Grammar for Homeschool

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Teaching the Parts of Speech

Although teaching grammar has become slightly old fashioned, most home educators still want to incorporate at least the very basics of the parts of speech into their language arts curriculum. Here is a collection of some of the best resources available to make learning English grammar interesting and memorable. Many of them can be found free online, so with just a little bit of planning, you can develop a very low cost homeschool grammar curriculum.

Using Grammarland Novel

To Teach the Parts of Speech

grammarlandGrammarland by M. L. Nesbit is a living book in the public domain (published 1878). The children of Schoolroomshire participate in a court proceeding of Grammarland and learn all about the parts of speech and the rules of grammar that govern them.

Each part of speech is personified and makes an appearance at court. Their personalities and behaviors reflect their functions in this allegorical tale.

I would recommend this book for ages eight to twelve with the parent reading out loud to the child, discussing as you read. Children over twelve could enjoy this book independently. At the end of most chapters there are small assignments to label the parts of speech of a small passage.

The quaint black and white images of the parts of speech on this page all come from this book.

Would you like some free printables, specially made for Grammarland? Here are two sources:

1. Worksheets that have the activities written in the original text.
2. Free printable notebooking pages from God's Gems.

Here is another source for the text of Grammarland. And Librivox has free audio recordings of Grammarland, too.

More Tools for Teaching Grammar

The Homeschool Classroom shares some tips for Teaching Grammar Without Requiring Writing. This is a must read, especially if your children dislike handwriting.

grammar songsListen to The Language Police online for free. This silly song will help you learn the parts of speech.

Grammar Songs, published by Audio Memory and pictured to the right, is another great resource. Look for it at your favorite homeschool retailer.

Garden of Praise offers an entire grammar package including songs set to familiar tunes, printables, and suggestions for teaching the parts of speech.

Another handy website with many ideas and printables is Love to Learn Place.


grammar minibook

Make your own reference guide to the parts of speech. A layered book would be perfect! Crayola tells you how to do it.

Or visit Minibook Gallery for other types of minibooks.

Prefer notebooking? Then be sure to visit Notebooking Pages' free language arts resources. There are free printables for each part of speech

Grammar Lapbook

Watch this video to get some great ideas for making your own grammar lapbook. It can be done during a study of grammar and then later used as a grammar reference book.

Below the video are links to other grammar lapbook helps.

English Grammar Lapbook
by 77Loni | video info

6 ratings | 3,050 views
curated content from YouTube

Links for Making a Grammar Lapbook

Ideas and Printables

RETAIL -- Operation English Grammar Lapbook
CurrClickThis is a for purchase product. This Hands of a Child lapbook kit is a thorough look at grammar for children Read a review of this product at The Curriculum Choice
EXAMPLE --Grammar Lapbook Pictures
Wonderful example of a lapbook.
EXAMPLE --Grammar Lapbook Blog Entry
No printables but lots of ideas here for making your own.
PRINTABLES -- Grammar Lapbook at Lapbook Lessons
You'll have to join this Ning network to access there free templates.
PRINTABLES --Language Arts Printables from Busy Teachers Cafe
verb is a nounLook for the link to the Grammar Booklet for a handy minibook template. Each page has a part of speech and its definition with space for the student to write examples.

This page also has some parts of speech worksheets you may find useful.
Homeschool Share Grammar Mini Books
Three minibook templates that go along with the story Grammarland: Adjective Endings, Adjective Pronouns, and Objective/Nominative Case.
Language Arts Learning Cards
These free flashcard printables would be great for a grammar minioffice or lapbook or just stored in a small box for reference.

Instant Books for Grammar

Build-a-Skill Instant Books: Parts of Speech, Gr. 2 3

Amazon Price: $5.95 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now
Used Price:

This reproducible book is filled with minibook templates that can be used to teach about grammar. These are perfect for use in lapbooks.

If you prefer an instant download, this book is also available at CurrClick in eBook format.

More Printable Grammar Helps

Parts of Speech
Grammar Cheat Sheet
This document would be appropriate for middle school or high school students. It's an overview of the parts of speech and their various subgroupings (common and proper under nouns; transitive and linking under verbs, etc).
Language Arts Forms
A nice collection of grammar printables shared by a homeschool mom.
Decorate the Parts of Speech Christmas Trees
Click or scroll down to the Language section. Look for the Decorate the Parts of Speech Christmas Tree. This is a cute Christmas themed grammar activity! Free printable PDF made by a homeschool mom.
Printable List of Prepositions
This one page PDF is a perfect reference for a language arts notebook.

Three Parts of Speech Grammar Poems

Free Printable Posters

Here are three different poems that can be used to learn about the parts of speech.

