Another day and another fantastic product to highlight on my Blog. This time I am reviewing the Lifetime Membership from Homeschool Copywork. This product allowed us to review scriptures about the Armor God or lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner while practicing handwriting!
If you have young children like I do, older children who are still working on their printing, or if you have decided to teach your children cursive and are trying to help refine that, then you know writing isn't easy to teach.
How do you teach writing? Once they know the letters, you observe and make slight corrections, but a lot of what you are doing is simply ... practice. I am really hoping that handwriting is less painful with girls than it is with boys. My dear, wonderful first grade boys, find the idea of penmanship a concept that they have no desire to discuss. "I wrote it. It's there. Good enough. Can I go play?"
Enter Homeschool Copywork. The concept is so simple.
Use their website for a myriad of quality products for your children to practice copying.
That's it. Such a simple idea! They provide an assortment of links. You choose the one that your children would like to do. You click on it. You print it. You staple it. And your job is done!
I actually decided to use this program for my boys (first grade) and my daughter (she'll be in pre-K next year but has really taken to teaching herself her letters.) I got on the Homeschool Copywork website, picked a product to start with, printed it off, stapled it in a packet, and handed it to each of my three children.
For the next few weeks, approximately 3-4 times a week, I told them it was time for their Homeschool Copywork. This was so simple. I didn't have to do a thing. They simply went and grabbed their packet, found a place to work, and began copying. All I did was peek in to see that they were working diligently and to the best of their ability. I also gave them feedback on how well they did when they finished the page.
In the course of the three weeks, I got through three products with my boys. The first was the Star Spangled Banner Copywork. I had them both work through this packet. I then had my son Elijah do the Armor of God Copywork packet while allowing Isaac to get started on the Character Building Copywork. With my preschooler, Abigail, we only got through one packet: Animal Alphabet Copywork Pages.
Here is a picture of my kids on the first day we got out our packets. Abigail decided she wanted to start with the letter Z. She loved trying to write the letters and to color the picture that went with it. With Abigail, I didn't worry if she was using a pencil or how she was doing it. I simply let her have fun with the packet. In the background, you can see my son Isaac starting on his packet.
You can see that Abigail's letters are still very much in the beginning phase. She would copy the words and then get to color a picture that went with it. She absolutely loved these packets and would usually do 3-4 pages before getting a little tired and wanting to move onto something else.
Isaac working through one of his pages. I actually told the boys that if their handwriting was their best effort, they could just do one page. If they were struggling that day, they would tackle multiple pages.
A close-up of the work required.
There are dozens of different products to use and you can choose which page in each packet you want to use. For instance, there are pages that use tracing, pages that do printing, and pages that do cursive. Sometimes all three of these were included in one packet. I would pick which pages matched my kids' ability level and print those out. If you wanted, you could take a few pages from each packet and make your own packet.
What I love about this product most of us all is the quality of the things my kids are copying. Bible verses, Vincent van Gogh, Abraham Lincoln, Willian H. Taft's Inaugural Address, quotes by Charlotte Bronte .... high quality quotes and concepts for your children to practice their handwriting with.
You can browse all the products together or search based on the age your child. There is a section for early elementary, upper elementary, and junior high/high school.
What's even better is that you can try five of these products absolutely free. Simply visit the: Homeschool Copywork page and click on "Become a Member" at the top of the screen to see how easy it is. I strongly suggest any homeschooling mom reading this post at least takes a look and uses the five free products.
The company also offers a One Year Membership and a Lifetime Membership for very reasonable prices. You can learn more about Homeschool Copywork by visiting their social media accounts here:
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