I am excited to share with you our review of The Nose Tree [Book 1] part of the
Fix It! Grammar program for Institute for
Excellence in Writing (IEW). The complete Fix It! Grammar program consists of six books: The Nose Tree (Book 1), Robin Hood (Book 2), Frog Prince, or Just Deserts (Book 3), Little Mermaid (Book 4), Chanticleer (Book 5), and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Book 6). Since every book in the Fix It! Grammar program is foundational to the book after it, we chose to start with The Nose Tree (Book 1). There is a placement test that you can take if you are trying to decide on an appropriate level for your student; however, if you are trying to decide between levels after taking the placement test, it is recommended that you start with the lower level.
I love that the Teacher's Manual includes information to download the Student Book (and a few other resources) so that I could print additional student books for other students in my home! I decided to use this program with A, B, C and D since I had permission to print student books for all of them.
Fix It! Grammar
Using Fix It! Grammar
The kids each have a spiral notebook (to rewrite the passages and keep a vocabulary dictionary) and a pocket folder (to hold lesson sheets) to use with this program.
This program is set up so that students hunt for and correct errors in daily passages that will eventually tell a full story. Each day they look up the definition for a bold word and record it in their spiral notebook. They correct the daily passage (so far a sentence each day) and then write the corrected sentence in their spiral notebook. They learn how to annotate and fix mistakes. At the end of the program, they will have the entire story written in their notebook!
Here you can see D's spiral notebook.
The first book can be used with students 3rd-12th grade. It is recommended that students use it 4 days a week and takes ~ 15 minutes a day. It is a 33 week program. I love that students are encouraged to immediately apply their new grammar knowledge in context. If you are working through the first book with older students, you can set your pace quicker so that you can move on the the next book. I have done the first 5 weeks with all the kids together but I am about to start double timing my lessons with A and B to cover the material faster with them.
A working in her spiral
A peek inside the
Student Book, a completed week 5
If using a student book you will not need a pocket folder to hold the lessons. The student book also contains weekly grammar cards that are a great tool for remembering all the concepts that have been taught. Students can use them for easy reference as needed.
I like that this curriculum has short and concise daily exercises that really help students develop and understand the editing process better. My children are really enjoy it. They are thriving with this program and they are eager to know and write the full story. It's fun to hear them guess about where the story is going and how it might end.
The Teacher Manual has everything you need for this program. It lays out the weeks nicely and walks you through how to teach this program. You will introduce a new concept each week and model for your students how to label the sentences and make the corrections. Week one focuses on nouns while week 2 focuses on articles of speech, etc. Dress-ups are introduced in week 5. It is amazing to see how much material is covered in 33 weeks. This program really makes teaching grammar easy. I love the grammar glossary included in the back of the Teacher Manual and Student Book.
Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read more reviews of IEW Fix It! Grammar.
I am really looking forward to completing this program with the kids. I also plan to use it in the future with my younger children because I think it really gives a great foundation for grammar.
