A daily gift for National Poetry Month

Sherry at Semicolon is offering a post a day for National Poetry Month.  Here’s the initial post, and you can find the others by searching the blog (under the “Picture Book Preschool” block on the right) for the term “NPM”.  From Sherry’s first post,
April is National Poetry Month, and I intend to give you a [...]

Conditional love, or, Going, going, gone

Maybe I missed the memo, but when oh when did “had went” and “would have went” become so popular? Perhaps when teachers quit writing verb conjugations on the blackboard?
I realize I live in the boonies in the back of beyond, and I know the local school system, erm, needs work (there’s a reason we [...]

Grammar resources

I’ve been remiss in not posting about the latest Growing with Grammar program by my friend Tamela Davis, for Grade 5. More good stuff for home educating families looking for more choice. And more Growing with Grammar posts and reviews (for Grades 1&2, 3, and 4) here, here, and here.
I’m a big fan of [...]

The Growing with Grammar collection is growing

My friend Tamy Davis finished just before Christmas with the latest in her Growing with Grammar (GWG) series, the combined First & Second Grade volume, and we just received it in the mail.
I used First Language Lessons with Laura for first and second grade, and while she was quite enthusiastic about the book, there was [...]

Minding the (grammar) gap

Two articles this week about the importance of good grammar, though the first seems to indicate that good grammar is useful mostly for passing tests, the SAT in particular. The Washington Post holds that “Clauses and Commas Make a Comeback”. Well, in some places:
The National Council of Teachers of English, whose directives shape [...]

Grammar g(ir)affe: A glimmer of common sense on the horizon

This bit of good news, thanks to J.L. Bell at Oz and Ends, must mean that Lynne Truss is pleased, though no doubt puzzling over the existence of a “childrenswear technologist”.
But there really is an Apostrophe Protection Society. In England, of course. And would you believe the German Apostrophen-Katastrophen? [...]

More news from across the pond: Lynne Truss on "Why arnt childrun being tort how 2 rite?"

My father was darling enough to send me this morning Lynne Truss’s latest article from The Telegraph.
The actual headline, “Why arnt childrun…”, is rather misleading since the article deals not with spelling — which isn’t taught anymore either, at least here in Canada — but with the mechanics of writing. I would have subtitled my [...]

Growing with Grammar 4 is here!

Great good news from my friend Tamy Davis at Growing with Grammar: she’s finished with Growing Grammar 4, for fourth graders! Laura enjoyed using GWG3 this past year, and is looking forward to the next book. My Farm School review of GWG3 is here.
Don’t forget, Canadians can find GWG at Academic Distribution [...]

Growing with Grammar, now in Canada

Just received the latest homeschool curriculum catalogue from the folks at Academic Distribution Services (ADS) in B.C. and am delighted to see that they now carry Growing with Grammar/Grade 3, on page 19, and at a price of $37.50 CAN (for the student manual, workbook, and answer key), which compares very, very favorably with the [...]

Grammar Geek

The recent issue of the Core Knowledge Foundation’s e-newsletter, Common Knowledge, arrived in my inbox this morning. Found a very interesting article about the sad history of grammar instruction in America, The Naturalist Fallacy and the Demise of Grammar Instruction (with Practical Advice on Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics) by Robert D. Shepherd, the CK [...]

Growing with Grammar: a review

A friend of mine, Tamy Davis, has just finished her new third grade grammar book, Growing with Grammar, the first in what will be a series. Homeschoolers, especially secular homeschoolers in search of a rigorous grammar program, will be delighted.
Since we were lucky enough to be part of the test group, we’ve been using the [...]