English on a Roll Review

Do you know about learning styles? Some people are auditory learners, some are visual, and some are kinesthetic (touch). I have kids who fit in each category, and I've noticed all young children have a solid kinesthetic beginning before they really begin to show their strengths in other styles. As teachers and parents, it helps to teach to all learning styles so our children can learn in the way they do best, and strengthen their weaker styles. But, when it comes to language arts, it's hard to find kinesthetic manipulatives!

English on a Roll sent us their English Grammar Teaching Method to try and review. This is a unique set of plastic cubes that have words engraved and color coded on them. The manual that comes with will help you teach the basics of English grammar to your student - homeschool, special education, adult education, ESL, beginning reading, and more. What is unique about these cubes is that they are multi-sensory. Students HEAR the words and sentences, they SEE the words and sentences, and they TOUCH the cubes to choose the correct word. It is definitely educational, but what you don't see is that this method is really fun!

How We Homeschool: Grammar (Blogging Through the Alphabet)

Welcome back to Blogging Through the Alphabet! This week is the letter G. I've chosen to talk about grammar.

We used to use Growing With Grammar but that was all workbook style, and my kids didn't retain any of it. There was sentence diagramming that went right over their heads. That may have been due to their age, but I really felt that the style of the curriculum wasn't great for my family.

We switched to Fix It! Grammar and we're halfway through our third year using it. It's so much more fun than other methods. It's quite affordable too. We got to review Sentence Diagramming: Beginning late last year and what I found interesting is my kids CAN diagram sentences, quite easily in fact! I would suspect that is because of a few reasons: 1) They are older now. 2) Sentence Diagramming's method is easier to understand. 3) They have more experience because they've been using Fix It!.

A Review of Sentence Diagramming: Beginning

A few years ago, when we first began homeschooling, we used a grammar program that had tidbits of everything thrown into one book, including confusing my kids to the point that we all hated grammar.  Though I could see that diagramming would be beneficial, I didn't know how to help the kids understand it.  When The Critical Thinking Co.™ asked members of the Homeschool Review Crew to review some of their products, I wanted to try their new book, Sentence Diagramming: Beginning.  I hoped that this would help us understand diagramming better than we have in the past!

How we do Fix It! Grammar (with videos)

This post is not sponsored, I purchased this grammar curriculum myself and we are sharing these videos today because we love doing grammar this way and hope it helps someone else.

When we started homeschooling we used another grammar curriculum that was worksheet style.  After doing that for a year my kids still needed help remembering what basic parts of speech were.

"Wait, what is a noun?"

I heard that often enough to drive me crazy.