Where to start?

[Janee Fisher]

I am considering this curriculum for grammar next year. My kids will be in 7th and 10th grade. I don’t know which book to start with. Should I do one for both? Or two different ones? Which one do I choose? Thank you for the help. 

[EKS]

On 1/6/2023 at 8:45 AM, Janee Fisher said:

I am considering this curriculum for grammar next year. My kids will be in 7th and 10th grade. I don’t know which book to start with. Should I do one for both? Or two different ones? Which one do I choose? Thank you for the help. 

It's a little difficult to answer these questions without more specifics, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

I am assuming that since this is the afterschooling board that you are looking to bolster your children's grammar knowledge alongside a full school day.  Questions to ask yourself are:

• What do I want my children to learn about grammar that they are not learning in school?
• What sort of time commitment can I realistically expect for this project?

Your answers to these two questions will help guide you in your choices.

More generally, I found that with afterschooling it was important to either riff off of what the school was assigning or do something interactive.  So if the school assigned an essay, we would talk about that and I would get whatever grammar instruction I could in there.  If I wanted something more targeted that went well beyond anything I could do with assignments from the school, I would select a resource that was easy to do as a short conversation on the couch every day.  So, in the case of grammar, the Michael Clay Thompson materials would fit the bill.  Or, if I wanted more coverage of mechanics as well, I'd use Hake/Saxon Grammar, but do it together, with the kid doing as much orally as possible.

I don't know what materials you're interested in, so I don't know if they will work in this way.  IMO, the worst thing you can do with afterschooling is to hand the kid a book and tell them to go for it, unless the kid likes that sort of thing.