My Life as Mrs. Cooks: GrammarPlanet

Even as a blogger I am not a grammar queen, who am I kidding I'm not even a grammar princess. English was my least favorite subject when I was in school but has a homeschool mom I have come to enjoy teaching it. I want my children to get it, you know really understand it. Especially, now when we are living in a time when everyone is using abbreviations to communicate and relying on Google to help them with everything. So for the last couple of months, we have been using GrammarPlanet. For the most part, my children have gained some solid knowledge on how the English language work.

What We Received

We received a free one-year subscription to their online grammar program.

About GrammarPlanet

GrammarPlanet is an online grammar program. It is designed to help students and adults (in my opinion) master the mechanics of English. It teaches grammar, punctuation, and usage. They offer a free and paid program. The free portion has ads and the paid portion is ad-free. This is a mastery program so your child will need to have a good grasp on the current concept before being able to move on to the next. It is recommended for children ages 10 an up and can be used at school, in the home, or for adults.

Once you log in you will select the unit you are on. Each unit has a PDF of notes for you to print out and a video teaching you the lesson. Once you have watched the video you can begin the lesson. There's a test after each lesson to ensure you have mastered the lesson, you will need to pass that test in order to move on to the next unit.

How We Used It

I believe GrammarPlanet can be used as a stand-alone grammar curriculum or as a supplement. We used it both ways, for my older kids I had them use it as a supplement and for my younger son as a stand-alone curriculum.

There are a couple different ways you can schedule it out a unit. You can do it all in one day or you can schedule a 3 day week. We used both ways. My older kids did a unit a day twice a week. If they were struggling or got stuck on a concept we would spend more time on it.

I had my younger son work on a 3-day week type schedule.

Day one - He read over the notes and watched the video.
Day two - He did the practice questions
Day three - He took the test

Breaking the units up into smaller sections like this worked better for him because trying to do it all in one day became overwhelming and just frustrated him. I also found he retained the information better when we broke it up like this.

*Suggestion - to help save on ink I printed the PDF notes before each new unit and placed them in sheet protectors inside of a small 3 ring binder. The binder was available for all the kids when they need to look over the notes. The sheet protectors help in the prevention of tearing the paper being they are being shared amongst more than one child.

Each video is interactive it asks questions randomly throughout the video to ensure the kids are retaining the information being taught to them.

Our Final Thoughts

I asked each of my children what they thought about GrammarPlanet and this is what they each had to say.

My 11-year old daughter said, "GrammarPlanet is nice it teaches you a lot of grammar rules. I never knew what articles were so I learned something new. I don't like that there are so many questions, but I love breaking the sentences apart to label the different parts of speech. I also like that we were able to have the notes printed out, that helped when I couldn't remember something. On a scale of 1-10, I would give it a 7. I would recommend this to my friends."

My 9-year-old son said, "I like it but I don't like how the tests are so hard and when I get them wrong I can't retry them. (MOM here for a second - in your parent account you are able to reset the test if your child doesn't pass it so that they can retake it. He wanted to retry it right then and there.) Umm, I also like how it teaches you nouns and Proper nouns. I like how it is split up and it's not all taught together. I think other kids should use this to learn all about nouns."

My 12-year old son said, " Umm I like how the lesson starts with a lecture and notes. They don't just put you out there. I like that because the notes help me to remember the information when I am doing the lesson. One thing I don't like is the questions in the middle of the video because it throws me off. I have to think hard to remember what the lady said after that. I learned about using wings. I also learned that common nouns are never capitalized. I think the practice lessons are way too long. I like that I was able to see how I did on a lesson right away I did not have to wait for it to be graded because I don't like waiting to see if I got my work right or wrong. I think this would be great for children 9 and older."

Mom Thoughts

Overall I think this is a great grammar resource. The lessons are interactive and thorough. My kids learned a lot even though they had previously been taught some of these things they were able to retain it better using GrammarPlanet. Unit 2 was a bit confusing for my kids because of the wings. The notes stated that if a Proper Noun consists of more than one-word use wings to show words that are apart of it. They have never been taught that before, but once they got the hang of it they were good.

I think it would be nice if the kids knew how many practice questions they had. My son got a bit anxious each time he finished a question and another one popped up because he never knew when it would end. I also think some of the sentences were to advance for younger kids. My 9-year-old, for example, had a hard tie breaking the sentence down because he didn't know what a lot of the words were. Aside from that, it's a win in our home. I am even enjoying learning proper grammar using this program. So, I would definitely recommend it for children and adults, rather you are just now learning, brushing up on your skills, or preparing for a test this is a great online grammar program.