Granny Candies

Granny’s Candies
From Super Duper Publications

About the Game

Let Granny treat your students to some old-fashioned fun! Combine the excitement of picking colorful "candy" tokens from Granny's candy jars with hundreds of opportunities to expand vocabulary skills. First, you fill up the "candy jars" with "candy" (soft, foamy, and colorful tokens). Then, players choose question cards from one of eight semantic areas (or mix and match cards). Students answer the questions, roll the die, and pick "candy" from the jars. The player with the most "candy" at the end of the game wins. Sounds yummy! You receive 672 word-meaning cards (3" x 1") (84 for each area below):

• What belongs in this group?
• Which one doesn't belong?
• Give a describing word.
• How are they alike?

• What do these have in common?
• What is this used for?
• How are they different?
• Give an action word.

Your extra ingredients include a colorful game board (18" x 18"), 144 "candy" tokens, a lesson/activity book, card holder, and die. Let's cook up some fun!

Our Thoughts

One spring morning, the three youngest kids were wondering what they could do after completing their schoolwork. I suggested that they open the book of Granny’s Candies and play a game of it. They were all excited to discover a new game and promptly set themselves on the living room floor.  It didn’t take long for them to have some fun time and learning at the same time.

What is Granny’s Candies?  Well essentially it is a game that will allow you kids to expand on their vocabulary while having fun doing so.   The goal of the game is to be able to answer the questions in order to be able to select a candy from the jars on the game board.    At the end of the game, the player with the most candies is the winner.

As I mentioned before the fame focuses on semantics (word meanings).   There are eight semantic areas included in the game:

• What belongs in this group? (What Belongs?)   Example:  holidays
• What do these have in common? (Name the Category) Example: table, centipede, people
• Give an action word. (Action Words) Example: A dentist _________.
• What is this used for? (Object Use/Function) Example: A snorkel is used for…
• Give a describing word. (Adjectives) Example: _____ town
• How are they different? (Differences) Example: kazoo – whistle
• How are they alike? (Similarities) Example: car – bull
• Which one doesn’t belong? Why? (Which One Doesn’t Belong?) Example: oyster, octopus, shrimp, clam

How do you play?

Playing is quite simple.   You need to decide who will go first.  In our family, we usually start with the youngest of the family.  You can decide to roll the dice and pick the one who has the biggest roll to start.    The player then takes a card and reads/listens to the question.   The player has to answer the question aloud.   The book included in the box will also provide suggested answers.   All you have to do is check in the book and determine if the answer given is okay.  Once the player has a right answer, he/she has to roll the die and takes the number of candies from any candy jar.   The next player can play now.   The game will end when all the candies have been removed from the board of when the time expires.  

The beauty of this game is that you can play variations of the game as well.   For example, you can give each player the same amount of tokens.  Players roll the die and puts that many candies in the jars after answering each questions.  When a player had put all of his/her candies in the jars he/she is the winner.  Two other suggestions of playing are also mentioned in the rules.

The workbook also contains pages that are reproducible for other activities and games which you can use during your regular lessons of language arts.

Bottom line, this game is a great tool to have when you want them to learn while having fun.  It will deepen their understanding of word meaning and will encourage them to expand on their vocabulary.   The fact that candies are included in the game makes it even more interesting for the kids.   Learning while having fun is a great way to expand your vocabulary!

Granny’s Candies is available for purchase for the price of 54.94$ at Super Duper Publications.  Two add-ons are also available: Set 2 and Set 3.

The game and the add-ons are also available on amazon.ca and amazon.com.

  

  

  

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the game for review purposes from KidStuff PR and Super Duper Publications, Inc. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Easy Grammar Plus

Easy Grammar: Plus
By Wanda C. Phillips
Published at Easy Grammar Systems

My oldest son has been working on his English grammar in our homeschool since he was in grade 3.   Back then we had selected Easy Grammar 3 because of the way it was presented and how it brought confidence in me when I was checking it out.    We have not stopped using their products even adding the grade 2 book when our second son started that level.   So far, I have three kids using Easy Grammar and I  even learn a few tips and tricks while teaching them the lessons in the books.   My youngest, who is five and starting grade 1, wants to do her own Easy Grammar but she is a bit young still to understand what needs to be done and such. 