I found three different poems to help you learn the parts of speech. Each one is a bit different, so choose the one you like best, download the PDF, print it out, and teach it to your children. Click the image for a letter sized mini-poster. (An A4 alternative is also available.)

Besides hanging on the wall or putting into a notebook, these poem poems could be used for memorization or for copywork.

If you want the text of the poems to create your own printables, click here.

POEM ONE:

poetry poem

The poem The Nine Parts of Speech was written by Green Baker in 1865 or 1866. For this poem in printable PDF, click HERE for LTR size and HERE for A4 size.

POEM TWO:

poetry poem

This second parts of speech poem is taken from Language and Grammar.

For printable PDFs of the poem, click HERE for LTR size and HERE for A4 size.

POEM THREE:
poetry poem

This third parts of speech poem is taken from First Lessons in Language (also called Elements of English Grammar) by David B. Tower and Benjamin F. Tweed. (See pp. 27-28 for the poem.)


If you'd like this poem in a printable PDF click HERE for LTR and HERE for A4.

Charlotte Mason Styled Grammar and Language Arts

Charlotte Mason felt that grammar was best learned in the context of real language through the reading, dictating, and copying of literature passages. Here are some English curricula that fit with Charlotte Mason's gentle approach to language arts. For curriculum reviews of these and other (not necessarily CM styled) products, visit Home School Reviews.

For more details about a CM language arts, visit Eads Home Ministries.

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Printable Parts of Speech Posters

For free printable parts of speech charts try these options:

Parts of Speech Poster Set

Parts of Speech Bulletin Board Set

Amazon Price: $9.36 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now

This set includes a colorful wall chart that is 16.25" x 23.25", covering all the parts of speech. In addition there are nine individual posters for each part of speech.

Important!

Let's Be Honest

Grammar can sometimes be dry. Spice it up with hands-on activities, games, songs, and videos. Remember that the more senses you can engage during the learning, the more retention (and usually the more enjoyment).

Grammar Games

grammar game

My daughter created this homemade board game with a grammar theme! Making it and playing it offer lots of enjoyable learning.

  • 1

    Make your own board games about grammar. This is a win-win situation because the child learns as he makes the game and then reviews as he plays the game!

  • 2

    Play some spoken games with your words! Teaching K-8 shares some clever verbal games that you could play even while riding in the car.

  • 3

    Word bags are another simple game idea that require only paper bags, paper, and pencil.

  • 4

    Parts of Speech Card Game is a free PDF to cut out and play. A reminder about words -- a word's part of speech can only be determined in context. So encourage your child to USE the word in a sentence to prove its part of speech. In other words, you may draw YELLOW and say that is an adjective. Yes, YELLOW can be an adjective. But it can also be a noun.

A Unique Grammar Game

The game highlighted below, You've Been Sentenced, reinforces grammar while making for a great family game night. You could probably make your own version of this game with just some index cards.

You've Been Sentenced

Amazon Price: $12.95 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now

This sentence-building game uses unique five-sided cards with multiple forms of a base word (beauty, beautify, beautiful). With a hand of 10 cards, players try to score the most points by constructing the longest, grammatically correct, and sensible sentence. Half the fun is trying to defend, explain, and justify a completely ridiculous sentence to the other players. Accepted sentences score points, rejected sentences get you zip. First player to reach 200 points wins.

School House Rock

Grammar Rock

These catchy tunes and simple cartoon animations will help you learn the parts of speech painlessly!

Grammar Rock Interjection 1 point

Grammar Rock Preposition 0 points

School House Rock - Verb: That's What's a'Happenin'! 0 points

Grammar Rock Adjective 0 points

Lolly Lolly Lolly get your adverbs here 0 points

SchoolHouse Rock - Grammar The Tale Of Mr Morton 0 points

Conjunction Junction 0 points

Grammar Rock Pronoun 0 points

Awesome Hands-on Activities For Teaching Grammar

Awesome Hands-on Activities For Teaching Grammar

Amazon Price: $7.59 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now

This reproducible book is filled with mini-lessons, printable templates, rubrics and teaching ideas to make grammar come alive.

Let's Talk Grammar

grammar conjunction Need more meat for thought? Here are blog posts & articles related to the topic of teaching grammar.

Why Learn the Parts of Speech?
The Thinking Mother shares her doubts about the necessity of teaching grammar at all.
Top Four Reasons to Teach Grammar in Your Homeschool
Simply enough they are for learning a second language, developing thinking skills, improving writing, and expanding vocabulary. It's a short article and worth a peek.
Why Study Grammar
A more scholarly article than the previous link, this blog entry gives even more reasons to support the study of English grammar.
Grammar Matters Yahoo Group
There's a website for everything and a Yahoo group for everything. This one is "for exchanging ideas and resources relating to teaching grammar in the elementary grades."

