Copywork is a favorite tool in Classical and Charlotte Mason homeschooling circles, but what is copywork? What benefits does it provide? How do you get started with it? How do you find passages? I’m glad you asked. What is Copywork? Copywork is just what it sounds like. Depending on your child’s age and developmental level,…Read more …
I have a fundamental belief that each of us is a unique creation with strengths and weaknesses that equip us for our individual mission in this life. I have struggled so much with the idea of “learning disabilities” because I feel a hyper-focus on a person’s weaknesses can overshadow the development of that person’s gifts.…Read more …
This year we are using quite a bit of curriculum from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. We’re using Primary Arts of Language for Helen’s phonics, Teaching Writing: Structure and Style for Henry’s writing program with our co-op group, and The Phonetic Zoo for Henry’s spelling. Andrew Pudewa, president of IEW has been a mentor…Read more …
Henry has been deeply immersed in two different “unit studies” of his own design and choosing. One is a study of ancient Egypt, which I’ll blog about in another post. The other is a unit on crypto zoology, specifically the search for Big Foot. I’m not sure what sparked his interest in this topic, but…Read more …
In my last post I explained a bit about what the ZPD and scaffolding are and what scaffolding looks like when “teaching” babies how to roll over. In this post, I’ll provide a couple of examples of scaffolding the writing process. I’d like to start by pointing out that writing is not a single skill,…Read more …
Recently in my homeschool circles, there has been much discussion of when it might be appropriate to push/encourage/nudge our children. How can we discern whether a little encouragement or guidance from us will help them jump to the next level of competence, or push them over the edge of frustration? Lev Vygotsky, the great educational…Read more …
When Henry started kindergarten last year, he showed absolutely no interest in handwriting. None. He failed every fine motor screening at his well child checks from the time he was two. At 5, as far as I knew, as far as he would demonstrate to me, he could not even draw a straight, vertical line.…Read more …
