Video Lessons Make Teaching Grammar Easy

Have you noticed how many students are all about videos? My grandson can learn how to do anything he wishes by watching YouTube, and he prefers watching videos, although he also loves to read.

I’ve spent many hours throughout the summer creating instructional videos and practice worksheets to accompany my Simple Steps to Sentence Sense High School Grammar Book. They will also be helpful for teachers who use the Simple Steps to Sentence Sense Middle School Grammar Book.
 
My goal is to make the lessons and activities clearer for visual and auditory learners while also providing worksheets to encourage students to analyze sentences on their own. 

I also hope that watching these videos will help teachers prepare for each step before presenting it to their students. 

 
In the videos, I talk directly to the students and explain each step in the program. The videos include:

•  How to Use Sam (Sentence Analysis Map)
  
•  Step 1 – Finding the Prepositional Phrases
  
•  Step 2 – Finding the Verb
•  Step 3 – Finding the Subject
•  Step 4A – Finding the Action Verb Complements (Direct Object, Indirect Object, and Objective Complement)
• Step 4L – Finding the Linking Verb Complements (Predicate Nominative and Predicate Adjective)
•  Step 5 – Finding Adjectives and Adverbs 
  
•  Step 6 – Finding Phrases (Participial, Gerund, Infinitive, and Appositive)
  
•  Step 7 – Finding Clauses (Independent, Adjective, Adverb, and Noun)
  
• Step 8 – Classifying sentences (Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound/Complex)
  

 
As I explain each step, I tell students the tips and tricks that I used with my own students. Even the most reluctant learner can understand and be successful when using my method of learning grammar. Learning grammar does not have to be difficult.
 
You can use the videos as an introduction before you start each step in the book or as a follow-up to be sure they have mastered each step before they move on to the next. If you are familiar with my grammar program, you know that it’s all about the sequence in which you teach sentence analysis. It’s easy if you follow the steps in order. Your students will make good grades and be successful. 
 
These videos are a valuable tool to use with students who enter your classroom late in the year and need to catch up with your class. They are also helpful for students who are absent and miss the class in which you presented the lesson. 
 
Here is a link to the (FREE to you) Step One Video: Finding Prepositional Phrases.

 
You can buy the videos individually as needed, or you can save 20% off the individual resources if you buy the bundle. You will find these videos here in my TpT store.

Thanks for reading,

Charlene

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It's May and Time for Engaging Review Activities

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The month of MAY signals the end of a school year for many schools.

Make every lesson count,
All you have is a few weeks left.
Yes! It’s summer vacation.
 Here are five lessons that I used at the end of the year. I wanted to review the concepts the students had learned while keeping them engaged and interested. Maybe one or all of these would be useful for your students.

Pretty Darn Fast Poetry Analysis Technique

 A unique way to analyze poetry and prepare for the AP Literature Exam or advanced English courses in both high school and college. I devised this method to help students who have trouble remembering all the elements of poetry. I hope it helps your students as much as it helped mine. 

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 Sentence Patterns Practice for the End of the School Year

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This interactive digital resource for Google Drive will teach your students to rewrite sentences without changing their meaning. This is good practice for students to achieve sentence variety. At the same time, they will be reminded of things that are associated with the end of the school year.

Good writers vary their sentence patterns by sometimes placing phrases or clauses at the beginning of their sentences. The twenty End-of-Year-themed sentences in this exercise all begin with the subject and the verb.

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Sentence Correction Practice with Detailed Answers

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Challenge your students with this four-page, twenty-question practice exercise. This review will help students learn to write sentences correctly. Students will read a sentence and then decide which of the five choices following it best replaces the underlined passage. Teachers can use this exercise as a diagnostic tool or a pre-test to create a lesson plan, or as an assignment or test.

The sentences contain errors in parallelism; verb tense; use of "which" and "that"; subject-verb agreement; use of irregular verbs: lie, lay, sit, set; misplaced modifiers; comparative and superlative degrees of comparison; and more. . .

The answer sheet not only supplies the correct answer, but also has a detailed explanation to make the teacher's job easier, and allows the students to see exactly why their choices are right or wrong.

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Nursery Room Newspaper Creative Writing Activity 

How many times have your students wished they could do something different and fun in your room? Probably more often than you know.

Here's a chance for them to do something they will really enjoy while practicing several valuable skills such as critical reading, creative writing, editing, proof reading, and cooperative learning. Students will work in groups to create newspapers based on nursery rhymes. They will have so much fun being creative and clever, it will not seem like class work at all. 

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Gratitude Booklet Creative Writing Project (FREE) 

And last but not least, this free activity would work as a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift that students could prepare.

This is a creative writing unit that requires students to research one of their own family members or significant friends and write biographical sketches. They will enjoy learning more about their family history and will experience the joy of giving a truly unique and special gift. The recipient of the Gratitude Booklet will learn how loved and valued they are by those who contributed to the booklet.

The student will learn:
• to write interview questions.
• to interview family members.
• to write a biographical sketch.
• to write/edit anecdotes.
• to compile a booklet.

Giving the booklet as a gift to the person it features is a special bonus and gift they will never forget.

I hope your May (or June) is successful, and I hope you have a restful vacation.

Thanks for reading!