meaning to. I think that’s what I love about the copywork…you can change it up so much…my 8yo really likes it and doesn’t even question what I have him do. He actually looks forward to his next choice of copywork and seeing it on paper that he “gets” to copy:)
lgeurink-we were copying from the Horizons Spelling dictiionary. I think it was just too hard for her to look at the dictionary, then back to her writing page, and back to the dictionary. She has been struggling with her spelling until recently so she was having to do all that for every letter she had to write so it was just overwhelming her.
Since i found the copywork sheets on SCM things have improved greatly. I’m still writing things out for her leaving a blank line underneath for her to write in. I think soone we’ll move on to having all of what she’s copying at the top of the page and her rewritting in underneath.
Thanks for all the ideas of what we can use for her to copy. She likes poetry too so i’m looking for a kids poetry book that i can copy from.
Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
- The topic ‘copy work’ is closed to new replies.