Thursday, January 8, 2009

Grammar Lapbook







I am an English teacher by training and I am always curious about different ways to teach grammar. Primarily, I taught high school students ( mostly 12th graders) and it always puzzled me that majority of the average to below average students did not know their grammar AT ALL. I would say quietly to myself- "How did you ever get this far?". After having my three kids and watching Kid #1 go to 1st grade in public school, I began to wonder about this even more. My son would have mounds of GRAMMAR homework in the 1st grade - the same basic concepts that those 12th graders had not mastered!


Anyway, I will step off the soapbox. Now that I am schooling my own children I can teach the way I think works best. Now for middle and high schoolers, I believe that integrating grammar instruction into their actual writing is the way to go, but I believe that in the younger grades you can provide a basic foundation of concepts. The way that I am going to do this is with a variation of manipulatives. This is where my lapbook idea comes in to play. I had these pocket word cards that I bought from the Schoolbox store and I thought it would be great to teach the parts of speech using these cards.


For the lapbook, I used large matchbook templates from Homeschoolshare and made one for each major part of speech. I then tried to divide up the word cards into the pockets.












I used the idea of a mini office type lapbook that I saw on Lapbook Lessons to make a large pocket in the middle of the lapbook to put various sheets that I created that mimic a sentence diagram. I made a lot of variations that could be used with different types of sentences ( simple, compound nouns, or compound verbs).










What I am going to do with my kids is have them create their own sentences and then pick out the different parts of speech and figure out where they go on the sentence diagram. I feel that this will help my hands on learners and make grammar a little more than book work.












Again this is my theory on grammar instruction and I will have to wait a few years to see if it works!:)

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very nice! I have held the opinion that elementary-aged kids will pick up grammar concepts by being read to, which held true for my first two kids, but my 3rd needs and enjoys concrete, hands-on instruction like what lapbooks can provide. It is also a good thing to create these together!

Anonymous said...

Really if a kid is exposed to good English, and has a chance to use it, wouldn't the child master grammer on his own?

I never had grammer studies except on other languages (not that helpful when they use a different sentance structure). I love your idea though.

ghomeschool said...

Love the lapbook. My first grader and I are working on a grammar lapbook. It will take the rest of the year to finish it. He doesn't read well, yet, so it is more of a wordless lapbook. There are words, but I don't expect him to read them, yet. Have you ever looked at Shurley English. I use this with my 4th grader and love it. I will have to spend more time here looking at all of your lapbooks.

Anonymous said...

Love the Grammar and Safari Lapbooks! Wish I had the gumption to teach diagramming...sadly I don't understand it myself, despite 2 yrs of college lol

Unknown said...

Wonderful ideas! Thanks for sharing them. I've linked to you on my Grammar for Homeschool page.

2walkwisely said...

Thanks for all of the great feedback. I really love the grammar Squidoo page- awesome!

Carrie said...

I love this idea! My boys z(10) & x(8) struggle with writing so we are going to go back to the basics.
Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

I've given you an "award." Stop by my blog to see what it is! http://simplylapbooks.blogspot.com/
Blessings!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your grammar lap book.

Anonymous said...

Do you have the files saved with the parts of grammar on them. I would love a copy. (Instead of having to do them all my self.)

You can email them here.
LightHouseAcademy@charter.net

Blessings
Michellel

Pam said...

Hi. I am enjoying your Lapbooks. I love the grammar book and would like to know if you have a copy of the sentence diagram that you could email me at ppking4@yahoo.com. I looked at the Safari Lapbook and found a great link to Madagascar that I needed. Thanks a bunch.

Momofmany said...

love the grammar book--especially the diagramming!!!
I blogged about a couple word wheels we did (sorry--no pics) for nouns and verbs (2nd grade). www.momof4-justme.blogspot.com

Doxie Star said...

This looks fantastic! I love how you have it set up; Do you have the grammar lapbook available for download? I'm thinking of introducing grammar to the kids and this looks like a very fun and interactive way to start!