I just wanted to share how we use Winston's Basic Grammar.
Winston Basic Grammar set comes with a student book with lessons and quizzes, a teacher's book with answer key and instructions and clue cards.
On the previous night, I read the teacher's guide book for the next day's lesson. I love how the instructions are written. They are very brief and simple to understand.
The next day, as each child sits with their student books at hand, I give each child the clue cards needed for that day's lesson (according to the practice sentence in the teacher's guidebook and the worksheet in their student books).
I present the lesson, explain any "new" cards and use our white board to parse the practice sentence listed in the teacher's guide book. I give each child a chance to parse or identify each word in the practice sentence according to the clue cards. Sometimes, they can parse the practice sentences without looking at the clue cards for hints, if that card or concept had been previously taught. If not, I sometimes make up a few more practice sentences of my own on the white board. As we parse the sentences, each child places a clue card in front of him as it refers to the words in the sentences. We use the provided black or blank cards to refer to the words which haven't been presented in the book as yet. This reminds us to skip those words for the moment. When a sentence has been parsed, each child has all of the pertaining cards formed into a row. Makes a pretty rainbow at times! LOL!
Last, I assign my children to parse three sentences from the day's worksheet in their student books. We do this 4 days per week so one worksheet is completed by the end of the week since each worksheet contains 12 sentences.
We also have the Winston Basic Grammar supplemental student workbooks (sold separately) which come with their own answer key. We use these for extra review if I feel the need to review on certain topics. So if you are using the supplemental student books for extra practices, you would have the children parse 3 sentences in the regular student book each day and 3-4 sentences in the supplemental book each day. Winston is a hands-on, visual, and relaxed way to teach grammar and the lessons are very quick. My children really enjoy it.
Winston Grammar does not teach punctuation or writing so we refer to Writer's, Inc in addition to editing our writing from other lessons. You can read more about Winston Grammar here.
