Articles of Faith Copywork {Free Printable}

This week has been our first full week back with our school routine and it has been C R A Z Y. But we did it! Homeschooling multiple young children is the ultimate juggling act (and test of patience). I’ve been looking for ways to get things done as efficiently as possible. Most days our Come Follow Me study doubles as our read aloud, and I combined our Articles of Faith memorization with our Copywork. And I made a printable to share!

First, let’s talk about what exactly copywork is, and how to do it.

Copywork is a great way for kids to learn and practice all kinds of language arts skills! The Old Schoolhouse Family Education Magazine explains it this way:

Copywork is simply the practice of copying a piece of well-written work from any of a variety of sources onto paper or into a notebook. The student copies from the chosen source using his best penmanship to create a “perfect copy” that is properly spaced and includes all proper capitalization and punctuation marks. It is a method that, when used consistently in your homeschooling studies, will improve your child’s penmanship, grammar, and punctuation skills. In addition, it will expose him to a variety of writing styles, structures, and techniques that he will be able to add to his own “writer’s toolbox”.

THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE: THE FAMILY EDUCATION MAGAZINE

I definitely don’t make a big fuss if Kender’s work isn’t a “perfect copy”. I just remind him before he starts to go slow and stay on the baseline. Then he copies whatever Article of Faith he’s working on, then he recites it, then we’re done!

Benefits of Copywork

When I first started giving Kender copywork, I did it solely to help his penmanship. He hated handwriting, so at first I made pages that he could trace. Once he got more comfortable, he moved to copying. It has definitely helped make his handwriting a little neater, but I’ve noticed other benefits too. His spelling and punctuation have improved. It is helping him understand sentence structure, and it even helps him with memorization. I used to make him copywork pages for whatever poem he was working on memorizing at the time. It was amazing how much that helped!

Copywork for Memorizing the 13 Articles of Faith

One of my goals for this school year is to help Kender memorize the 13 Articles of Faith, and these copywork pages have been so helpful for us! I’ve included them here so you can download them and use them with your family too. I split up some of the longer articles because we have short attention spans (and occasionally tempers) in this family, so breaking it up was best for us. You could always have your kids work on more than one page if you feel these are too easy! For us, one is plenty.

*UPDATE: I ended up NOT splitting up the longer articles. I felt like some of the meaning was lost when we did that. The link below is the updated version.

*Articles of Faith Copywork Free Printable Download*