Well-Ordered Language Student Edition
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Well-Ordered Language: The Curious Child’s Guide to Grammar (WOL) {Review}

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Well-Ordered Language: The Curious Child’s Guide to Grammar (WOL) {Review}Well-Ordered Language: The Curious Child's Guide to Grammar, Teacher's Edition Level 1A by Tammy Peters, Daniel Coupland PhD
Series: Well-Ordered Language

Illustrator: Katharina Drees
ISBN: 9781600512865
Genres: Educational Resources, Language Arts, Grammar, English Language
Published by Classical Academic Press on March 2016
Pages: 240
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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Children are naturally curious, and will find and collect such things as sticks, rocks, flowers, leaves, and fruit, arranging them, naming them, and making things out of them. They will even gather creatures such as butterflies and bugs with interest and delight. What if the study of grammar could harness a child’s natural curiosity? What if it could be a source of delight to children? The Well-Ordered Language curriculum presents the study of language in a way that appeals to a child’s inborn curiosity and desire to collect, gather, and order. The curriculum presents grammar in a clear, orderly way, while simultaneously seeking to cultivate a child’s wonder of language by presenting instruction in the context of narrative and language, attractive illustrations, and samples taken from classic children’s literature and poetry.
 
Students will not merely learn the mechanics of grammar, but will see components of language (the parts of speech) unfolding before them as the Well-Ordered Language series helps them to gather and arrange words to express their thoughts clearly and accurately. The curriculum is designed so that teachers and students actively engage with each other and with the grammatical concepts in each lesson, using language skills—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—along with physical movement, songs, and chants. Through
Well-Ordered Language’s unique, creative, and orderly method of analyzing the grammatical functions of the parts of speech, students will find the mastery of grammar achievable, meaningful, and delightful.
 
Well-Ordered Language Level 1A (WOL 1A) will introduce students to:
• Four kinds of sentences (declarative, interrogatory, imperative, exclamatory)
• Subject and predicate
• Verbs
• Adverbs
• Adjectives
• Direct Objects
• Subject Pronouns
• Helping Verbs

*After reading my review, you might want to check out the free homeschool guide for adapting the current version of WOL. You might recognize my words. 😉

WOL Well-Ordered Language Curious Child's Guide to Grammar quote on Creative Madness Mama

Well-Ordered Language: The Curious Child’s Guide to Grammar (WOL) {Review}Well-Ordered Language: The Curious Child's Guide to Grammar, Student Edition Level 1A by Tammy Peters, Daniel Coupland PhD
Series: Well-Ordered Language
Illustrator: Katharina Drees
ISBN: 9781600512858
Genres: Educational Resources, Language Arts, Grammar, English Language
Published by Classical Academic Press on March 2016
Pages: 238
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Buy from Publisher
Find on Goodreads

For grades 3 or 4 and up

Children are naturally curious, and will find and collect such things as sticks, rocks, flowers, leaves, and fruit, arranging them, naming them, and making things out of them. They will even gather creatures such as butterflies and bugs with interest and delight.

What if the study of grammar could harness a child’s natural curiosity? What if it could be a source of delight to children? The Well-Ordered Language curriculum presents the study of language in a way that appeals to a child’s inborn curiosity and desire to collect, gather, and order. The curriculum presents grammar in a clear, orderly way, while simultaneously seeking to cultivate a child’s wonder of language by presenting instruction in the context of narrative and language, attractive illustrations, and samples taken from classic children’s literature and poetry.

Students will not merely be able to identify the parts of a sentence, but will understand how words behave in a sentence. As students see the components of language (the parts of speech) unfold before them throughout the Well-Ordered Language series, they will be able to apply their knowledge, gathering and arranging words to express their thoughts clearly and accurately.

