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We are using LHFHG with the 1st grade extentions. We have been working through GD Italic book B. He always complains how his hand hurts. I thought he just needed to strengthen those muscles so we've been playing with a lot of clay and play dough. A thought just came to me while we were working on spelling(using BLHFHG as a guide). He forms all of his letters very well and without looking at a chart. Maybe we could just start copywork. I wanted to get some other opinions on this though. What do you all think? Would you continue with the Italic book or would you move on to copy work and focus on penmanship?

The copy work may take longer than the Work book. If his hand is still hurting I would stick with the work book.
Are you exercising both sets of muscles? he needs to exercise the muscles that make his hand go out as well as push in. (clay does push in muscles. Rubber bands on fingers that are then expanded work the push out ones.) have you taught him how to eat with chopsticks? Thats fabulous for fine motor control, as well.

Give both a try and see which one he is happiest with.

I will try the rubber band.

I think the main issue is really that he's just bored with copying letters over and over. He does great with the sentence at the end. So maybe just one sentence for copywork to begin with?

Maybe you could have him just do 1 letter on each line, and then the sentence at the end, telling him as long as his one letter/line was neat, that was enough. That way, you'll for sure have a thorough coverage of letters, while moving more quickly along. Rather than doing the copywork in Beyond (since it is of the poetry which is nice to do when you're doing the poetry study in Beyond), you could have him start copying his Bible verse each week. We did that the last half of LHFHG and really enjoyed it. It was also nice prep for Beyond. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Good ideas.