Prescripts from Classical Conversations

I love the Classical style of homeschooling and am working toward a more Classical approach so was eager to review Classical Conversations Prescripts program for Cursive with Nathan.
Classical Conversations is an online Community as well as a local co-op program that is modeled on the Classical Trivium.
I recently attended a talk by one of the local Directors for a Classical Conversations group and she explained Classical Christian education is a brilliant way. I am paraphrasing, but basically the idea when we are Classically educating our children in a God centered way, not only is God the center of everything, but all the subject he created are interlinked and work to glorify him. With that in mind, simply adding scripture to our day isn't enough and for me, I am longing to put God in the center of our school day and our lives as we find ways to help the boys see scripture, God's Word in all they do. I was so eager and excited to dig into the Prescripts book with Nathan it didn't even occur to me that the book would use a different format and style for cursive writing. Oops!

I finally have a handwriting system that is working for my boys and as we began looking over the Prescripts book, I immediately saw the issue arising, "This isn't how my other writing pages look. Why are these letters different?" Yikes, stop the presses; Mommy has to figure something out.

After thinking on it for a couple of days, I decided I loved the way the program was laid out and designed, so I created some blank pages in the style that we were succeeding in and had Nathan do the same verses and the same drawing activities on formatted paper. It means I copy the verses onto his pages and then he traces and rewrites on the lines below. Means more work for Mommy but it is a huge stress out of our day. We are reading the verses together and breaking them down so we can do it in 3 parts. Once Nathan is finished with that day's portion of copy work, he can move onto the drawing lesson. At first my husband thought this was silly to rework what was already there into a different format paper, but once he saw that Nathan wasn't fighting with me to do his copy work, verse, or drawing activity he came around. 

If you don't have a child that struggles with changing writing styles this program is great. I love the verses from Proverbs and James and the basic shapes drawing lessons are simple enough that he can even read the directions without a lot of input from Mommy. The book retails for $12.99 and is one of four books available in the Prescripts series combining scripture, handwriting, and art lessons and can be used by younger students through elementary students; covering a wide range of ages with solids cursive scripture practice.

This video does a wonderful job showing and discussing the books in the series.

There is as wonderful FAQ page you can download from the Prescripts Page at Classical Conversations.
You can download sample pages of the Prescripts book

I want to make sure my boys have a foundation of cursive writing as it is the basis for creating our own signatures as well as reading many source documents they will come by. I am glad we were able to review this product and share our experiences with you. The rest of the Schoolhouse Review Crew shares their experiences with the Prescripts group of books, check their reviews out by clicking on the box below.

Scripture Sunday May 20

...hope thou in God:  for I shall yet praise him , who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
Psalms 42: 11b
This week's verse introduced the boys to new concepts and a few new words,.but they did well.

B is for Bilbo Baggins

It is a stretch I'm sure but this past week Cameron decided he wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Mommy decided we weren't ready for that yet and found The Hobbit (cartoon version) in the video collection (on VHS mind you). So this past week we visited Middle Earth and journeyed with Bilbo Baggins on his adventure to find the ring.  While the story basically  follows the book there are songs to get the kids into the story.  I happen to have the Progeny Press unit study of The Hobbit so pulled that out and had Cameron do the vocabulary exercises.. I was amazed at his ability to look at the word in context and figure out what it meant. Not an easy task with some of the words in the first 3 chapters on the book. Being Cameron is only in the 2nd grade I wanted to make the unit fun so I had him draw a picture and write 2 sentences about the beginning of the story.. He likes to draw so I can usually get him to write something as long as he can draw a picture to go with it (even his copy work is like that.)  I can't find my copy of the book so I'm thinking I will get an e-book copy and just read it on the Nook with him... Don't get me wrong I love holding a book and reading it together but I'm flat running out of bookshelves and still have most of my collection at my Mom's house...  Anyway, I am thinking of picking sections of the story for copywork, but not sure what else to do to go with a mini unit on the Hobbit.. The unit doesn't have to last too long as we are heading into our Civil War unit in only a week or so...

The Lord's Prayer

Today for school time I did copywork. Mom printed out the Lord's Prayer from the web.. I worked hard to finish the whole project today. I am glad to did.

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*** from Mom:  He was only assigned the first 2 pages but did all 10 pages today.***