Ideas for easing into copying passages from a book in Bigger

[Heart_Mom]

Hi!

We will be starting Bigger soon, and the only thing I'm concerned about is the copying directly from the Bible/Dictionary/Science books. My children who will be doing Bigger did Beyond last year, including the poetry copying. But they were working from a photocopy of the poem in the Guidebook (I hope that was okay to copy!!! If it's not, just let me know!), which is a fairly large font. Also, when they wrote out their Bible verse, I generally wrote it on a paper for them, so they were not copying from a different page. Although that can copy several sentences at a time, they are used to copying directly underneath, line by line.

I think that it will be hard for them to transition to copying directly from a Bible, etc. I could write it out for them on a piece of paper to copy, but I would imagine that would be very time consuming. Also, since I'm doing this with two children at the same time, I'm thinking it will be hard for them to copy from the same book at the same time.

Do you have any thoughts or ideas for me? How have you eased your children into this?

Thanks!!!!

[happy@home]

One suggestion that my dd loves is to take post-it notes to mark her place in the passage. My dd uses 2 post-its. She places one under the line she is copying and places the other to the left of the word she is on. This was an idea that I am almost positive came from my3sons!!

[Kathleen]

We did the post-it note help, too. Only I had my son put the post-it note directly OVER the line he was ready to copy from, upside down. So, when he looked at the book, he was ready for the words just under the bright green (or whatever color) note. Does that make sense?

Kathleen

[Heart_Mom]

Those are helpful hints, ladies! Thanks!

I think that could help some.

Anyone have two children at once trying to copy?

[Kathleen]

I would alternate when they needed it. I don't think that it would work well for them to need to see the same book to copy from at the same time. If it's a notebooking page, one could draw first, one copy first. Then change. For other things that they'll need to copy, maybe you could just let them know that they'll have to take turns. There are several independent things in Bigger that they can have at their disposal to work on and switch with...some of the science notebooking, history notebooking, vocabulary, math, English, cusive, poetry copywork... Not all of those are everyday, but if they could just take turns with math and whatever they needed to copy that day it may work just fine.

Kathleen

[Heart_Mom]

I would alternate when they needed it. I don't think that it would work well for them to need to see the same book to copy from at the same time. If it's a notebooking page, one could draw first, one copy first. Then change. For other things that they'll need to copy, maybe you could just let them know that they'll have to take turns. There are several independent things in Bigger that they can have at their disposal to work on and switch with...some of the science notebooking, history notebooking, vocabulary, math, English, cusive, poetry copywork... Not all of those are everyday, but if they could just take turns with math and whatever they needed to copy that day it may work just fine.

Kathleen

This makes sense, Kathleen! Thanks!!!

[my3sons]

Yes, that was me - we did the post-it notes too, and that really did help section off the copywork part from the "sea of words". We did this in the dictionary for the vocabulary words too. After awhile, my ds marked it himself. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Heart_Mom]

Yes, that was me - we did the post-it notes too, and that really did help section off the copywork part from the "sea of words". We did this in the dictionary for the vocabulary words too. After awhile, my ds marked it himself. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Yes, that's very helpful! Thanks' Julie!

[Mommamo]

I have always underlined in pencil but I like your post-it idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it before! That's what I do when I'm working off complicated knitting charts!