ABC's and Sweet Tea: GrammarPlanet ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

For the past few weeks we have been reviewing a free comprehensive online program called GrammarPlanet. GrammarPlanet is geared for kids aged 10 to 99, and it covers grammar, punctuation, and usage.

I was super excited to review this program, because I love grammar, and my kids do not. The fact that it was all online, and free was very appealing to me. (You can pay for an ad-free version if you prefer) I thought this would be a great way for my 7th grader who isn't a fan of grammar to get some good practice in. I made a teacher/parent account and immediately got Gavin all set up to start working. It was fast and easy to get started, and also very easy to add my student. He will have his own access to the program through his user name and password.

After logging in, your student will be brought to his/her dashboard. This is where they will go through each unit, and as of right now there are 13 different units available. The first thing you are to do is print off the notes for each unit. My printer is acting up, so we just had to pull them up on the computer. It would be good to have a folder or notebook of some sort to keep all of these notes handy for your student, even if they aren't working in GrammarPlanet.

Once the notes are printed, your student is ready to watch the video that coincides with that unit. It will introduce the topic such as nouns, articles, pronouns, etc., and even pause in the middle to make sure your student is paying attention and understanding what is being taught. It will ask a question about what is being discussed. and your student chooses the correct answer.

Some of the videos seemed to overwhelm Gavin with information. I could tell he was confused a little bit, so we would watch the video again. It was almost too much information for him to soak in at times. We moved on anyway so he could start the practice portion. This is where he started getting frustrated. The first unit on nouns wasn't hard for him at all. I felt since he's in 7th grade, most of this would be second nature, and I was right. As we moved on, I could tell he was a little overwhelmed because the labeling process of the program made him completely flustered. What you were to do is go through and label the parts of the sentence. So in unit 3, the student was labeling articles, adjectives, common and proper nouns. If he labeled something wrong, especially with what they called wings, it would count against him. The wings hurt him a lot, and completely frustrated him.

If you get too many wrong, it will tell you that you need to review the video and notes, and even lock you out of the level. The parent/teacher will have to go in and unlock the level so that the student can move on. I am not a fan of this. I would have to log him out, then log myself in, unlock the level, then log myself out, and then him back in. It just seemed like a waste of time to me. I would have much rather it just not let him move on to the next level until the current level is mastered. Once you have completed the practice, and gotten most of them correct, you will take a test over the unit. I did like that it counted some parts of the sentence correct, and it wasn't just all wrong if a label was missed or missed labeled. It also lets you look at what your child missed on each sentence, so that's another plus.

We reviewed GrammarPlanet as a Beta testing. I ended up taking Gav off of the review due to him getting completely frustrated and overwhelmed with it. I think it has great potential, but I also think it is geared more for older kids like high school or college aged. I think it's just too confusing for younger students, especially those who struggle with grammar. I will say it was a great review for me since I took it over, but even I as an adult, I found some of it to be overwhelming. I failed Unit 3 THREE times before I got to move on. I was ready to throw in the towel myself! If they tweak things, and make this program a little less confusing, I think it can be fantastic. Until then, we probably won't be using it much.