How to use a grammar notebook

[Clara in Miami]

This is sort of a combo of the other two previous posts...I humbly confess that i do not know how to "usé" or make a "notebook"

I would like to start harvey's at least a chap or two before my daughter
I read the way the notebook was setup in the previous post but I don't think I "get" it
does that make sense....

i.e.harvey's begins w/ objects , then defn, then sentences etc ..are these different sections of a notebook

I would've normally just opened a ntbk and started the excercises in order..but I'm seeing that in the end my notebk should be a refernce type bk, that I can add more detailed info about certain topics as they come up which I guess is the rational for the sections

whew I think my brains are fried these days...this should be such a no brainer and some simple concept here seems to elude me

Such is the life of all of us non classically educated moms

I hope I made some sense.......

clara in miami

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Clara,

We do two things.

1. We have a regular grammar exercise book (composition bound notebook) for just doing the exercises in Harvey (and whatever grammar we apply to our weekly readings).

2. We do Grammar CopyBook for a reference work

What I copied below is from this web page where you may wish to read more.

home.att.net/~MikeJaqua/homer.html

HTH,

Lene

Grammar Copy Book –



The grammar copybook is a place for the student to copy the definitions and examples he runs across in his daily grammar work. The PURPOSE of this book is to foster exact memory of definitions for usage later.



Every grammar copybook session the student spends the first 5 minutes reviewing old definitions already copied into the grammar copy book during previous lessons. Then the teacher checks the student’s retention with an oral or written quiz of those definitions. My students like writing them as a quiz on the white board. Then the student will move on to copying the new theory in the day’s lesson into the grammar copybook. Not every day will introduce new theory for the grammar copybook.



Our grammar book is divided up by parts of speech, so that is how our grammar copy book is divided also. The student just starts on the first page of the copybook and copies through the book until the book is filled.



Each entry in the book looks something like this:



GRAMMAR TERM

a. definition
b. example of term used in a sentence (If Harvey doesn’t have one, we make up one ourselves)
c. rule of usage, or how it ties in with other grammar terms (when applicable)





F.ex. my 9 year old daughter is studying verbs. Harvey's Elementary #83-#98 is about verbs.



She copies the list of the properties of verbs: voice, mode, tense, number, and person. Then she copies the definition of each property. That suffices for one copy session. In fact, she is not a fast copier and neatness is important to me, so that amount of copying I will often have her do over two days.


Right now, she is studying the tenses of verbs.

She copies into her book every definition.

1. Tense denotes.... bla, bla
2. There are six tenses : ... bla, bla

Now we get to the individual components of definitions which she does like
this.

For example: Present tense


a. definition of present tense
b. example of a verb in present tense in a sentence
c. rule, if Harvey has one, which in this case he doesn't



etc...

[Clara in Miami]

Ah...the fog has lifeted!!!

Thanks so very much Lene.....I had completely forgotten about the Harvey's class!!! So I'll just hang on till then
I'm so excited

[Tammy]

I am new to this website, but I've been teaching grammar for about 71/2 years. I began in 1998 with my older children. At the time I used Shurley Grammar and then graduated to Harvey's grammar.
The grammar notebook is a great way to help the kids keep the definitions straight. In fact, I ended up creating chants/songs to go with Harvey's definitions. Other moms and families wanted them, so I made a Grammar CD with 20 different songs. I really like Harvey's grammar. I use the oral analysis to analyze sentences before I diagram them. Thanks for having this website for others to learn.

[kana]

Why did you switch from Shurley to Harvey's? I am using Shurley at the moment