Is Grammar Necessary?

Many public schools have phased out the teaching of parts of speech in favor of the usage and mechanics of English. The thinking is that as long as you can use English, what difference does it make that you can label the parts of speech or diagram a sentence?

Does it matter if someone can't understand the humor in the cartoon below? Or is studying the parts of speech too old fashioned?

grammar comic

What do you think?

Do children still need to study the parts of speech and other grammatical concepts?

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No, that's old school. Knowing how to use English is far more important.

CM says:

I'd prefer a more middle-of-the-road choice, but I think most needed grammar is learned simply by hearing and speaking English. It's probably good to teach terms like "noun" and "verb" etc. because your child will encounter them somewhere and it will probably be good for them to have a basic understanding of what these terms mean. And if you notice mistakes in your child's writing (or speaking) then these would be good opportunities for a mini-lesson. But I would not spend a great deal of time on grammar instruction beyond this. Also, I've heard, and it makes sense, that the best way to learn grammar is through the study of a foreign language. Most of the grammar we use (in our native tongue) is unconscious because we have absorbed it as we learned to speak. But when we are learning a foreign language, it has to be conscious in order to be applied, and therefore it makes more sense as to why one needs to understand it. Of course, it would probably be helpful to have a conscious understanding of basic English grammar prior to studying a foreign language so it would be easier to make sense of.

bbsoulful2 says:

I think knowing how to USE them well is preferable to knowing their names. It's easier to IDENTIFY something by name than it is to APPLY that knowledge to reading and writing.

Ener-G says:

If you're never going to learn a foreign language, I don't believe you need to know grammar. By reading, reading, reading, you naturally and inately pick up what makes a good sentence. BUT I really liked knowing grammar when I went to learn Spanish as their sentence structure is so different. By comparing English grammar versus Spanish it helped me learn and retain it better.

Yes. Knowing the parts of speech is the foundation of the English language itself.

kathywiehl says:

Yes!

Buchamar says:

I think this helps with speaking in general, a deeper understanding is always better. The homeschooling aspect I don't quite get unless your in a remote area, social is also important.

Sandra says:

A former pastor of mine spent time in Holland as a missionary. When he tried to learn Dutch, his teacher finally told him, "Go home and learn your own language (grammar) before you try to learn mine." He re-learned English grammar, and was able to go on and become fluent in Dutch. As my children all want to learn foreign languages (their choice!), I feel it VERY important for them to have a strong foundation in grammar.

infoperson says:

Yes,Jimmie, grammar is the most important in writing,however, we should keep it simple and interesting, as you did. Thanks for resources.

Suzi says:

Do you want your child to be able to check an incorrect sentence he has written by himself? Have him diagram the parts of speech, and he'll quickly see what is missing. But don't belabor the process. Just have a quick sentence analysis several mornings a week for fun, and he'll soon be telling you the parts of speech easily.

glowchick says:

Grammer is very important, although it seems to have been devalues in recent years.

 
view all 18 comments

Online Tools for Learning Grammar

Games and Activities

grammar preposition
Choose some of these online activities and games as an alternative to a paper and pencil worksheet.

Grammar Games
A lot of these games are actually for mechanics and usage, but there are several grammar games as well.
Harcourt Grammar Practice Park
Simple but well done games covering several parts of speech. For example, the noun game -- can you tell if the word is a common noun, proper noun, or not a noun at all?
Grammar Gorillas
Review all the parts of speech through these interactive worksheets.
Learning Planet
Games for three levels of learners.
Madlibs -- E Style
Fill in the blanks and the online madlibs will create a silly story for you.

More Language Arts Teaching Helps

eBooks for Sale

If you like my approach to teaching language arts here, you may also be interested in my very modestly priced eBooks shown below. One is specifically about language arts while Notebooking Success applies to any academic area.

Notebooking Success eBook


Click on the image to learn more. Both of these books are for the teacher; they are methodology books that teach you how to teach.

Guestbook

Your thoughts, questions, relevant links, and ideas are always welcome.

