? how to adjust handwriting in BHFHG science

[deltagal]

Hi there,

The handwriting assignment in Bigger Hearts on the Science notebooking day are a little over the top for my 9 yo. I'm trying to come up with a plan of action, so he has a sense of completion and not frustration with the assignment. He does fine copying the scripture passage, but that's about it for him. Any suggestions?

[blessedmomof4]

Is he doing a cursive handwriting program as well? When my youngest was in Bigger I let her write the assignments in manuscript, neatly, while we used an outside cursive program. She is in Preparing now and still needs work on her handwriting, so I have her doing Cheerful Cursive and am gradually requiring more cursive in her other assignments until it becomes more natural to her. I hope to have her doing all her writing in cursive by CTC. She is making much better progress with Cheerful Cursive than the other one she used before.

[deltagal]

He does do the work in manuscript, but it is simply too much writing for him at this point. He needs to be eased into the work load a bit.

[Tansy]

I'm using bigger as a second grade for my 8 year old.

I went and looked at some of the assignments on the notebooking day 2.

In our house for week one I copied the basics of the drawing, and I Put the bible verse on the page for her. She had to color in the picture and makes sure the world and tide arrow was correct, and put in all the little words.

For next week I noticed the instructions say make 2 columns and label them. My plan is to write it on a white board for my dc to copy then it says draw 1 or More animals for each column and write something about them. We will be choosing the one animal Option and not do the more. The writing bit I probably will put in for her in the beginning but as she gets better have her do.

as I'm looking though the book I'm seeing one or more as an option though out the book I believe we will be only doing the one option.

[Tansy]

double post my computer is bad!

[my3sons]

I helped my ds out by making a simple lab form with the "question", "guess", "procedure", and "conclusion". I also wrote on a marker board for him to copy at first. He moved into being able to write it all within a few months. If he is struggling with the writing quite a bit, you could go to half-speed for awhile until he grows into it too. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Bramble]

I helped my ds out by making a simple lab form with the "question", "guess", "procedure", and "conclusion". I also wrote on a marker board for him to copy at first. He moved into being able to write it all within a few months. If he is struggling with the writing quite a bit, you could go to half-speed for awhile until he grows into it too. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Julie, do you share your form? I think I've seen it in your photobucket files but I don't know how to get it from there to my printer. Is it possible for you to email it? I'd be happy to make my own but I don't know that I have the right program.
Thanks.

[my3sons]

I looked back and realized I used the PHFHG science form (which I made for that guide). It's copyrighted, so I can't share it, but you could easily make one following the scientific method format (the steps I shared in my pp). I only used the PHFHG form in BHFHG because my ds's writing needed to be strengthened though. If he were older (he's only 7 yo) I would have had him write out the steps as the BHFHG plans intend him to do. My older ds did this and remembered the scientific method well because of it, a key reason dc are to be writing it out the first year in BHFHG, as well as having them write more prepares them for the greater amount of writing coming in PHFHG. My middle ds just isn't quite there yet.

In Christ,
Julie

[Carrie]

Florence,

The ladies have given some great suggestions in this post. I'll also chime in to say that you could copy the first half or so of the Bible verse for him on the science page and then have him complete the end of the verse, gradually moving toward him doing more and more of the writing as the year goes on. You could do the same for whatever he is supposed to do on the rest of the science notebook page. In that way, he'll still be getting part of the Bible copywork and some science copying/drawing/labeling too.

For the lab sheet day each week, you could copy the question for him for now and have him dictate his response to you for his guess part as well. You could act as his scribe for these two parts of the lab sheet for now, and move toward him copying his words from a markerboard for these parts as the year progresses. I'd have him draw and label his procedure (as that is important for him to get). Then, he could write his own conclusion. So, basically, you'd be writing half of his lab sheet for now, and he'd be doing the last half. By year end the goal would be for him to be writing all of his lab sheet and notebook entries etc.

Some little sweeties just don't have strong enough muscles in their fingers/hands yet to do larger volumes of writing, so it can take time to build that up.

Just a thought!

Blessings,
Carrie

[Lynnw]

What we have done so far:

For writing the Bible Verse on a card - We are in the first week and the Bible verse is 3 verses. I'm having him copy 1 verse each day for three days.

For science - like Julie, I already have Preparing so I copied the lab sheet out of the back and he was able to do the writing for it. After we got started I realized it was a little easier to let him dictate to me, I wrote on a white board and he copied it.

For vocabulary - this was almost too much. We only did one word. I shortened the dictionary definition by a few words and dictated it to him (the print was tiny!). Then we worked on the sentence together and I wrote it for him. Hopefully I will be a little more prepared next time. AFter he finds the word I'll let him read the definition to me, I'll put it on the white board and let him copy it. Then maybe I'll see if he can do the sentence without the white board intermediary step.

Hopefully I'm not circumventing skill development too much. Maybe later this will seem "easy" and we can take away the white board some?

[deltagal]

Great thoughts everyone. Thank you! I simply wanted to share that what we did today was I made the Bible verse a fill in the blank and then he took care of the rest. That worked very well!