IEW Fix It! Grammar Level 2 Town Mouse and Country Mouse Review

Disclosure:  I received this complimentary product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW.

If you know us, then you know that I am a huge fan of the Institute for Excellence in Writing (often called IEW for short).  We love both their grammar and writing programs so I was pleased as punch to receive their Fix It! Grammar Level 2 Town Mouse and Country Mouse to use with E.  Level 1 and Level 2 comprise their elementary school grammar curriculum, Level 3 and Level 4 comprise their middle school grammar curriculum and Level 5 and 6 comprise their high school grammar curriculum.

We received the Teacher's Manual, Student Book, and the add-on Fix It! Grammar Cards.

 

 I am using this program with E who is in 4th grade and it's perfect for her.

 

I want to note that IEW recommends that students with little or no grammar background begin in Level 1 regardless of their age.  This will give students a foundation as well as familiarize them with the program.  Level 1 introduces basic parts of speech, end-mark punctuation, phrases, clauses, homophones, etc.  Our Level 2 Town Mouse and Country Mouse continues defining parts of speech, explains basic comma and capitalization rules, introduces complex sentence patterns and more!  I love that Fix It! Grammar teaches grammar in as little as 15 minutes a day, 4 days a week.  Level 2 is a 30 week grammar program.

Working on Week 1 Day 1

Above you can see the pages for Week 1 from E's student notebook.

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, these are their vocabulary words.  They correct the daily passage and then write the corrected sentence in their student 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!

Page 1 of the Scope and Sequence found in the Teacher's Manual.  I love being able to have a quick glance and overview of concepts learned each week.

The Teacher Manual has everything you need for teaching this program.  It lays out the weeks nicely and walks you through all the instructions.  It is amazing to see how much material is covered in 30 weeks.  IEW Fix It! Grammar really makes teaching grammar easy and my kids quite enjoy it.  I love the grammar glossary included in the back of the Teacher's Manual as well.

Grammar Cards

Our grammar cards are a fun addition.  I love that they highlight key grammar concepts so students can use them for quick and easy reference.  They can also be used to play a variety of fun and easy-to-learn games.

Want to know more?  Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read even more reviews of IEW's Fix It! Grammar, including other levels.

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Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level B from Institute for Excellence in Writing® Review

{Disclaimer:  I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review.  I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.  This post contains affiliate links.}


If you have been in the homeschool community for any amount of time, chances are good that you have at least heard of the Institute for Excellence in Writing® (or IEW® for short) and their writing curriculum.  We were so blessed to receive their Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level B (grades 6-8) to use in our own homeschool!

D and C with their binders.

C (8th grade) and D (6th grade) will be using this program throughout this school year.  A, B and D have all participated in IEW through our weekly homeschool CoOp in the past.  A and D have taken 1 year, while B has taken 2 years.  C has never taken an IEW writing course so this will be his first time using the program.

What's included in this course?  Our physical kit contained a teacher's manual, a student packet and binder, and a card with a unique code for forever digital streaming video instruction.

Our physical kit

Inside the student binder are tabs so everything in the student packet gets organized as you progress on throughout the year.

While there is an option to purchase DVDs if desired, I love that we have unlimited online access to all the videos for our entire family so I don't have to store them or worry about misplacing them.  The student packet is consumable but can be reproduced within your immediate family.  I went ahead and ordered an extra student binder and packet this go around instead of making copies to make my life easier and to give C and D each their own binder.  IEW makes this process easy!

C and D's student binders

What is IEW® and how does their writing program work?  This program uses a unique approach by providing structure for students to learn.  The goal is to help students build confidence in their writing while also moving towards more independence and creativity in their own writing.  The nine structural models used are note taking, writing paragraphs, stories, simple reports, writing from pictures, research reports, creating writing, essays, and critiques.  These models will give students the tools to organize any type of composition they may come across.  I personally love the stylistic techniques that students learn incrementally to help develop more sophisticated writing - these include strong verbs, quality adjectives, sentence openers, various clauses and more!

This course is divided into 24 weeks and is easy to use.  I say this because I feel like most people are intimidated by writing programs and teaching writing but IEW is user friendly and is organized extremely well.  They have put the work into this program and it shows!  

 

 You guys know I love a good Scope and Sequence.  Above is the first page.  It tells you which week each stylistic technique will be introduced as you can see that the -ly adverb appears in week 2 and the who/which clause appears in week 3.  I really appreciate the literature suggestions as well.

D and C with the 1st literature book suggestion, The Twenty-One Balloons

There are daily assignments for each week.  They even show you how to adapt this schedule for a one-day-a-week program, a two-or three-day-a-week program or a four-or-five-day-a-week program.  These schedules give you a lot of flexibility to use this program how it fits your needs best.  I really appreciate the lesson plans for teachers!

Above you can see the lesson overview for Unit 1, Week 1

You can see that students will watch the 1st video this week broken into two parts.  Students will write about their home and save their paper for the last week of the program (it's a before and after type experiment).  They will write a KWO, or key word outline, from a few sources with the class (on the video).  And they will tell about that source from their KWO.

The video dashboard is easy to navigate as you just select the video you need.

Andrew Pudewa is the instructional teacher on the videos.  He is funny and super easy to relate to.  Above, you can see him walking students through the process of creating their first KWO.

A KWO example with the Source Text

I also want to mention that IEW has a companion grammar program that fits extremely well alongside Structure and Style and that is their Fix It! Grammar program.  You may remember our review of their 1st book in the series, The Nose Tree.  We enjoyed it so much that we will be using their 2nd book, Robin Hood this year alongside this program.

Our Fix It! Grammar Book 2 Set

I really like that the Structure and Style daily schedule includes the Fix It! Grammar program as well.

I mentioned that I'm using this Level with C and D.  I also went ahead and purchased Level C (which is in post production) to use with A and B this year for high school as well.  I'm hoping to receive it at the end of this month.  If it's not obvious, I'm a huge IEW® fan!  If you are looking for a well rounded writing curriculum for your students, I cannot think of a program that I would recommend more.

Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read even more reviews of IEW®'s Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level B as well as reviews for their Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level A (Grades 3-5) and stay tuned for reviews of their Structure and Style® for Students Year 1 Level C (High School).

You can engage with IEW® on social media @:

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IEW Fix It! Grammar The Nose Tree Review

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.

Fix It! Grammar The Nose Tree (Book 1) - Teacher Manual and Student Book (both spiral-bound)

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.

A peek inside the Teacher's Manual

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.