amyrobynne Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 My 1st grader has been in private school until this year (the sort of place where pre-k was all about the academics and not playtime or finger painting). Last year he learned about starting sentences with capital letters and ending sentences with a period, exclamation point, or question mark. I'm not using any formal grammar curriculum with either of my older boys for the time being, but I figured I could incorporate explanation of nouns into the copywork he does twice a week. For copywork, I've been having him write a sentence or two from books we're reading. The challenge has been finding nice, simple sentences with obvious nouns. I thought I understood nouns well enough despite the 20 years it's been since I studied grammar in any way, but one of today's sentences, for instance, was "Glory to God in the highest!" and I realized I wasn't sure if glory was a noun and there was something else similar in the other sentence. Should I: a) Stop having him pick out nouns in his copywork but keep using sentences from our literature. b) Have him show me nouns, but make up really easy sentences that are more obvious. c) Switch to something like FLL for grammar and copywork so I don't need to stress about it. d) Skip grammar altogether because he's 6 and won't be tested this year anyway. It's just annoying when my plans to come up with stuff myself instead of buying curricula backfire on me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinyhappypeople Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 option b. Yes, glory is a noun, but it's a bit much for them to expect a 1st grader to pick up on that. Although a, c, and d would also work ;) You can't really go wrong on this. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 Make up sentences that are simple. Or you could look at KISS Grammar, which uses real sentences, though it was originally intended to start in third grade (and is fairly hard), and I was glad my oldest had had a 3rd grade level of grammar before starting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mazakaal Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I would just choose sentences where the nouns are fairly easy to spot. They could sometimes be from your copywork, sometimes from literature, and sometimes sentences that you make up yourself. And don't worry if he misses some of the harder ones; just teach him about them as you go. If the sentence is, 'The boy found great joy in climbing the tree,' he could probably spot the words 'boy' and 'tree' pretty easily. Then you could say, "There's another noun in there that is harder to recognize. 'Joy' is an 'idea' noun. If you can put the word 'the' in front of a word, then it's a noun. Do you remember the song, 'I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.'? We can talk about 'the joy' that we have in our hearts, so it's a noun." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 You could always use http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghbgrd1.html# or http://www.scholastic.com/dodea/index2.htm# (go to skill builder grade 1 for the worksheets) Both are very simple and easy to use and won't leave you with really difficult sentences and both are free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esse Quam Videri Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 (edited) We love FLL! It takes about 5-10 minutes a day, three days a week, including grammar, poem memorization, and occasional copywork. I would get the combined level 1 and 2 for your son because he may be past level 1. My other choice would be d. Oldest didn't do formal grammar until 2nd grade and she transitioned very well. Edited November 14, 2012 by mofbethany Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkateLeft Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 We love FLL! It takes about 5-10 minutes a day, three days a week, including grammar, poem memorization, and occasional copywork. I would get the combined level 1 and 2 for your son because he may be past level 1. :iagree: FLL is solid, fun, and super easy to use. Book 1 covers nouns (common and proper), pronouns, verbs, titles, initials, usage (things like was/were), capitalization, punctuation and types of sentences, among other things. It's very easy to move quickly through the lessons that your child already knows, and only takes a few minutes a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I had my son (at older than first grade) find the nouns in The Child's Own English Book. Be careful of the adjective section, there is an offensive exercise of describing people of different ethnicities I would not advise. I would suggest the easier sentences in something like KISS grammar. That is too hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PentecostalMom Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I would go with option c, FLL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 If you're going to use your own sentences (or sentences you pick out of books) for grammar work, you need to pick ones where the parts of speech and parts of the sentence (ie subject, predicate, direct object etc) are obvious. "Glory to God in the highest" does not qualify. How is his reading? You want to be sure his reading is fluent before beginning grammar instruction. That said, in my opinion, the best introduction to grammar for young children is Grammar/Sentence Island by Michael Clay Thompson. However, it's better to start that in 2nd or 3rd grade. For 1st grade, perhaps GWG or FLL would be a good choice. Whatever you do, you need to be sure that *you* understand the grammar if you're going to teach him without the aid of an outside resource. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitten18 Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I would go with option c, FLL. :iagree: Fast and simple! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatmansWife Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 Your title is "First grade happy, fuzzy grammar". In that case, I'd recommend The Sentence Family (you can download this for $12). After that, if you still want to keep it a bit light, The Humpties is a nice choice. PS...homeschool classifieds has a set for only $6 ppd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 I teach grammar with copywork, but I don't pull sentences from literature. I pull sentences from handbooks and textbooks and sometimes curricula that was meant to read by the child and is TRULY at their reading level, which excludes most homeschool history homeschooling curricula. Sometimes I call the type of copywork I do "slatework" to differential it from what others are doing. I so seldomly use a pretty sentence. I READ aloud pretty sentences, but don't have time for students to copy them. They are too busy copying things that are at a level I expect them to be writing at. They are copying things that were specifically created as MODELS of what I want to teach. They are copying charts and lists of like things, so they can begin to make connections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amyrobynne Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 It occurred to me that the All About Spelling lessons have nice, simple dictation sentences we're already using. So my plan is to talk about nouns during our spelling lessons instead of during copywork. Nothing new to purchase, problem solved. Whoo-hoo! I'll be able to discuss verbs this way too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Your title is "First grade happy, fuzzy grammar". In that case, I'd recommend The Sentence Family (you can download this for $12). After that, if you still want to keep it a bit light, The Humpties is a nice choice. PS...homeschool classifieds has a set for only $6 ppd. Gah! I just ordered The Humpties.... AND I have Grammar Tales/Parts-of-Speech Tales in my Amazon cart! I think we'll have Grammar covered next year! :p :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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