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Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum -a Homeschool Crew Review
a Homeschool Crew Review
Thank you, Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum, and the Homeschool Review Crew for giving the Foote Family Homeschool the opportunity to do a review on English 1 Language Skills (9th grade).
English 1 Language Skills (9th grade)
It is always exciting when new school resources arrive in our mailbox.
There is just something wonderful about new books!
This package included:
- Five separate student workbooks. There is one workbook for each chapter.
- Five student activity workbooks.
- A teacher’s guide and answer. This came in loose-leaf papers that had hole punches already in them in order to go directly into a 3-ring binder.
- Easy-to-Use curriculum requiring minimal parent/teacher oversight
- All courses are available in both print and digital (downloadable PDF’s)
- Softcover consumable
Chapter One
I knew I was going to like this English language skills curriculum the moment I opened up to Chapter One Lesson One and read a story about William McKinley, future president of the United States of America.
This true story was written about William McKinley while he was serving as a congressman.
It told about a morning when Mr. McKinley was riding on a filled up streetcar with standing room only remaining.
Mr. McKinley was already seated in the back of the streetcar when he noticed a colleague of his sitting up towards the front.
An obviously ill woman boarded the streetcar only to find that all of the seats were taken. She clutched the overhead strap and stood right next to McKinley’s colleague.
The colleague lifted his newspaper and pretended not to see the woman.
Appalled at such behavior William McKinley walked down the aisle and gave the woman his seat taking her place standing holding the strap.
Years later when Mr. McKinley became President William McKinley, that same colleague was recommended to the president to become an ambassador to a foreign nation. President McKinley passed this man over because he felt that a man who would not have the courtesy to give a seat to a sick woman in a crowded streetcar would never have the compassion to become a good ambassador to a troubled nation.
President McKinley never did reveal his reasons for passing over this colleague.
Life Principle Quote: You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know when it will be too late! - Anonymous
I love a good story, don’t you?
I really love a true story that is filled with virtue and goodness.
It was this story that caught my attention about this curriculum.
Not only did I have my children who live at home still read this story, but I also asked my adult children to read it when they came over to visit. It was extremely impressive.
My younger children not only enjoyed the story but they thoroughly enjoyed that it was just a very short page of reading.
These lessons are short, captivating, encouraging, and extremely educational.
Chapter One Covers Pronouns and Adjectives
Each lesson consists of one short story. It only takes a few minutes to read these stories.
They are attention-grabbing and are filled with valuable lessons.
There are one to three pages of a grammar lesson following the story.
Chapter One focuses on covering the basics of pronouns and adjectives.
Chapter Two
The Chapter Two workbook is filled with fifteen lessons.
It follows the same pattern as Chapter One by having the student read an informative short story, followed by a grammar lesson.
Life principal quote: I believe in the brotherhood of Man - not merely in the brotherhood of white men but the brotherhood of all men before the law. - Harry Truman
These stories cover historical figures, such as Herbert Hoover, Nate King Cole, Clara Barton, and more.
Chapter 2 covers verbs antonyms synonyms sentence building
Chapter Two grammar lessons focus on verbs, antonyms, and synonyms, and move into sentence building.
Chapter Three
I couldn’t help but flip through these books just to read the inspiring stories.
One of the lessons told a story about a man who worked as a carpenter for a contractor for 20 years. The contractor wanted to show this carpenter that he had confidence in him so he told him he was putting him in charge of building the next house. This carpenter would be in charge of everything from buying the materials to overseeing the job to make sure everything was done correctly. The not-so-loyal carpenter decided to cut corners everywhere he could and pocket the money that he saved by doing so.
The moral of the story was to "Build well today. You may have to live with the reputation you create."
When the contractor came to see the finished product he told the carpenter how fine a job he had done and rewarded him for his 20 years of service and great loyal work by giving him the house he had just built.
Chapter Three's Grammar Focus
Chapter Three focuses all 15 lessons on proper sentence building.
Lessons cover things like, simple sentences, compound sentences, fragments, run-on sentences, complex sentences, clauses, diagramming, and more.
Chapter Four
Each story covers something or someone from history and/or is meant to inspire your students to reach for high morals.
Every little story includes a small vocabulary list for the students to learn.
Life principal quote: duty honor and country are three hallowed words that build courage regained faith and create hope. Douglas MacArthur paraphrased
I enjoyed reading about The Legacy of Samuel Adams.
I also enjoyed reading the speech that was given by General Douglas MacArthur at West Point.
Chapter 4 covers reading and writing skills including composition
Chapter Four’s lessons cover reading skills, reading comprehension, facts & opinions, noun/verb agreement, verb tenses, composition writing, and more.
Chapter Five
I love poetry and have spent a lot of time over my homeschooling years teaching, reading, and writing poetry with my children.
Chapter Five includes some wonderful pieces of poetry.
Life principal quote: The measure of a woman is not how great her faith is but how great her love is. - Anonymous
These poetry lessons include The Power of the Negro Spiritual, Paul Revere’s Ride, and more.
Chapter Five Lessons
Chapter 5 includes brainstorming, active reading, preparing a composition forming outlines, creating good paragraphs, poetry, and short stories.
Foote Family Homeschool
Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum’s English 1 Language Skills (9th grade) is an easy-to-use curriculum requiring minimal parent/teacher oversight, so Christina was able to quickly complete these lessons on her own.
It only took a few minutes for me to review her work too.
We both loved the simplicity of these lessons.
They follow the little-dab-will-do-ya ideology.
I love short, sweet, attention-grabbing lessons.
The Foote Family Homeschool highly recommends this program.
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