English by the Books

When I was a kid (Hee, Hee), we had one class called "English" that included grammar/punctuation, reading/literature and writing.  I am confused by the term "Language Arts" because sometimes is seems to mean only grammar and other times it seems to include reading and literature.  However, what I'm most confused about, no matter what you call it, is how and when to teach the different components of "English" to my children.  

English is not my strongest suit (you may have noticed).  Though I love to read, I am much more comfortable teaching numbers and science.  Plus, no matter how hard I research a new tool for teaching, I have one child who never likes the new approach/curricula.  That is until now....

Our first real head way came a few weeks ago with "Grammaropolis" (Thanks Brandy!).  This product is available on the computer or as we prefer as an ipad app.  I posted a video of one of the songs above but before you hit play, I must warn you, this song will stick in your head!  My first thought was, "Great, more silly songs stuck in our heads but will they learned anything?"  The answer is a sound, "Yes!".  There is more to the program than just silly song videos, badges and quizzes that keep them motivated to learn.  Now when I ask them about a word or a part of speech, they are quick to identify and explain.  "Yay!"  And best of all I'm not the only one saying, "Yay!", they like it so much, they ask to do the app after their school work is done.  What more could a mother ask :-)

My next thought was, "Do they have a punctuation app?".  Unfortunately, they are working on one but it will be a while.  However, they did direct me to some books called "The Puncs". 

With the idea of living grammar books in my head, I started gathering up books from the library, my shelves, catalogs and the internet.

I finally realized that my son was not pushing back on English all this time, he loves to read, he was pushing back at the idea of doing worksheets.  He dislikes worksheets of any kind no matter how short in length.  He's my relationship kid.  I need to remember to keep learning relational, and I am.  Books are relational, apps are relational and apparently me writing the worksheet exercises on a white board and having him mark it up there is relational.

After painstaking research two years ago, I thought had finally found the perfect "Language Arts" program called "Easy Grammar".  The name appeared very appropriate. It was:

• Designed to be done in about 10 minutes.
• New ideas are introduced in tiny pieces.  (To the teacher and the student.)
• There is plenty of review, including "Daily Grams"
• It includes a complete answer sheet to everything (I'm not ready for "Language Arts" programs that think I can correct the worksheets myself.)
• When I had a question about how to begin, the author of the book gave me a thorough answer.  I like authors that are very accessible.

I know what you're thinking but I just said I wanted to use living books, not worksheets.  So why am I talking about this now?  Well, I am back to using it too, but this time he's not writing in the books, instead we do it together on the big white board.  This seems to make all the difference(It might also help that my son is two years older too. My poor burnt pancake!).

This is how "Language Arts" all comes together for us...

Before we start "All About Spelling" for the day we sit down and read from one of our living grammar books.  We discuss the concept introduced in the book a little, as it relates to their journals.  Next, I write on the white board four or five exercises either from the main "Easy Grammar" workbook or "Daily Grams". They correct them on the board while we discuss the ideas further.  Then we kick into our regular "All About Spelling" routine (click here for more on our routine).

This new plan is working great!  I'm not getting any push-back and though it's only been a few weeks we are ALL starting to learn a lot.  Perhaps in a year or so you'll see the improvement in my posts. LOL