My ds9 does 2 dictations each week from Spelling Wisdom, Book 1. Everything is already prepared and ready to go. No reinventing of the wheel is involved. There are 140 lessons which can be used over the course of 2-3 years. The selections are interesting and really, we have such a routine now that it’s very easy to get 2 done each week.
Our read aloud right now is At the Back of the North Wind, and I must say that there are plenty of gems in it that make for good copywork dd7 or dictation for older children. Beautiful words such as these:
“But it can’t be denied that a little gentle crying does one good. It did Diamond good; for as soon as it was over he was a brave boy again.”
and this passage:
“”I think there must be a big cupboard somewhere, out of which the little cupboards are filled, you know, mother.'”
My daughter really enjoys doing copywork from something familiar…a scripture passage, a little poem, a Sunday School song, something we are memorizing or some lines from one of her books. I usually use things we have read that morning, because I love to watch her eyes light up when she recognizes the words. I just write the lines out while she is doing math or something else. She writes slowly, so she usually works on 1 passage for 3-4 days, 10 minutes per day.
Maybe you could lightly star passages you want to use from books and place post-it notes on pages to keep track of passages that you could use.
HTH
