Family Studies is my personal favorite. It is where we are making those family memories, whether it’s a read-aloud, a folksong, or Scripture study. The subjects vary from term to term, and I generally aim for a middle school or Form III level of difficulty to tackle in Family Studies. Younger students rise to the challenge when the reading is accomplished out loud, and older ones benefit because it is in the nature of living ‘books and things’ to be deep wells, rarely failing to furnish new ideas. Though perhaps some subjects lend themselves to Family Studies more readily than others, I’ve found those that simply won’t work to be a very short list.
Here is one subject that has not left our lineup since we started doing it as a group several years ago—Copywork.
For those unfamiliar with the term, copywork is the practice of copying by hand from a model and is the practice Charlotte Mason advocated for beginning penmanship. She refers to it as ‘transcription’ in Home Education (p. 238):