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How to Plan Easy Grammar

Easy Grammar is straightforward. The student would simply do the next lesson each day, 5 days a week. Planning problems crop up when grammar is not done daily and the books for older students have many more lessons than school days. It is at that point where you must think about how you will divide out the lessons during the school year.

This is how I planned Easy Grammar

Planning Style

I planned based on series planning, in other words, I added no dates or days on the planner, just one lesson after another in the planner. Lesson Series for an entire book is briefly explained here: Using the Quarter Planner There will be an example on this page.

Planner type:

Quarter planners and semester planners would both work. You can find those types of planners here: Term & Subject Homeschool Planners

Making Decisions:

Look through the student worksheets and determine how many worksheets there are and then decide:

1. How many days a week you will have grammar.
2. How long you will use the book. (one year or two years)
3. If you will assign more than one sheet a day. (not recommending this)
4. If using for two years: Will you use the worksheets in order or every other worksheet reserving similar lessons for next year?

Make the Series:

In each cell of the planner, write the page number(s). If the lesson is associated with a new concept that you will teach, highlight the cell with a highlighter.

Example

(please note: I do not have a current book, this example is based on the old purple book starting somewhere in the middle.) The page numbers are based on the reproducible worksheets that are in the teacher's book. (I have an economical copy machine.)

Class Schedule

Name: Jane Austen                                           Class: Grammar (4X a week)
Key A B C D E
1 T:343 Adverbs 
WS: 345
100%		 WS: 347

100%		 WS: 349

100%		 WS: 351

100%		 WS: 353
2 T:354-355 Adverbs -Good or Well?
WS: 357		 WS: 359 WS: 361 T:363 Adverbs- Where?
WS: 365		 WS: 367
3 WS: 369 T:371 Adverbs- When?
WS: 373		 WS: 375 WS: 377 T:379 Adverbs- To What Extent?
WS: 381

And etcetera
Add to the bottom of your planner this information:

Key:
T = Teacher Page (This is a day to teach the lesson, I recommend highlighting them.)
WS = worksheet page
Materials: Easy Grammar Plus (list the books used)

Tips

  1. Take note of how many times a week this class will be done.
  2. Highlight all teaching days. Highlighting the teaching days is for your benefit. At a glance, you can see which days that you should be prepared to teach the lesson.
  3. After making your plan, print or copy at least one additional copy of the plan.
  4. With the additional copy, teach your child to check his schedule and to mark off lessons completed.
  5. Check the work as soon as possible. It is best to check work immediately after child finishes worksheet. Give feedback and note grade on planner.

Note: If you must make a weekly plan of all subjects for records, use your subject planners each week to fill in the up-coming week in a weekly planner. [See Example of this: Transfer Plans from Subject Form to Weekly Form] You could also fill in a weekly plan daily or after the week is over. Just like it is with all school planning, do what best suits you and gets the job done.

Donna Young
July 28, 2007
Easy Grammar at Blog

Workbook versus Copying, What I did

...continued from the right

I have a copy machine and two children. They were 3 grades apart, so each one used different grade levels of Easy Grammar, but eventually, my younger child used my older child's books. I copied the reproducible teacher's book worksheets for each of my children. Although I recommend getting workbooks, I can't say for certain that using my copier was any trouble, every day I was always so enthusiastic about being able to homeschool my children, that I barely noticed such things. Thinking back though, this would be my list of pros and cons of making use of the reproducible sheets and my copier.

Pros

  1. It seemed to save money, but I am not sure if it really did or not.
  2. I could have my child do the worksheets in any order that suited my plans.
  3. A sheet of paper is easier on the children, rather than holding a workbook open.

Cons

  1. Cutting the teacher's book binding off and having to 3-hole punch it and place it into a 3-ring binder.
  2. Having to make a copies (This is debatable as a con, copiers vary in ease of use and cost of operation.)
Donna Young
January 13, 2008