We have reached the point in homeschooling where copywork is no longer merely handwriting practice. The need of letters to trace and special lined paper has faded away. It is now transitioning into sentence structure, spelling and basic grammar.
Previously, copywork was a “sentence treasure hunt” in our daily agenda. I would search for passages my daughter would read during the week and extract sentences to create her copywork. It became a game within itself to see if she could figure out which book the passage had originated. Yep, she usually won. If not, then by the end of the day the mystery would be unraveled as the passage was revealed.
The process was simple, fun and engaging. However, as we progressed I sensed I could be doing more with copywork. Ok, I confess, the whole search, copy and print thing was getting old. I needed to streamline things a bit.
Being obsessed a fan of Google Books I accidentally stumbled upon “Wheeler’s graded studies in great authors: and a complete speller” by William Henry Wheeler. My search originally started out as a curiosity about spelling books from the early 1900’s. Copywork was the last thing on my mind.
In the preface of this 1899 edition I couldn’t help but think how little has changed regarding our opinion of spelling.
Inability to spell correctly is always considered an indication of a lack of culture, although the complaints from our universities, our colleges, our high schools, the press, and the school patrons all indicate that good spelling is rare.
Reading further in the preface, my heart melted. Yes, it’s long-but worth it.
As the child is likely to carry through life what is copied or repeated from school books, the illustrative sentences should present the richest thoughts and choicest gems of expression that can be gathered from literature. In these rambles with the poets the child will hear the carol of the lark, the babbling of the brook, and the music of the sea; he will see the rainbow’s arch, the sumac’s gold and red, and the sunshine and the shadow chasing each other over the billowy fields. The child who is led into the bypaths of nature by these great word painters will learn to look through all “the five windows of the soul”; he will be charmed with the beauty of his surroundings; he will be deeply impressed with the dignity, power, and beauty of our mother tongue, the richest of all languages; he will be inspired to put meaning into his own sentences; he will learn that it is the gift of poetry to hallow every place in which it moves, — to breathe round nature a fragrance more exquisite than the perfume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more magical than the blush of the morning.
If the preface didn’t have me at “hello” then the fact each lesson had a phonics component with key words in italics cinched the deal. Simplistic beauty, delightful-though provoking quotes and phonics all packaged in one ebook. My daughter received a special copywork notebook and off we went!
Each week for us comprises of one lesson from the ebook in which two quotes are usually copied each day. We focus upon spelling words then unfamiliar words. Finally, we discuss meaning and if necessary research the quote’s origin.
The beauty of homeschooling is that we get to use what works for us, we are not bound by a textbook that dictates our hourly motions. We don’t have to copy every quote provided nor research every meaning. Transitioning to a new path in our schedule reminds me how homeschooling is the ultimate in individualized instruction. Homeschooling is a freedom I cherish.
Freedom in homeschooling not only applies to my daughter, but to me also. Hmm…I’m thinking my own language skills and handwriting could use some improvement. I wonder-does this mean I can get my own green holographic spiral bound notebook with purple butterflies and flower design like my daughter’s?