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I am preparing to use Beyond for history/science and Bigger for the "Learning the Basics" with my 3rd grader. I've purchased R&S English 2 and Cheerful Cursive. Should I have her do copywork from the poem in addition to this? I'm afraid it will be too much writing for her with English, spelling, and cursive. Also, how much of the English program do you do orally? I think this will help a bit.

Hi, we'll be doing Beyond this year, too with a 3rd grader. We will be doing the R&S 2 as well. It has been mentioned a few times on the board that they recommend you doing about three-fourths of the lesson orally, and saving the last exercise to be written. So that really makes the english go quick, while not overwhelming your little 3rd grader! I don't think that the copywork for the poetry would be too much when english is done mostly orally. I have a somewhat writing-phobic child, and we plan to do just that!

Blessings on your coming year!

~Lisa

Thanks for the help. My DD can take forever to complete a small task...she'll drag a quick worksheet into 30 minutes. I'm worried that this will be a problem when I try to move quickly through the guide.

Hi Holly! Here's a past post where I described how we do a good portion of R & S English orally:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4659&p=34269#p34269

As far as the poetry, I'd use the poetry in Beyond and save the poetry in Bigger for that guide (just thought I'd mention it, since I wasn't sure which you were thinking of doing). You could start by having your child copy just 1 line a day for a while. Then, move up to 2 lines a day, etc. until she is able to do all of the copywork by the end of the year for sure, as this will ease her into the increased writing the core of Bigger Hearts will have the following year. Have fun with Beyond - we just finished it last year, and you have lots of happy teaching days ahead of you!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks Julie,
I really like your system for R&S! I'm definitely planning on using poetry from Beyond...I'm trying to combine my 1st and 3rd graders as much as possible.