beth83 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Does anyone have a suggestion of a good program to use with everyone? I am hoping to go slow and repeat several times, so it is okay if it is over their head a little. My oldest is 2nd grade, so really she will be the only person I am teaching to right now, but then I will fold the others in naturally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 For that age I would go with The Sentence Family. MCT Langauge Arts would be good when they are a little older (3rd/4th/5th). ETA: Grammarland is a vintage book that would be fun too. There are even corresponding worksheets floating around on the internet if you wanted them, but the book by itself would be fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gratia271 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I agree with MCT program. It is outstanding and definitely scalable. All three of my kids really enjoyed the approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranquility7 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I suppose I technically use MCT, but really I'm just using his approach with DS8 and DD5. DS is strong in grammar, and two years ago we went through all the grammar up through FLL3 and MCT Grammar Island and Sentence Island. I read the books aloud to him when DD was too young to be involved, but then we got into a routine of doing the MCT sentence analysis, and as DD has gotten older, she has started doing the sentence analysis with us. Basically she liked to be part of our school, so one day I started explaining parts of speech to her, and asking her to find the nouns in our sentence, then she would watch while DS and I do all the other parts of speech, parts of the sentence, etc. Now she finds nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions, and watches the rest. While DS and I do the analysis, we discuss it as we go, so she is really learning it as we go along. I have also had her learn the parts of speech definitions I had DS learn, as well as the preposition song. One of these days I will have to pull out Grammar Island and Sentence Island and read them to her, just so she gets a more complete presentation. But for now, the group sentence analysis works great for us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth83 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 I have always loved the look of MCT, but I just don't understand it. Is is just a book you read, or are there any worksheets? How do you implement it? Do you just read it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth83 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 I suppose I technically use MCT, but really I'm just using his approach with DS8 and DD5. DS is strong in grammar, and two years ago we went through all the grammar up through FLL3 and MCT Grammar Island and Sentence Island. I read the books aloud to him when DD was too young to be involved, but then we got into a routine of doing the MCT sentence analysis, and as DD has gotten older, she has started doing the sentence analysis with us. Basically she liked to be part of our school, so one day I started explaining parts of speech to her, and asking her to find the nouns in our sentence, then she would watch while DS and I do all the other parts of speech, parts of the sentence, etc. Now she finds nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions, and watches the rest. While DS and I do the analysis, we discuss it as we go, so she is really learning it as we go along. I have also had her learn the parts of speech definitions I had DS learn, as well as the preposition song. One of these days I will have to pull out Grammar Island and Sentence Island and read them to her, just so she gets a more complete presentation. But for now, the group sentence analysis works great for us! Yes! This is exactly what I want! So, you started with your DS when he was 6? Do you still like the combination of both FLL and MCT? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Definitely The Sentence Family! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 This public domain book written my Montessori herself has some great ideas. https://archive.org/details/montessorielemen027888mbp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Harvey wrote a beginner text that Mott media never published, and is not well known. https://archive.org/details/firstlessonsine00harvgoog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Student's of the Word teaches grammar family style along with the Bible, using the Rod and Staff REMEDIAL workbooks and the Rod and Staff Handbook. http://www.sowcurriculum.com https://www.milestonebooks.com/list/Rod_and_Staff_Remedial_English/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plain jane Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 My kids really enjoy Sentence Family!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I'm doing Sentence Family (one person / week) with the four younger of my kids. The older two get into more of the diagramming, but the youngest two are getting the exposure I want. They enjoy it. It is also available as a PDF on Currclick for $12. I read it on my kindle while they draw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranquility7 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Yes! This is exactly what I want! So, you started with your DS when he was 6? Do you still like the combination of both FLL and MCT? Yes, when DS was 6 (maybe even a late 5) we started FLL1. He loved "doing school", so we just went along and did it. He caught on to grammar quickly and enjoyed it, so we just plowed on through FLL1, 2, and 3. There is a LOT of repetition is grammar programs, so by FLL3 I felt like there was not enough new material to even bother with FLL4. We did, however, go through MCT Grammar Island and Sentence Island (roughly at the same time we were doing FLL2 and3) simply because I'd heard such good things about it on here, and DS was always hankering for more grammar! MCT was an entertaining presentation of similar things that we were doing in FLL, but the different angle worked really well for us. We started doing sentence analysis (Practice Island) and loved it, though we also added in sentence diagramming (which we think is really fun). We started out doing about 3 sentences per week, but now we usually just do maybe 1-2 per week during morning time. I now periodically go through a little bit of Rex Barks with DS, but we continue to do the MCT 4-level sentence analysis with diagramming, just using the Rex Barks sentences (or ones I make up, following a Rex Barks sentence pattern). We also began doing Latin, and we do a lot of grammar now through that. So, yes, I do like the combination of FLL and MCT. That being said, though, now that I have gone through them with DS and *I* have learned it all well, I doubt I will be as formal with DD. I know the material well myself now, so I am able to teach it easily without preparation, and she is learning so much from doing our group sentence analysis (and memorizing definitions, poetry, etc.) that she doesn't really "need" FLL, I think. I will read her the MCT books one of these days, but even most of that she will probably already know by the time we get around to reading them, LOL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatmansWife Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Another vote for The Sentence Family. Another program that would be easy to use with a group (but probably not until 3rd grade) would be Fix It Grammar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth83 Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 Can someone tell me how sentence family works? Is it just a read aloud? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertflower Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 I actually had the same question. Here's my thread on it. Received a lot of great suggestions. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/530714-the-sentence-family/?p=5977388 HTH and Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertflower Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 I guess my thread was on how to implement the Sentence Family. Basically, it uses characters to explain the parts of speech. For example, noun is a boy who wears blue, has a blue hat and black shoes. His twin brother is named verb. He wears red etc. I don't remember every detail, so i may be getting the colors wrong. Noun and verb has 2 sisters, adjective and adverb. Adjective likes noun and wears blue shoes or something like that. She's a painter, so maybe she paints in blue? Adverb favors....can you guess? :) she wears red shoes or something like that. The black shoes on noun I believe came from the dad and I believe verb wears colors that the mom wears. Anyway, it's one big family that is connected to each other by color. I believe the book has one do some drawing. My children are too young for that. Hence, the thread I started. Hth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Can someone tell me how sentence family works? Is it just a read aloud? You read aloud. (You are supposed to "tell the story" but I just read it ... sometimes changing something here or there.) The kids draw pictures of the family while you are reading. (You are supposed to draw them, I think, and then the kids are supposed to draw their own.) I just have the pictures from the book out -- either taped on the wall or on the table with us. Some people build them with Lego figures. We do one new character a week & practice finding that part of speech in our sentences. We roll the other characters in as we move along, so there is built-in review. There are sometimes diagramming exercises to try (midway through, if you like). It isn't that intimidating the way they explain it. There was a story you could print out & have the kids try changing repetitive nouns into pronouns and possessive pronouns. (Noun loved Noun's mittens. Noun's mittens kept Noun's hands warm. Verb wanted to play a joke on Noun, so Verb took the mittens belonging to Noun. Noun chased Verb ....) It is very engaging for the kids. If your kids don't like to draw, they can just pay attention & write a sentence or examples of the part of speech at the bottom of a printed page that you give them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertflower Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Yes, RootAnn has a much better explanation. lol I'd forgotten that there was a story along with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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