grammar owl

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  • Reply
    jimmyworldstar Feb 9, 2012 @ 12:34 pm | delete
    Schoolhouse Rock was such a great show, even though I already knew my grammar and such, it was still entertaining to watch.
  • Reply
    HOPEHomeSchoolConsulting Oct 1, 2011 @ 4:33 am | delete
    Nice lens. I loved Schoolhouse Rock as a kid. :)
  • Reply
    Susan Aug 29, 2011 @ 6:47 pm | delete
    This is the best and most comprehensive homeschool site I have been on for any subject.Thank you so much for your time and effort.BTW I have to agree with an earlier post about knowing the parts of speech so one can learn another language.I went to Spanish immersion school in Guatemala at age 49.I am sad to say what grammar I had learned as a kid did not stick and it made learning Spanish that much more difficult.I am happy to be re-learning grammar right along with my homeschooled daughter.P.S.Love the grammar rock videos!
  • Reply
    thrivingmom Aug 11, 2011 @ 9:12 pm | delete
    I love that you say "the more senses you can engage during the learning, the more retention" because that is so very, very true.
  • Reply
    bbsoulful2 Jun 18, 2011 @ 4:03 am | delete
    Great page! I love the ideas, and the resources you've cataloged. Thank you!
  • Reply
    ShellB Jun 3, 2011 @ 3:59 pm | delete
    Great lens! My daughter is 15 and I'm having her do "Easy Grammar". She really likes the it.
  • Reply
    Janiece May 6, 2011 @ 6:45 am | delete
    I've been to your wonderful grammar page before, but came back today to leave a blessing! Featured on "The Best Homeschooling Lessons on Squidoo!"
  • Reply
    Michey Apr 2, 2011 @ 2:58 pm | delete
    Hi! Great lens, I don't think that teaching grammar is old fashioned, I think is mandatory.
    So when I grand son used "calculator" to find out 3x4, I hide the calculator and I thought him multiplication... the same think with grammar... The basics are extremely important.
    Thanks for a useful lens
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Text of Parts of Speech Poems

POEM ONE

The Nine Parts of Speech

Three little words you often see,
Are articles - a, an, and the.
A noun's the name of anything
As school, garden, hoop, or swing.
An adjective tells the kind of noun -
Great, small, pretty, white, or brown.
Instead of nouns the pronouns stand -
Her head, his face, your arm, my hand.
Verbs tell of something to be done,
To read, sing, jump, or run.
How things are done the adverbs tell,
As slowly, quickly, ill, or well.
Conjunctions join words together,
As men and women, wind or weather.
The prepositions stands before
A noun, as at or through the door.
The interjection shows surprise,
As ah! how pretty --- Oh! how wise.
The whole are called nine parts of speech,
Which reading, writing, speaking teach.

The poem The Nine Parts of Speech was written by Green Baker in 1865 or 1866.

POEM TWO

THE PARTS OF SPEECH

Every name is called a NOUN,
As field and fountain, street and town;

In place of noun the PRONOUN stands
As he and she can clap their hands;

The ADJECTIVE describes a thing,
As magic wand and bridal ring;

The VERB means action, something done -
To read, to write, to jump, to run;

How things are done, the ADVERBS tell,
As quickly, slowly, badly, well;

The PREPOSITION shows relation,
As in the street, or at the station;

CONJUNCTIONS join, in many ways,
Sentences, words, or phrase and phrase;

The INTERJECTION cries out, 'Hark!
I need an exclamation mark!'

Through Poetry, we learn how each
of these make up THE PARTS OF SPEECH.

This second parts of speech poem is taken from Language and Grammar.

POEM THREE

A NOUN'S the name of any thing;
As, school or garden, hoop, or swing.

ADJECTIVES tell the kind of noun;
As, great, small, pretty, white, or brown.
Three of these words we often see
Called ARTICLES -- a, an, and the.

Instead of nouns the PRONOUNS stand;
John's head, his face, my arm, your hand.

VERBS tell of something being done;
As, read, write, spell, sing, jump, or run.

How things are done the ADVERBS tell;
As, slowly, quickly, ill, or well.
They also tell us where and when;
As, here, and there, and now, and then.

A PREPOSITION stands before A NOUN;
as, in, or through, a door.

CONJUNCTIONS sentences unite;
As, kittens scratch and puppies bite.

The INTERJECTION shows surprise;
As O, how pretty! Ah, how wise!

This third parts of speech poem is taken from First Lessons in Language (also called Elements of English Grammar) by David B. Tower and Benjamin F. Tweed. (See pp. 27-28 for the poem.)

by

Jimmie

I am a homeschooling mom to one daughter. more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Poster for Teaching Parts of Speech 

Parts of Speech Cheap Chart (Cheap Charts)

Amazon Price: $4.99 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now

Posters, minibooks, charts, mini offices -- whatever it takes for the parts of speech to sink in, get it for your children!

Best Sellers at CurrClick 

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Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar 

Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar Classroom Edition [Interactive DVD]

Amazon Price: $20.50 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now

The charming animated music videos you remember from Saturday morning cartoons are still great teaching aids. Our favorite is the Interjections song!








If you like my approach to teaching language arts here, you may also be interested in my very modestly priced eBooks shown below. One is specifically about language arts while Notebooking Success applies to any academic area.

Notebooking Success eBook

Click on the image to learn more. Both of these books are for the teacher; they are methodology books that teach you how to teach.