Schoolhouse Rock’s grammar series is legendary, for good reason. Here are all eight of their fabulous grammar videos to help kiddos remember their verbs, nouns, interjections and more.
Nouns:
Pronouns:
Verbs:
Adverbs:
Adjectives:
Conjunctions:
Prepositions:
Interjections:
A few years ago I blogged here about some of the ant experiments we’d done lately and I wrote up a bunch of them as part of an Examiner article, with a link to an ant running Victoria’s chalk ant maze.
Examiner changed formats since then and the old format ate the video, so I rewrote it today and put the video back up. If you’d like to see an 11 year-old Victoria showing how to make an ant maze (and hear a silly me in the background), I put it up here today:
There’s also directions for a cool ant trail experiment, taste tests (no, you don’t taste the ants), fun ant books for little ones, natural repellents to try, and so on.
At some point, I also want to retry our butter experiment, which you might remember was derailed by our cats.
I’m still not entirely sure why we should base our butter/margarine choices on what is preferred by ants, though. We did the experiment after seeing lots of posts on Facebook and such about how ants won’t eat margarine. Is the idea that ants will instinctively pick a healthier choice? Why? The cats sure didn’t. I’ve seen what dogs eat, and I wouldn’t choose my foods based on which ones they’d pick either. I’m pretty sure ants would choose a Pixie stick full of sugar and red dye over raw veggies any day. So why do we really care about their dairy spread preferences? Just a thought.
Anyway, if you have an assortment of the little critters around your driveway these days, there’s a few ways to put them to work. 😉
Our new dog has terrible grammar. She’s absolutely fabulous in just about every other way. She’s loyal, loving, affectionate, playful, gentle, well trained…
But she does not understand the proper usage of the words “lie” and “lay.”
If you tell Layla (how ironically named!) to lie down, she stares at you blankly. Tell her to lay down and she lies right down.
Ahem.
Only I would actually be bothered enough to correct my dog’s grammar!
I tell her that you lay eggs and you lie down, but she just flat out doesn’t care.
Good thing she’s so good at algebra. 😉
Want to help the kids know when to say lie, lay, laid and lain? Grammar Monster has an easy page on it. Grammar Tips has a slightly more sophisticated version (complete with explanations of transitive and intransitive verbs) and this reminder:
(via The New Yorker — cartoon by Willian Haefeli)
Happy Mother’s Day (or Mothers’ Day) to all the mamas out there. 🙂
Here’s a bit of what’s clogging up my browser today…
Think jack-o’-lanterns are frightening? Try being a man in Ukraine. Then you’ll truly understand what it’s like to fear a pumpkin.
For centuries in the Eastern European nation, a pumpkin meant one thing: No, I won’t marry you.
An old tradition held that a would-be suitor would visit a woman’s house to propose. If the answer was yes, there was family toasting and celebration. If no, the poor guy was silently handed a pumpkin….
Poor guys! 🙂 Read the rest from NPR here.
Pink and Green Mama has more on how to make these fun beasties!
Up to 20,000 years before they had bows and arrows to hunt with, those who roamed what would someday become the U.S. used something called an atlatl to put elk and venison on the supper table…
And mammoth! Don’t forget mammoth! If you’re curious about this atlatl thingee that I’m always posting about, this article has some good basic information about it.
I’m not sure about you, but I have to admit that we’d never played with story dice before. Halloween is the perfect excuse to start seeing as spooky stories always seem to capture their imagination. It’s hysterical to hear the stories they come up with! We’d love to hear yours…
These printable dice sound like fabulous fun! Visit Made in Me to print yours.
A phrase says the amendment “would ensure that the right to vote for persons with mental illness cannot be taken away by the Legislature.”
The mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before – on a flight to Mars.
The snag is that you’d never come back.
The U.S. space agency Nasa is actively investigating the possibility of humans colonising other worlds such as the Red Planet in an ambitious project named the Hundred Years Starship.
Wow! Amazing stuff to ponder. Read the full story here.
i’m not really convenced when he says no publisher is doing this.
i used to work for Harcourt School publishers who (at least 8 years ago) were the leader in all school book publishig for the USA and they were producing ebook versions of the text books.
then later in life i started taking night classes at university of phoenix and pretty much every single book i had to buy was a digital book (from various publishers)
so yeah i call BS on that front.
on the other hand i will conseed that these guys seem to be taking it the next logical step forward with the audio and video componants. i really look forward to downloading their first chapter and checking it out!!!
Sigh.
This from someone who:
a) Worked for a textbook company, and
b) Attended a university
What’s even worse is that someone replied to this person and appeared to “correct” the spelling of concede, with a new wrong spelling! And some snazzy new spellings of his/her own…
@ Iblissli While I will conceed that others are attempting to do this, No One has anything like this available for High schools in the US. I have used the “digital” material that Harcourt provides and I would not put exxentially a scan of the book page on the same level as an interactive video hyperlinked, searchable text. This is the next logical step in the evolution of education. I will be waiting for the first chapter eagerly. When will the physics, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy… texts be comming?
Hey kids… Your homework is to see how many errors you can find in those quotes! 😉
This:
Victoria found this article about albino animals. It’s pretty neat to look at with the kids! I’m not sure it’s all the best scientific information, but it’s a fantastic springboard to find out more. She’s also taught me some fancy word for an animal that seems albino but isn’t, but I’ve forgotten (I have a mind like a collander!). I’ll have her write up a paragraph and I’ll post it. 🙂
That:
Here’s a huge list of secular homeschool blogs.
The Other:
I finished this series up a few days ago and had a lot of fun with it.
We’re off in a couple of hours to the Mankato area to spend the night with the grandparents and buy a new (to us) van. Tomorrow is Jack’s birthday, the next day is Victoria’s birthday and Monday is Alex’s birthday.
I’m baking cakes from scratch for all three. There are at least 2 parties. I still have to finish buying presents and party favors.
I’m tired. 🙂
I’ll try to check in occasionally in the tornado that will be the next 4 days.
In the meantime, this (not that first part) makes me grin…. A lot. 😉
Not only is this often funny but it’s a great way to learn the rules with the kids. I’m guilty of a few of these!
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
I had to post this fabulous idea from Sparklee to go along with today’s festivities. I love this! We could have a blast doing this here, I think!
Magic and Mayhem 