Let’s do some math
There are 180 days in the school year.
There are 36 weeks.
You have X number of children at writing age.
If you were to do one passage of copywork per week per child, you would have this equation:
36 x X = ______
So if you have 3 children at writing age, the answer is:
36 x 3 = 108 passages of copywork that you have supervised, corrected, and supported.
If you have a child who works to complete a single passage in a week by writing parts of it 2 or 3 times a week, that child is now working on handwriting and copying:
1 child x 3 days of handwriting (1 copywork passage) x 36 weeks = 108 days of writing 36 passages
3 kids x 2 days of handwriting (1 copywork passage) x 36 weeks = 216 days of supervising 36 passages (per child) of copywork
Can you see why you fall short sometimes? Can you see why adding a day of dictation or phonics worksheets or one more day of copywork can feel impossible, even though the actual daily practice is only 5-15 minutes at a time?
The hardest thing to do in homeschool is to sustain a routine without giving up when you don’t feel you’ve “hit the optimal practice.” Just like you wouldn’t abandon your daily math work just because you missed a week or a few days, you can take a similar approach to copywork and dictation. Get to it, as often as you can, within the weekly framework. When you miss, don’t let that derail you into *not* doing it at all.
Come back to the routine and try again. It’s better to have supervised 20 copywork attempts than 5. It’s better to have returned to the practice after being away from it, than to abandon it all together. Over years of time, you’ll see fruit from copywork and dictation, even if there are some (many) weeks you don’t get to it.
