Teaching Tools that Lead You in Complete Language Arts & Grammar
We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this review or post, but all opinions are our own.
This is the time of year for planning out the tools you want to use for the next school year. I have seen a few families asking for a more complete homeschool grammar, and this Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 I just reviewed, is a set that delivers. I was planning on reordering a workbook I had used with the older kids, but Hake Publishing excelled couple of ways that I will share more about. I like it because it has a workbook feel with more teaching support and better review that what I have used before.
Are you unsure if you are covering everything you need to cover?
Would you like a strong one-year overview?
Are you pulling a struggling student off of another program that has not been working?
Then read on…
Hake Offers Clarity and Simplicity
There is a literal one-page, 146 day checklist schedule for you to follow. It can not be more simple. If the theme is simple it doesn’t stop at the schedule. The first page begins with a teacher Script for Grammar Meetings. You meet together at the beginning of every lesson to work on listening skills, new vocabulary and cover skills taught in the lesson.
Simple Application and Immediate Forward Motion
I have to be honest, two years ago I bought a curriculum that was supposed to be simple. I couldn’t get past the schedule page. Could not wrap my brain around the multiple options and ways to combine kids and days. With Hake, all you have to do is systematically follow each lesson in order, and you can teach from the script.
End to End Structure
For confidence that your student is ready for upper elementary LA and writing, all you need to do is make sure they have completed every assignment in the practice and review sets. Hake has it ready for you to hand the tools to your kids. This is why Saxon and many schools use Hake as their curriculum choice to teach Grammar and Writing in the upper levels. Hake is offering this 3rd grade Homeschool Grammar from them direct. The upper levels can be ordered through ChristianBook or RainbowResource and you can read more about that here.
What’s Included
The Set Includes…
A Soft Cover NON-Consumable Teacher Guide with Answer Key and Tests
One Consumable Student Text Book
A Smaller Consumable Writing Workbook
This girl is reading like crazy and so ready to jump into this Grammar Workbook. Third Grade is the perfect time to begin adding deeper writing instruction. Make sure your kid falls in love with reading first. Do whatever it takes to make them love books! Then teach them how to write their own great stories!
May I speak truthfully about workbooks?
I have a large family. I have spent years scrimping and saving just to be able to homeschool. There were years we worked out of the textbook and wrote our answers in a notebook. When it was allowed, I made copies of worksheets and printed them myself. After years of struggling with paper organization and printing cost and delays, I can say with confidence; buy the Workbooks! Don’t even hesitate. It will likely cost you more in ink and paper. We often have to reprint a page that didn’t get put in the binder or got “lost.”
Workbooks make it easy for your child to work independently. No waiting on you for their paper for the day. (Huge Homeschool Lesson Right Here: Most of the time I am the problem) They can open the workbook and see right where they let off and where they need to begin. My cheapness was totally misdirected. It cost me, cash and brain matter to NOT buy workbooks.
What Does a Live Lesson Look Like?
Every day you have your Grammar Meeting and cover a vocabulary builder. In the Lessons we did, these were Latin root words, their meaning and samples or words using that root in a sentence. I am a word geek so this is a feature I love. I am also a questioner, and can spell more successfully when I know “WHY” a word is structured differently, so Latin has always been a component of our homeschool.
Here are examples of one Lesson from the Student Text and the Teaching Text.
In the Student Lesson Pages…
Each teaching is further reinforced by a set of Example Questions and their Solutions. This is a great confidence builder and learning gauge for our kids. If they solve these well, we know that they are ready for the set of Practice Questions which allow them to use the Grammar skill they just learned in the lesson.
Each Lesson also has a Review Set of Questions
These ensure that your kids retain what they covered in previous lessons. This is feature I especially appreciated. There is a Homeschool Grammar workbook I have used in the past that teaches the lessons very well, but it is one new concept after another. I found that the kids were not retaining the information they covered as well as I had liked. The Review Questions in Hake Publishing’s Grammar and Writing eliminates that issue with this review portion.
Overall the lessons are clear and direct
Kids are easily distracted and confused when using a program for the first time. The print is large and the pages are uncluttered. I had a workbook a few years back that had lines that were too small for almost every answer. My kids developed a complex about their handwriting; from their writing book. Hake has ease of use down and the questions are at the appropriate minimum to keep your kids from feeling overwhelmed, yet enough to ensure mastery of each new concept.
Tests are a part of the program
This makes grading simple if you live in a State that requires you to keep complete records or if you feel like this helps you evaluate your child’s mastery. On test days we are scheduled to work in the Writing Workbook, combining what we have learned into active writing skills. Again it is all in the one page schedule at the front of the book. The writing assignments are at the perfect level for a confident young reader. It is also easy to modify if your child is not quite writing well yet. In third grade I have had both types of students. Writing is about using proper structure to support creativity. The assignment are very simple and short. Remember this is for a first timer.
Don’t let the cover scare you. As a former homeschool kid, I hated Saxon Math, when I saw the cover to this book I was a little bit hesitant. We are not text book users in our homeschool, so these were both reasons I was interested to get into this and review it. It is a perfect book to jump into grammar teaching with. Structured like a workbook, but with more teaching support. You get flexibility and the structure you need to teach homeschool grammar through the whole year and stay on task.
As always check out how other families are using Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 in the link below.
