Teach Elementary Grammar The Easy Way With Sheldon’s New Primary Language Lessons ~ Review
Easy to use Charlotte Mason style writing and grammar curriculum for kids. I love how this grammar program is so easy to use, just a few minutes a day.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.
Are you looking for an easy to use grammar curriculum? We have been using Sheldon's New Primary Language Lessons from Brookdale House and loving it!
Sheldon's Language Lessons is a vintage grammar program popular with homeschoolers using Charlotte Mason methods. Brookdale House has updated it into an easy-to-use workbook form. It has 96 lessons to teach children grammar.
These included picture study, memorization, copywork, and dictation. Sheldon's Language Lessons is intended for grades 3 to 5 as a child's first introduction to grammar. Younger children could complete one lesson a day while older children could complete 2 or 3 lessons.
The lessons have no busy work and the focus really is on teaching grammar in a simple, practical way. It teaches the eight parts of speech, punctuation, and basic sentence and paragraph writing.
Sheldon's New Primary Language Lessons is available as a printed book or as an eBook. I received the eBook version.
An example of the type of poetry used in Sheldon's New Primary Language Lessons:
TODAY Here hath been dawning Another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away?
Out of Eternity This new day is born, Into Eternity At night will return.
Behold it aforetime No eye ever did, So soon it forever From all eyes is hid.
Here hath been dawning Another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away? - Thomas Carlyle
The poem Today by Thomas Carlyle is from lesson 22. After the poem is read the student is asked to answer the question in the last stanza of the poem. Then there are a number of discussion questions about the poem to help spur discussion.
Questions such as:
Is the time when the poet speaks morning, or evening? Does the new day come out of the past, or out of the future?
After the discussion questions are finished the student is to re-read the poem and memorize it.
Using Charlotte Mason Style Lessons With Sheldon's New Primary Language Lessons
I've been using Sheldon's New Language Lessons with my daughters ages 9, 11, and 13. I had originally intended only to use it with the younger two, but dd13 liked the book so much that she asked to do it for review practice. Hey, that says a lot about a program when a child begs to use it!
We have used other grammar programs in the past so a lot of this was review for my children. We've been working on the lessons 4 days a week. We often do 2 lessons at a time if they are shorter lessons such as a picture study.
For the lessons that have more writing, we only do 1 of these a day. We do the lessons together as a group.
When we have picture studies we look at the picture together and then take turns answering questions and giving an oral narration. We have been doing Charlotte Mason style grammar lessons for years so my children were already used to the style used in Sheldon’s program.
Even though much of this program is review for us, we have still seen a great benefit in using it. This has been a busy season for me, so not having to put together all of my own copywork and dictation lessons has been a blessing. This program has clean, thoughtful, and interesting lessons to pull from.
Sheldon's language lessons gives you an easy way to teach grammar to your children. The lack of busy work makes it enjoyable for children to work on. This is not an independent program for a child to use on their own, however many parts of it can be used that way.
The lessons that involve reading a poem and answering questions or reading a story and filling in the blanks in the worksheets could be done independently. However, a parent or teacher would need to give the dictation lessons.
I think that it’s the interaction between the parent and child in these lessons where the real “meat” comes from.
