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Hi everyone!

We are in Beyond 1st grade unit 17. Thus far I have been having my son do his copy work on 1st-2nd grade paper. I've actually been writing it down on 1st-2nd grade paper and having him copy it onto another paper. I'm just wondering how others handle copy work at this stage. Do you have your kids use the bigger lined paper during first grade or do you eventually wean them down to smaller lined paper? I'm just wondering what is considered normal or standard for 1st grade. Do some of you also write the poetry down for your kids to copy, or do you just have them copy directly from the book? Thanks!

We used primary lined paper for a while, but my daughter had moved to using two lines of standard paper. I make the red and blue marks at the very edge of the paper so she knows which line is which. She can also use just a single line, but not all of her letters end up the right size when she does that.

We are at the end of Beyond, and he is writing it on 1st grade paper. I started out copying it for him on to the paper, skipping lines for him to write directly under the line he was copying. Then, I moved to copying it on one paper for him to copy on to his own paper. Finally, I began letting him copy it from the book.

My daughter just used a wide-ruled notebook. I would re-type the poem and cut it apart into 2-line segments and she would copy one segment each day into her notebook. I did increase it slowly over the year until she was copying 4 lines at a time.

I have two in Beyond this year. My 8yo writes in a three-lined notebook (dash-in-the-middle lines). He copies directly from the book. He is able to write on single lined notebook paper, but so far all of his poetry is being copied into his three-lined notebook. My 6yo does her copywork in a three-lined notebook as well. Her lines are bigger than my 8yo. I copy each line into her book for her to copy directly underneath. She has/had trouble making sure her letters were the right size in proportion to each other. This form of copying helps her to see exactly how big each letter should be compared to the next letter.

Good thoughts here already! The shrinking of the writing and the strengthening of fine motor skills takes time. I did a post about Riley''s handwriting, and how I tried to prepare him for writing on wide-lined notebook paper. This has never been something that just happened. It seemed to prepare him well for BHFHG. Here are some pics of it, in case it is helpful...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5605&p=41147#p41147

In Christ,
Julie

We always just use regular notebook paper... sometimes wide ruled, sometimes college, just depending on what dh picks up at the store Actually, thinking about it, we use composition notebooks for the copywork, but it's still whatever we have in our school supplies cabinet. We write on notebook paper from the beginning though. The only time they use different types of paper are the times they choose to do their handwriting book or when it is in the FMS book in LHFHG. But I'm not a stickler for actually teaching handwriting. If it's legible I'm good with it.