Copywork for the boys, 2012-13

Charlotte Mason wrote:

“A Child should Execute Perfectly. No work should be given to a child that he cannot execute perfectly, and then perfection should be required from him as a matter of course…Set him six strokes to copy; let him, not bring a slateful, but six perfect strokes, at regular distances and at regular slopes. If he produces a faulty pair, get him to point out the fault, and persevere until he has produced his task; if he does not do it to-day, let him go on to-morrow and the next day, and when the six perfect strokes appear, let it be an occasion of triumph. So with the little tasks of painting, drawing, or construction he sets himself--let everything he does be well done… Closely connected with this habit of 'perfect work' is that of finishing whatever is taken in hand. The child should rarely be allowed to set his hand to a new undertaking until the last is finished.”

The idea is quality over quantity, which is why last year I had the boys copy just one letter at a time, and execute that letter to the best of their ability just three times.  I used to go for quantity- (poor Ella!) but have since learned that everyone is happier if I assign less but expect it to be done WELL. (So even though I toyed with the idea of having them copy George Washington's Rules of Civility (we are studying American History, after all!), I decided against that and am stepping up from one letter a day to one word a day.)

I decided to do the books of the Bible-- something we've done in the past for memory work-- but this will serve as copywork for this year and a refresher on the books of the Bible.  Handy!

So, in their copywork jar are two copies each of each book of the Bible.  They'll each draw one out, find where it goes (I've lightly penciled in all the books of the Bible on the left-hand side, in order), they'll tape or glue their slip of paper over my word, and then write the word (once!) in the space on the right-hand side.  Eventually they'll have written all 66 books of the Bible, in order!

*UPDATE: Annie asked in the comments if I'd be willing to give this information out so that she could use these copywork pages, too.  I am completely willing, always.  (Honestly- I had thought about posting it but then was all, "Well- that's sort of presumptuous to think someone might want it." so I didn't.  But goodness!  Ask and I am always happy to share!  :))  But apparently it's impossible to post pdf documents in Blogger, so I've posted them into Google docs. (This is the first time I've done this, so I hope it works for you.  Please let me know if you try it and it does work.)


For the link for the copywork pages, click here. (you only need to print page 1.  page 2 is blank.)

For the link for the listed books of the Bible, click here.
*August 3rd UPDATE: Grr.  My little plan to post those into Google docs did not work.  Sorry!  If you're interested in the files, just email me and I'll email them to you.  Several of you have done so and that is working just fine.  :)  (If anyone knows another way for me to make them accessible here on the blog, let me know!)

2010-11 Year in Review: History/Math/English

History
Last month I shared about our year of History, in Changing my mind about our history selection, so say much more about that, other than this: the change been good.

Math
This year we continued with our use of Rod & Staff for Math (for Ella and Isaac). What I learned last year is this important lesson: my children do not need to do every single problem on every single page of their math workbooks. (But because I was a little late in learning that, we began this year with Ella still only about halfway through her 2nd grade Math workbook. And I'm perfectly fine with that. She's into the 3rd grade book now, but next year we'll be doing the same thing, unless I do a major push to complete one book and be "caught up".)

*The kids love it when Mark or I wrote notes to them in their math books, and we received lots of cute notes from them in return.
*I learned this year that the glee over a scratch-and-sniff sticker has not faded since I was a child. (These are already on my t0-buy list for next year. :))
*We tried to be creative in the choosing of the problems they were to complete on a page. Sometimes it was just the basic "do every other problem" or "choose ___ problems to do", but more often than not we'd either draw a shape (a balloon, a heart, a bee, a flower, a butterfly, etc) and have them do only the math problems within the shape. Or we'd put a math problem on the top of the page and the answer to that problem equaled how many they needed to complete on the page. (Add up all the ages of all the kids and do that many, add your age and your birth date and complete that many problems, etc).

English
Same lesson learned here with the English book from Rod & Staff, and this year, Ella's 3rd grade year, we spent finishing her 2nd grade book. (We're a little laid back about stuff like this.)

The latter part of this year I spent more hands-on time doing English with Ella: sitting with her to get her started, reading some things aloud and doing some of the work orally with her-- rather than just assigning her pages and allowing her to work independently. This made a huge difference not only in her understanding, but in our relationship. I really came to value this time with her. And, truly- that's the GOAL with all of her work, but it hadn't really been happening consistently simply because it was not really possible with the little girls. This year it became possible, and I was grateful for the opportunity to be more available to Ella during this time.

2010-11 Year in Review: Copywork

I am really pleased with our system for copywork this year... it was simple and very hands-off for me because I had most of Ella's copywork for the year selected ahead of time. (I did refill the jar once, during our December break.)



That's Ella's Copywork Binder. The first page of the binder was a page of instructions/reminders from me, things like: print as neatly as you can, leave space between your words, use good punctuation, use a pencil so that you can erase if you need to, and date the top of each page. The rest of the binder was filled with clear protective sleeves, which she filled throughout the year.


A couple of other things Ella did during her "Copywork" time slot this year: she kept up on her letter-writing (she corresponds with two pen-pals), she used that time to write thank you cards or birthday cards, and about once a week she did her copywork in cursive.


Note to self: Some of the copywork selections I chose were too long. I either need to choose shorter ones or add a day for "finishing" into the schedule.

Refilling the Copywork Jar: quotes and poems

Ella's Copywork Jar is just about empty, and she's already gone through the "No copywork today!" and "Mommy will do your copywork for you today!" slips of paper I added to buy me some time... ;)

I've spent the evening refilling it, and here are some of my favorite contributions:

"It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will."
~L.M. Montgomery

"Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet."
~L.M. Montgomery


"A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference."
~A.A. Milne

Oh! But my *favorite* A.A. Milne quote I found tonight was this one:

"It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"
(Winnie the Pooh)

And this, a poem Mark found:

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

~Joyce Kilmer

And this one:

Morning Prayer

Now another day is breaking,
Sleep was sweet and so is waking.
Dear Lord, I promised you last night
Never again to sulk or fight.
Such vows are easier to keep
When a child is sound asleep.
Today, O Lord, for your sake,
I'll try to keep them when awake.

~Ogden Nash

Ella's "rag doll"

Ever since we read the Little House books, Ella has wanted to make a "rag doll" like Laura's Charlotte. She has talked about it from time to time, saying things like, "Mommy! I want to make a rag doll just like Charlotte!" or "Mommy! For Audra's birthday, I'm going to make her a rag doll!" But then the idea kind of fizzles.

On Sunday, Ella came with me to the fabric store to find the fabrics for this quilt, and apparently she must have received some fresh inspiration, because she came home full of enthusiasm about making a rag doll.

And then she set about to doing it!

She got white paper and a pencil and started drawing a pattern. Then we cut out the pattern and pinned it to some white fabric. Then we cut out two pieces of that. Then she embroidered a smile and sewed on two carefully selected button eyes. I showed her how to put the pieces right sides together and then I gave her a needle and thread and had her sew her doll together. By Monday night she was stuffing her Charlotte.

I helped her a little bit with each step, but she did most of the work herself. (ie- ALL the sewing, save for some sloppy stitches we discovered when it came time to stuff the doll)and today she did the finishing work. We added hair and Ella made a dress {which is pretty unfinished, but Ella doesn't mind!} For the dress, I let her use the sewing machine because she had already done so much hand stitching.

There were some tears on Ella's part: Her timeline was a little unrealistic and she was hoping for a finished, dressed doll in one day, and she was disappointed in herself for the rushed stitching that made for stuffing coming out of the seams, but I am so pleased that she began with an idea and followed it through all the way to completed {and cute!} product!