The curriculum is designed so that teachers and students actively engage with each other and with the grammatical concepts in each lesson, using language skills—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—along with physical movement, songs, and chants. Through Well-Ordered Language’s unique, creative, and orderly method of analyzing the grammatical functions of the parts of speech, students will find the mastery of grammar achievable, meaningful, and delightful.

Well-Ordered Language Level 1A (WOL 1A) will introduce students to:

Four kinds of sentences (declarative, interrogatory, imperative, exclamatory)
Subject and predicate
Verbs
Adverbs
Adjectives
Direct Objects
Subject Pronouns
Helping Verbs

Have you pondered over the Course Plan of Study in the front of the Classical Academic Press catalog and wondered what you should do for your grammar study? Sure, you could do that repetitive scripted wonderfully hand-holding one, or you could immerse yourself in the jingle heavy one that is confusing to get started. Why couldn’t CAP just have their own program to fill the grammar gap? Oh, wait they will! WOL or rather the Well-Ordered Language is the Curious Child’s Guide to Grammar and it will be available God-permitting in the mid-spring!

WOL is a set of two 8×11” books with each one covering one-semester. There is a Teacher’s Edition and a Student Edition. The Teacher’s Edition is a reprint of the Student Book with sidebar information and teaching suggestions, helps, and hints throughout. My understanding is that they plan to release two books per year in a similar fashion to their Writing & Rhetoric program.

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My daughter with writing utensils on a table nearby sits with me on the couch. I hold the teacher book and she’s snuggled up against me with her student book next to her. I read through the Introductory of our lesson as well as Review It, and Learn It with her spontaneous interaction (where she can see my teacher book). A little while later we do Analyze It. Sometimes on an easel whiteboard, sometimes on a hand-held whiteboard from Logic of English. Then she sits at her desk and goes back in her Student book to fill in the answers to Learn It.

We are not doing any of the chants yet, as I still haven’t heard a reply about that. However, I have found a few things here and there on youtube that we have used, plus, of course, Schoolhouse Rock songs. (My own childhood peaked through here).

For us, we seem to go strong Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the peter out Thursday and Friday. So I’d say we’re making it an average of three days, but it is three in a row. This has not been an issue for us as the review is just enough and we continue on. Our Thursdays and Fridays seem to be Latin, Geography, History and Science filled. She also does IXL LA for review on the weekend days. This is review there and not lessons. Option B might be close to what we do, but it varies and I like that flexibility. I truly like not being labeled by day of the week. (Referencing chart on page xiii) We probably do Day 1-3 in one day. Then C and Review started and finished on the next two days we work. I have not timed us, but we pretty much work until she’s requesting to move on to another subject.

We are doing A, B, C and not skipping much, even if she knows it. My daughter is young and I’m not concerned if it takes her a while to get through, but right now she enjoys it and breezes. If she wants to do school (and not play with her little siblings) she does well at it.

She really enjoys discussing the poems, and often will rewrite them as her own initiated copywork. I’m not going to interfere with that! Also, for instance in the first poem, Robin Redbreast, we went on to read some science resources about birds and pointed out birds in the yard for the afternoon.

As for From the Sidelines… if it is something she asks about I will go into detail. Otherwise, I know we will come around to it eventually and leave it be.

As to exclusion… we read through a lot, but when it is something that is like a game, we tend to skip that. I find those to be more classroom oriented and if I had two or three students on the same level I’d probably do it. But for us, we skip it. Such as playing the game of Flip and son on. We did like the inclusion of origami.

In the teacher’s book, I would prefer that the Teacher’s Pages actually be in the book before the input Student Pages rather than immediately following. I like the fonts, and boldness where appropriate. I also like the borders and headers and such. Of course, I wish for color (at least two-tone), but I know that can be cost prohibitive.

Creative Madness Mama gives a first look at an advanced copy of the new grammar program from Classical Academic Press with a giveaway and special discount code for readers!

Hmm… Other thoughts… I love the to the source, bringing out the latin and/or greek roots of words and she is interested in hearing about that as well.

