Review of Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3

My friend Gracie helped me to review Hake/Saxon Grammar & Writing 3 from Hake Publishing.

To be honest, she wasn't too excited at first. Grammar? Who enjoys grammar? However, when we started digging into the  lesson, she enjoyed it! She was more enthusiastic about later lessons.

Let me tell you about Hake/Saxon Grammar & Writing 3.

I received three books: a grammar workbook, a writing workbook, and a teacher's manual. 

We did all of lesson one in both workbooks in a half hour. Now keep in mind that this was Gracie's first introduction to real grammar instruction. 

The teacher's manual is very detailed and perfect for any mom who needs step-by-step help in teaching the lesson. Gracie's mom looked through the teachers manual while Gracie and I worked on the lessons. She liked it!

Even if you don't have the teacher's manual, you will not have any problem teaching this material. The workbooks are user-friendly for Mom and student.

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Easy-to-Understand Lessons & Lots of Review

Lesson one in the grammar workbook gives us vocabulary first with the root word "anim" which means "breath". We talked about two words: animal (a living creature that breathes who is not a human being) and animation (making pictures look like they are moving). 

Then we learn what a sentence is, as well as subject and predicate. The exercises that follow on the two-page lesson were not complicated. Gracie did not need my help answering the questions and several of the questions tied in our vocabulary words "animal" and "animation". 

Moving through the book, grammar topics such as commons, quotation marks, pronouns, nouns, verbs, diagramming, capitalization, and predicate nominatives are all covered in a logical order. Everything is explained in an easy-to-follow way so that most children will be able to do some of work independently.

I am so impressed with the amount of review! Each lesson has questions to review former lessons. This is great because I have horrible memories of working through grammar workbooks only to find that my children don't remember anything except the last lesson. Every five lessons, there is a test, except at the beginning where it is after the first ten lessons.

We went over to the writing workbook where Gracie wrote sentences. Yay! I love starting writing instruction with learning to write sentences, the building block of paragraphs and papers. Now, I know that the teachers edition suggests doing the writing lessons on the test days which fall on different days of the week since they follow every five lessons. However, I am investing more time in writing. I just have Gracie do more writing sentences during the first ten lessons until there is a test. For most third graders, writing sentences is more of a review. However, in teaching high school English classes at homeschool co-op, I often wishes moms spent more time teaching children to craft a good sentence. 

The writing lessons are excellent and thorough. I love that students evaluate their writing and rewrite as a complete lesson. I think rewriting is an essential part of learning to write with excellence. The early paragraphs are guided so that children don't have to spend hours figuring out what they will write. Since the curriculum is written for schools and home schools, you can adapt some assignments. When the topic sentence was given, "I will create a new classroom," we changed it to "I will create a new homeschool room." There is also spelling weaved into the curriculum every fifth lesson with spelling rules explained and applied, as well as dictionary skills. This curriculum has everything you need except literature to teach language arts in third or fourth grade. 

​Over all, using Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 was a happy experience and Gracie learned a lot about Grammar and writing. Would I recommend it to other Moms? You betcha!

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Learn More about Hake Publishing

Would you like to learn more about Hake Publishing? 

You can check them out at their website. 

You can read more reviews from TOS Review Crew here. 

Stephen Hake is the author of Saxon Math. I used Saxon math with all my children from fourth grade to senior year. The thing I loved about Saxon was the constant review of math learned previously. 

Mary Hake and Christie Curtis have written Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3. They have continued the practice of review that I really liked with Saxon Math. Learn a new lesson, apply, and review what  you have already learned. That's why makes Saxon Math great and it's what makes Hake/Saxon Grammar and Writing 3 great too.

Until next time, Happy Homeschooling!
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For His Glory, 
Meredith Curtis

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