But earlier this year, it dawned on me that I needed to figure out what Alex, my oldest who was to enter grade 7, would be doing for his English grammar.   So I emailed back and forth in order to understand better the higher levels of Easy Grammar.  I knew there was a Plus book but for which grade was it?    Turns out that Easy Grammar Plus is considered a non-grade level.   It could be used for seventh grade (which is ideal by the way)  but can also be used for other middle levels, high school levels and even college levels.   I have been told that if Alex had done the grade 3 to 6 books, then chances are he could probably skip Plus and jump immediately at a grade 8 or 9 level.   Really?  I even got a small test for him to do to determine which level he could do.

Nevertheless, I wanted to check it out.  So I requested the possibility of reviewing it.    Turns out that after going through the table of content, I have decided that Alex will go through this book after all because we discovered some of the lessons inside the book he had never seen before.   Actually, he has decided himself that he wanted to do it.   On his own will…   That tells a lot of him.   He has done the pre assessment test and got almost 88% – before starting the lessons!

Easy Grammar Plus has been written to give students a solid understanding of grammar.   Though written at a fourth-grade level, the book will allow the student to focus on concepts and mastering them as he advance in the book.   The book uses the same prepositional approach presented in previous titles and the student continues to strip the sentence to the basics in order to identify the subject and verb. 

Here’s the table of contents for you to examine:

• Prepositions: game, prepositional phrases, compound subject, helping verbs, infinitives, subject of imperative sentences, prepositions vs. adverbs, review, test, direct objects, compound direct objects.
• Verbs: Action or linking, contractions, auxiliary (helping) verb, verb phrases, regular verbs, irregular verbs, direct objects, sit/set, lie/lay, rise/raise, to be, linking verbs, predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives, action or linking verbs, subject/verb agreement, verb tenses (present, pas, future, perfect, progressive), transitive and intransitive verbs, indirect objects, review, test, cumulative review, cumulative test.
• Nouns: concrete and abstract, defined, noun determiners, common and proper nouns, singular and plural nouns, possessive nouns, predicate nominatives, appositives, gerunds, review, test, cumulative review, cumulative test.
• Interjections
• Conjunctions
• Adjectives: limiting adjectives, function, descriptive adjectives, proper adjectives, degrees of adjectives, review, test, cumulative review, cumulative test.
• Types of sentences
• Sentences, fragments, and run-ons
• Phrases and clauses
• Adverbs: defined, adverbs that tell how, good or well, adverbs that tell where, adverbs that tell when, adverbs that tell to what extent, adverb or preposition, degrees of adverbs, double negatives, review, test, cumulative review, cumulative test
• Pronouns: personal pronouns (nominative, objective and possessive cases), antecedents, reflexive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, review, test, cumulative review, cumulative test.
• Punctuation: periods, apostrophe, comma, semicolon and colon, question mark, exclamation point, hyphen, underlining, quotations marks, test.
• Capitalization: First words, titles, outlines, direct quotations, titles, organizations, business names, government bodies, departments, institutions, geographic locations, historical items, days, months, holidays, special days, proper adjectives, titles, brand names, religions, languages, races, ethnic groups, regions, structures, names, initials, political parties, hyphenated words, greeting and closing of a letter, presidents, well-known areas, events, when not to capitalize, test.
• Letters: Friendly letter, business letter, envelope.
• Pre/Post Assessment Test and Answers included in the book.