We are coming into using WOL from a little dabbling in TWTM FLL, as well as Shurley, and LOE. I’m assuming you’re familiar with those other programs at a glance. We really are enjoying WOL. My daughter is young for her grade level accomplishments, so I do hold off when she is just not into school but she does not bicker much at all when I pull out WOL. She actually will choose it over Shurley and FLL. She said one of the only reasons she prefers LOE Essentials sometimes more is because of the colorfulness. As to the lessons, she likes our snuggle school with WOL. I personally like doing Grammar first with WOL and in my opinion, I am using Essentials as a Spelling curriculum. To me, it is not a replacement for WOL, but often reviews things learned. Also, as to Shurley in comparison. I personally like WOL better in the manner that it introduces parts of speech and has much more review. That as you stated, we could use or skip if we do not need the redundancy. I like the redundancy for this child. If I had an older student, I might not do every exercise. I like the examples and usage of fables in WOL 1 and mentions of God. All things we cannot get in Shurley. We also love the Off the Shelf remarks and sparks that send us to our library or Kindle shelf for more reading that continues the lessons off workbook stage. Our grammar lessons don’t just end during grammar time and I like that. I love the Curious Child Appendix and biographies section, we have referenced them quite a few times.

We are coming at WOL with SSL as our only other current CAP program, but interested in more. It definitely makes me want to take a look at the Writing and Rhetoric Curriculum for the upcoming year and I think with the continued fables theme from WOL 1 to WR 1 it would mesh extremely well.

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The Creative Madness Mama also known as Margaret is a Christian Stay-at-home Mama, married to the Enginerd, quilter, cross stitcher, avid reader and book-a-holic. As book blogger for various publicists, she loves to share the latest and greatest about books coming out as well as her needle art and other crafty projects with some pictures of her fourteen-year-old AppleBlossom, twelve-year-old OrangeBlossom (the Princess), nine-year-old Almond Blossom (the Rascal boy!), six-year-old (red) Mermaid Warrior, the four-and-a-half-year-old Viking Dragon, and Huckleberry (due in June 2024!) in between. Homeschooling, cloth diapering, breastfeeding, babywearing, bone broth brewing, tea drinking, list making mama full of a little creative and a lot of madness.

7 Comments

  • Christina Gibson

    We are using Easy Grammar right now. I like that it’s short and to the point, but we aren’t using it every day or even close to that. Just looking for something different and this might work for us.

      • Christina Gibson

        Thanks! I really like what I’ve seen so far…Some questions
        1. Activities: You mentioned origami. The example on the site of a pantomime activity. It’s just going to be my daughter and me. We love origami and thought of a way to make the pantomime activity fun (or at least worth trying). Are the other fun activities geared more toward schools or are some that could be used for homeschoolers?
        2. Punctuation: Do they discuss punctuation anywhere or is it all parts of speech/word usage?

        • CherryBlossomMJ

          In this first edition, WOL is seemingly geared toward classrooms, but going through it we have had no problem making it work very well for us. I think it could very well be used by homeschoolers, and I believe they may revise it a bit or perhaps allow a guide with it to make it even more friendly toward homeschoolers.

          It is specifically geared toward grammar parts. Four Kinds of Sentences, Subject and Predicate, Subject and Predicate Verb (part2), Adverbs, Adjectives, Direct Objects, Subject Pronouns, Interrogative Sentences, Subject Pronouns, and Helping Verbs. There is diagramming and plenty of opportunities to mention punctuation, we have not found it lacking. It specifically titles things as declarative or interrogative as we are working. So while it is not written into every exercise, we can mention it when need be.

  • Kristin McPeak Hightower

    Hi there! I tried the code CM20 on the CAP site and it said “the coupon code you entered couldn’t be applied to any items in your order” I have WOL in my basket as well as W&R and Song School Latin. Any ideas why it didn’t work? Thanks!!

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