Grammar

Montessori offers so many wonderful hands on tools for teaching grammar to children.  The subject of grammar can often be dry when presented through traditional worksheet means.  I have collected a number of free online resources and purchased materials to make grammar fun and engaging here at the Middle of Somewhere.

When we started our grammar education I started a wee bit backward from the Montessori method.  In a typical Montessori environment the farm is used first to introduce each part of speech.  Our farm was all set and ready to go but I was drawn to the wooden grammar symbols and sentence strips, so that is where we started.  I bought this set of symbols from Alison's Montessori and printed off sentence strips for free from Montessori Materials (look under the purple words grammar box materials.)  Montessori Materials also has some other great and free grammar and language materials, so take some time to look around  Montessori Primary Guide also has some great free lessons for introducing the parts of speech (look at the left side bar under total reading). We spent quite a bit of time working our way through the sentence strips and labeling them with our symbols.

Then, I introduced the grammar farm.  The farm we use is a Fisher Price set purchased as a gift for our oldest daughter 10 years ago.  Don't get sucked into believing that you must have a "Montessori" farm set for this, you don't, use what you have or what you can find.  We keep a basket of collected farm animals next to our farm and a sets of word cards for every part of speech.  The word cards would be easy to make yourself either on the computer or by hand but I purchased a set from Montessori Print Shop.  This has been a fun material to work with.  For our first grader the farm work has been an introduction to the parts of speech and reading practice.  For my older 2 children, ages 10 and 9, the farm has been hands on review and often times a creative outlet for silliness.  Also close to our farm set I keep a bucket with blank word cards and a pen for when the children need to write their own words rather than use the pre-printed materials.

So where will we go next with our parts of speech?  Well I think some worksheets will be in order and of course some books.  I am always drawn to picture books that can teach a concept and be engaging with its pictures and language at the same time.  We own several of the Ruth Heller grammar books, look for other titles by her as well.   I would also like to add some Words are Categorical grammar books to our collection. For the worksheets, I think a membership to Super Teacher Worksheets is necessary.  It would be nice to combine the books and worksheets to do a mini unit on each part of speech for review and deeper digging.

Happy Learning and today is Montessori Monday, go visit and see what other Montessori homeschoolers are enjoying.