ek here at St. Michael the Archangel Homeschool. All is going quite well with our new 4th and 5th grade boys; in fact, they have both shown a little more enthusiasm and willingness in their studies than their last couple of weeks of summer break might have predicted! We’re off to a good start! I am one of those homeschooling moms that, at least thus far, can never find the ‘perfect’ packaged curriculum. So, I pick this subject from one provider, that course from another, always comparing what I pull together for my boys with several respected Catholic curricula providers.
One tool we use across many subjects in our school is that of Copybook. Copybook is just what it 
sounds like, a book in which the student copies any given material that they may read and find interesting, or that I may dictate to them for any of a number of purposes, whether to help commit a passage to memory, to practice their best handwriting, or simply to practice the skill of listening and precisely doing. At the end of the year the result is a very nice book of quotes, passages, poems, journal entries, all of which together tell the story of some of what they studied throughout that year. Our boys especially enjoy adding an illustration here and there.
So, today we prepared our Copybooks for this school year, complete with title page, name and date begun. We also added a quote at the bottom of the title page, one which I think is truly inspirational and which succinctly states the purpose for the simple practice of Copybook:
Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a blank book, I will transcribe the most remarkable occurrences I meet with in my reading, which will serve to fix them upon my mind.
~John Quincy Adams, age 10, taken from a letter to his father.
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A blessed new school year to you all!