Alexandre is having some facilities in his English grammar this year because he had a strong based with four years of working with the Easy Grammar books.   But I also know that he will learn new things in this book that will make the upper levels easier in the end.    As I said, he chose himself to go through this particular book this year.  I think it was a wise decision and it will bring him more confidence when dealing with English grammar.    As I correct his exercises pages, I am seriously pondering the fact that I, myself, should go through this specific book in order to better comprehend the English grammar.  You see, English is not my mother tongue – I was born and raised as a French Canadian and even though I had English classes in high school (and did Kindergarten in English), I still struggle with the grammar when I write.  

If your child has never done concrete English grammar during the primary years and you want him/her to expand on this particular level, the Easy Grammar Plus is definitively the book to go through.     I know that these books works because I have three kids doing them now.   It’s a thorough curriculum that is easy to deal with and to learn.  It will also give your child more confidence because of the ways it deals with the sentences.    In the end, your child will remember the rules and apply them in other places.

The book Easy Grammar Plus Teacher Edition is available for purchase at Easy Grammar Systems for the price of 32.95$ US.   An e-book edition is also available for the same price.   You can also purchase the Student workbook for the price of 13.95$ and the Student test booklet for the price of 4.95$.   However, be aware that if you purchase the Teacher Edition, you will have the student exercises and tests included in it as well and have the authorization to reproduce within your own family.  

Disclaimer: Thanks to Easy Grammar Systems for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Help Your Kids with English

Help Your Kids with English Canadian Edition – A Step-By-Step Visual Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Writing
Published at DK Canada

About the book

The latest title in this popular series is a complete visual guide to helping children learn and understand English. Using clear, accessible pictures, diagrams this indispensable reference covers all key grammar areas as taught in Canadian schools. This helpful home resource also includes Canadian rules for punctuation, spelling and grammar. A must for every parent and frustrated student.

• Features over 600 images and artworks
• Includes Canadian expressions and idioms

My Thoughts

The school year is fast approaching and with four kids to homeschool, I want to make sure I have the proper tools to be able to help them in specific subjects like Mathematic, Science and English.    DK Canada has interesting books to help you grasp the various terminologies in each of these subjects.   In the past, I had the opportunity to review the books for Math and Science and when the book for English came out, I made sure that I could review it.

Similar to the two previous books, this book contains lots of graphics and drawings to help you explain the English language to your child.   I will be honest with you – English is not my first language.  When I was in kindergarten (age 5), we were living in St-Leonard, QC and my mom thought it would be beneficial for me to be in an English classroom.  Back then, the school I attended was bilingual offering classes in French or English.   I was also immersed in English television shows like Sesame Street, Friendly Giant and Mr. Dressup.  My mom told me I wouldn’t talk for the longest time that year though I understood perfectly well.   When grade 1 came around, I entered the French classes instead of pursuing English.   Even to this day, I believe that I learned quite a bit during that first year in school.   When I arrived in high school and had English classes, I was able to pick it up more easily than most of my peers.

But English is not my first language.  I still make errors while speaking or writing.  So I am always on the lookup to learn more tips and tricks.  This book is fabulous because I think it will provide me with more possibilities to master the English language.

The table of contents is divided in specific sections: grammar, punctuation, spelling, communication skills and reference.  In the grammar section, you will be able to get detailed rules about the grammar ( parts of speech, nouns, plurals, adjectives, comparatives, superlatives, articles, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, tenses, irregular verbs, conjunctions, prepositions and more).   The section about punctuation will highlights all the possible punctuations you can use while writing.   The spelling section will help you and your child if there are any spelling issues in the learning process.   The communications skills section will allow you and your child to discover ways of better communicating when you write.   Finally, in the reference section you will find specific grids helping you to quickly find an answer to a grammar, punctuation, spelling or communication issues.

This book can be useful for parents whose their First Language isn’t English or for older kids who could use a tool to help them in their English assignments.

Help Your Kids with English Canadian Edition is available for purchase at your favourite bookstore.

