I love the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling.  It is the most natural way of learning and it fits with my mind very well.

Although, I think the reason that I got started with it was due, mostly, to our financial situation at the time.  Charlotte Mason style home education requires very little financial out-put.  Oh, you CAN spend big money, if you really want to, but, you can get along spending just a few dollars, especially if you are near a public library.

Today is the beginning of my new series on Charlotte Mason style home education ala Mother Hen.  There will be several articles, each highlighting a different aspect/subject following Charlotte Mason’s guidelines with a decidedly Mother Hen twist.  Oh, and I don’t know if I’ll go one a day, or one a week, or just random.  I really prefer to fly by the seat of my skirt.

Copywork

We’ll start with copywork.  The putting of pencils into the hands of Pirates is not the easiest thing in the world.  All of my Pirates were born with a distinct pencil allergy, but this is common for Pirates.  The Princess, on the other hand, was born with a pencil, two pens and several crayons in her hands, and 2 packs of Crayola markers (1 classic, 1 pastel) in her purse.  The OB doc was a little surprised, having never seen such a thing himself.   Of course, he’d read about it in the medical journals.  It’s a phenomena that only occurs among babies of the Princess persuasion.

So, if you have Pirates, go easy on ‘em at first.  You have to ease ‘em into the habit of putting words on paper.

The concept of copywork is simple, yet huge.  The practice of it is so simple that you may, in fact, miss the huge benefit.  You simply provide your child with a word, sentence, paragraph, or passage to copy.  If he is very small, you use the first line on his paper and write the word(s) that you want him to copy.  If he is somewhat more accomplished, you may use other methods, such as a seperate paper, or the white board, or even a passage from a book.

Very simple, very easy, yet you can’t just hand him the paper and say, “Get crackin’!”  You need to take a minute and go over the written piece you’ve given him.  Talk about the letters that are capitalized, and why they are.  Talk about all of the punctuation, and what it all means.  Go over the spelling of the hard words.  You know the areas where your particular Pirate has need, these are the things that get talked about the most, repeat yourself if he really has a problem area.

There are tons of free resources for copywork on the internet.  Simply Charlotte Mason has free printable copywork for beginners.  Homeschooling 101 has a nifty idea for a copywork jar, including lots of quotes and sentences to use.  My favorite copywork well to draw from is the Quote Garden, this is a very deep well.

Of course, you can use sentences and passages from books around the house, or even just some sentences of your own creation.  Cheap and easy, in this context, is a good thing.  All you really have to spend money on is a pencil and some writing paper.  I did it this way for years.

Then, one day, I had a little extra money, and found the coolest Charlotte Mason resource ever.  Queen Homeschool Supply has copywork books that I love.  (Look in her sidebar and click the word copywork.)  I can just sit back and relax because Sandi has already done all the work of compiling 180 copywork lessons in each book, and they have a great variety.  Truly convenient and very inexpensive.

Remember, this is the last week of the August giveaway.  If you haven’t entered, please do so today!

Also, be sure and visit the Pirate’s For Sale page.  They’ve been busy Pirates, adding tons of books and a couple of non-book items.

Related posts:

1. I had no idea!
2. Homeschooling Times Five
3. Copywork for Boys
4. Journaling, Lunch and Cuteness
5. The Plan – part 2 – Homeschool