One of the ways I work is to try to establish habits of doing certain things, rather than having lessons per se.  So we have a habit of reading, a habit of drawing and now I am helping Antonia establish a habit of writing.  Before I go any further, I should say that ‘lessons’ were a pre-requisite to this habit.  On the other hand lessons do get in the way of living habits, so a balance has to be found.  In Antonia’s kindergarten year we regularly spent 10 minutes a day on handwriting practice.  Last year, we got the most common spelling words down, though we crammed this into about 6 weeks and did it orally.  Now Antonia can pretty much write, not perfectly, but well enough, at least in English.  The lessons aren’t over, because we’re going to start touch-typing as soon as I think it will reasonably fit in our schedule (maybe when her multiplication tables are all done, which will be soon).

Once she could write I bought her a pretty journal book, and she began to write in it four or five times a week.  My job is to make times for her to do this, but she writes whatever she likes.  Now that she understands what ‘spelling’ means, she usually asks me about any word she is unsure of.  She has also learned a lot of punctuation along the way.  It’s kind of fascinating to see your own child expressing herself in writing, if you are a parent that is!  So I’m going to indulge and record some of the things she came out with.  The first was a story in 16 parts.  It fell apart a bit at the end, but it started pretty well, so here are just the first nine parts:

“There was once a little dog.  She liked her bone.  There was also a fox who liked bones.  One night the fox stole her bone.  In the morning she wanted her bone.  She saw that her bone was gone!  It was lucky she had another bone.  The next night the fox came again!  He stole the second bone!  It was a trap.  The dog bounced onto the fox.  The fox ran away.  The next day the fox stole all her forty-five bones.  She was very sad.

Very soon the dog went to find the fox.  She was planning a revenge.  She found the fox!  She jumped onto him.  “Grrrr!” said the dog.  They had a battle.  The fox won.  The dog had a cut.  The fight was not finished.  The dog won the second part.  The fox scowled.  The dog got her forty seven bones back.  Then the fox’s wife came out and screamed.  She said “I love you”.  She ran to the dog.  “What!” screamed the fox.  Then super-rabbit came along.  She pounced onto the fox.  The dog had time to run away with the fox’s wife.”

Then we have nature observations:

Be a bee
A wasp nest is under my garden steps.  I do not know how it got there!  Should I ask them?  Maybe not.

Passages about what she has learned:

Egypt
Egypt is a nice place.  I like the Sphinx.  The Sphinx is bigger than you.  It is there to scare people off pyramids.  Its body looks like a lion.  Its head looks like a pharoah’s head.

Or authobiographical details:

All about me
I homeschool.  My Mummy homeschools me.  I learn several things in a day.  My Mummy does not always help me.  

I am not sure that that last sentence is not a reproach!