Our Curriculum: Part 1 - Cursive

I'm going to go subject by subject to document our curriculum for the 2013/2014 school year.  I'm starting with cursive even though it really isn't its own subject.

I'm starting here because it's a hot-ish topic.  The buzz began when a witness for the prosecution in a certain sensationalized criminal trial admitted before the viewing public that she could not read a piece of evidence because she did not know how to read cursive.

I'm confident she's not the only one.

It seems cursive is no longer a priority in some schools, in part, because there simply isn't time to teach it and because it is not considered so important when communication these days is primarily done with a keyboard.

My husband and I have had the discussion before.  Is cursive relevant in an electronic world?  To me it's an emphatic, "Yes!"  No respectable signature was ever printed.  Cursive is what love letters are made of.  It's how your mom writes messages to you in greeting cards.  It's the print medium of the Declaration of Independence AND the Constitution!  Turns out, it even helps your brain.

No, for me, it wasn't a decision about whether or not to teach my kids cursive.  It was a matter of what font.  This:

or ****THIS****:

Okay, for now we're settling for the more standard version.

Right as I was pondering how to teach cursive, Classical Conversations came out with their PreScripts line.  I ordered all four books as soon as they were available because my kids were at or nearing the cursive age and because the books tied in with our memory work.

It's going well.  My son started in the second book, Cursive Words and Drawing, which features scripture, this past spring and is two-thirds of the way done.  It's still a laborious process for him, though.  He's getting faster copying the passages, but it's very tedious to both of us for him to use cursive in his other work.  We both give a sigh of relief when I let him switch back to print.  I need to develop the guts to have him go cold-turkey off the printing.  I just can't decide at what point that will be.

I'll have him finish this book but will start him on Cursive Sentences as soon as possible because it incorporates this year's history sentences.  I also like the accompanying art lessons in this book, which feature art from our Classical Acts and Facts History Cards.  I'm looking forward to entwining penmanship with history and art.  And, truly, the timing of this products release could not have been better.

As for my daughter, I'm going to start her on PreScripts Cursive Letters and Coloring next year when she's in second grade, but we'll do the coloring sheets this year because they correspond with our current-year memory work.