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Easy Grammar Daily Guided Teaching and Review for Grade 2

Easy Grammar Daily Guided Teaching and Review for Grade 2
Published at Easy Grammar Systems

About the book

This book is a teaching text with the Daily Grams format.  It contains an introduction to the understanding of  language usage and skills,  180 short and enjoyable lessons--one per school day, concepts introduced and reviewed throughout, capitalization taught or reviewed every day,  and punctuation taught or reviewed daily.  It also includes usage, dictionary skills, sentence combining, etc.  The book has reproducible pages within the text  and the answers are in the back.

My Thoughts

I have a struggling learner who is very intelligent.    We suspect that my son might have the same learning disability than my husband.    He will be in grade two next year.   This year, I am going through some basic grammar lessons with him by reading to him in another curriculum.   But I also know that I want him to go through the same curriculum than his brother so I was curious to look into the Daily Guided Teaching and Review for Grade 2.    I was pleased to have a positive answer to my request to review it.

I didn’t know what to expect.   My oldest son has started using the Easy Grammar when he was in grade 3 and he is learning well with them.    I knew that if there would be too much work in the pages, there were some chances that Dominic would be discouraged and give up.    So when I received my copy to review, I was pleasantly surprised at the pages.    See the example below which was taken from their website.

Every pages in this book contains about four  to five exercises that the child will have to do.   With Alexandre I can do more than one page per day.   It will be a different story with Dominic, I know it.   And having one page per day of school will permit me to pace ourselves in his learning and discover a better schedule for him.     But I am encouraged to see how well the pages are designed.   Bright and lots of spaces in them will allow him to not see a huge mountain in front of him when we will do his grammar.   In each pages, there is a small lesson which I will do with him and explain it more if it is needed. 

The Daily Guided Teaching and Review for Grade 2 covers the following concepts:

CAPITALIZATION: abbreviation, business, closing of a letter, club/organization/team, day of the week, events, geographic places, greeting of a friendly letter, holiday/special day, language, month, names of people, outline, poetry, pronoun, proper adjectives, quotation, school/college, sentence, street/lane/avenue, structures, title of books and other works, title with a name and what not to capitalize.

PUNCTUATION: apostrophe, colon, comma, exclamation point, hyphen, period, question mark, quotation marks, underlining, where not to place a comma or a period.

GRAMMAR AND OTHER CONCEPTS: adjectives, adverbs, compound words, conjunctions, dictionary skills, difficult words, friendly letters, interjections, nouns, prefixes/roots/suffixes, prepositions, pronouns, rhyming words, sentence combining, sentence types, subject/verb agreement, subject identification, verb identification, synonyms/antonyms/homonyms, verbs and more.

I am estimating that it would take us maybe 15 minutes to go through one page.    Just enough to start building his knowledge on grammar and be more prepare when grade 3 arrives.    I want to give all the tools for him to succeed and discover that he can do it.   Having the Daily Guided Teaching and Review for Grade 2 will be such a tool.    I know that going through this book will give him confidence to move on when he arrives in grade 3.    And without him realizing it, he will start with basic information on grammar and do more complicated things by the end of the year.   I am more confident in starting the 2nd grade with him knowing that I have a book that will guide us through the discovery of grammar.

Easy Grammar: Daily Guided Teaching and Review for Grade 2 Teacher Edition is available directly from the website for the price of 24.95.   A student workbook is also available for 12.95$.   

Disclaimer: Thanks to Easy Grammar Systems for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Easy Grammar Systems

Easy Grammar Systems

Easy to Teach...
Easy to Learn...
Easy to Remember!
Easy Grammar texts use the prepositional approach combined with effective strategies. This helps students to understand grammar, a tool for speaking and writing properly.

About the Easy Grammar Grade 5 Teacher Edition

In this specific book, students are asked to delete prepositional phrases in order to help understand other concepts.  In addition to grammar concepts, capitalization, punctuation, sentence types, phrases/clauses and friendly/business letters are included.  Ample practice worksheets are offered for each skill.

53 prepositions introduced
materials presented and reviewed throughout
contains unit reviews, unit tests, cumulative reviews, and cumulative tests
includes pre/post assessments
reproducible worksheets (answer key on left side
and reproducible page on right)
writing section "teaches" how to write appositives, semicolon construction, and compound sentences
See "Scope and Sequence" for content.
Tests are also in the teacher edition.
This student test booklet saves you from having to make copies of the tests.

My Thoughts

I will be honest, when my son Alexandre approached grade 3 I knew that I had to introduce English grammar in his homeschool.  You see English is not my mother tongue – French is.   A friend of ours had mentioned to me that she was using Easy Grammar.   After checking it out, we decided that we will give it a try and when the homeschool conference came we purchased the grade 3 level for him.    And I must say that I was pleasantly surprised during that year.   I loved the way it is organized and how it makes grammar so easy to learn.

This coming September, we will enter the grade 5 world and more grammar notions will be introduced.   The first step the child goes through with these books is to memorize the prepositions.   My son, Alexandre, has an incredible memory but even he forgets some of the prepositions listed.   Once the prepositions are learned, it becomes easy for the child to identify the prepositional phrases and remove it from the sentences if needed.     The book always start with a pre-test which helps to identify the notions that has slipped the mind of the child during the summer time.    That same test can be used at the end of the year to get the final result of the child for the grade he/she was in.   I am surprised to see that the pre/post test seems to be shorter for the grade 5 book than the previous books.   That will make my son happy I guess!

The book is divided in sections: Prepositions, Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, Pronouns, Sentences types, Friendly Letter, Interjections, Conjunctions, Sentences & Fragments, Capitalization, Punctuation, and Writing Sentences.   Depending of the section, you will get more sub-divisions.  For example, while looking at the Adjectives section, I can see that it will cover descriptive adjectives, limiting adjectives, proper adjectives, predicate adjectives, and degrees of adjectives. Just by looking at the table of content, I can see that we will learn quite a bit in the grade 5 year (both my son and I actually!)   Each section has a review and a test for the section as well as a cumulative review and test.   Consequently, as the student goes through the book, he/she will review all the sections that was covered so far. 

I particularly like the fact that this system teaches the student to look at the sentence as a whole, identify any prepositional phrases and remove it before identifying the verb, subject and/or direct object.  It makes the learning of the English grammar more interesting and practical at the same time.    Even me as a mom I am learning quite a bit.   I wish I had had this system of learning when I learned English – it would have made my life easier and I wouldn’t make as many errors while talking. 

The Teacher Edition includes the grammar rules to explain to the child, the exercises as well as the answers for each of the exercises.    Everything under one book.   It makes teaching so much easier I find.   

I usually gives one or two pages to do per day – sometimes more.   It depends on how the week is going and what is happening in our lives.   But generally speaking, so far we start in September and we are able to complete the level in May or early June.   The Grade 5 level contains definitively more grammar lessons than the previous ones we have done.  I am quite satisfied with how the English grammar is presented and how the lessons are easily assimilated by my oldest son.   Next year, I will also have a grade 2 child and I am debating about purchasing the Grade 2 level for him.   I find the learning for this 2nd son is different than my first born.   So at this moment I am investigating to determine if this would be a good fit for him or not.  No matter what I decide for the 2011-2012 school year for my 2nd grader, he will embark the journey to Easy Grammar eventually.   I’ve seen the results in my oldest son using this method and I know that it will work perfectly for the other kids.   

If you are considering getting some books to teach English grammar to your kids, I would suggest that you take the time to check out Easy Grammar.   From their website, you can easily check out some example of the pages of the books you are interested in.   To identify the scope and sequence of your  own child, go to  http://www.easygrammar.com/scope.html.

The Easy Grammar Grade 5 Teacher’s Edition is available for 32.95$ US.  Also available are the Easy Grammar Grade 5 Student Workbook  for 13.95$ US and the Easy Grammar Student Test Booklet for 4.95$US.   They are available directly from the website or you could see their list of stores who carry their products at http://www.easygrammar.com/store.html.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Easy Grammar Systems for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way.  All opinions expressed here are only my own.