Do you find yourself wishing you could grasp more natural teaching moments with your child? Do you have a child who resists anything contrived or in workbook form? Do you love unit studies, but have a hard time working in the nitty gritty details of grammar? Are you a Charlotte Mason or Ruth Beechick family who wants to get more out of copywork? Are you an unschooling or eclectic-learning family that wants to introduce small snippets of grammar into normal life? We are two moms who created this website for our own use, but would love to share it with others who are in the same boat. Dig in, explore, and let us know what you think!

Monday, May 28, 2012

Subject 1 - Declarative Sentences

This lesson is the first "meaty" lesson that brings several concepts together.  Plan to take a little longer on it.

 The subject of a sentence is a noun that is the focus of the sentence; it performs the verb. (The noun by itself is called the simple subject; the noun plus all the words around it is the complete subject.)

 The subject answers these questions:

 Who? + verb
What? + verb

 I ate the cake. Who ate the cake? I.
The dog chased the cat. Who chased? The dog.

 A declarative sentence is a statement. In English, the natural word order for a declarative sentence places the subject at the beginning of the sentence.

 The first word in a sentence is always capitalized; the end punctuation for a declarative sentence is a period.

Example: Bob eats apples.
The subject is "Bob."

Teaching Ideas:
  • Practice speaking like Yoda (from Star Wars); switch the predicate to the front of the sentence.  See if your child can still find the subject.
    • Bob eats apples. = Apples Bob eats.
    • You will see many things. = Many things you will see.
  • Play a subject game ("Search By Topic" in sidebar) such as Magnetic Poetry.
Copywork Ideas (younger):
  • Choose any simple copywork that is a declarative sentence.
    • find the nouns
      • which one is the subject?
    • capitalize the first word
    • punctuate with a period
  • The egg jumped. (Eastman, Are You My Mother?)
    • nouns - egg
      • subject - egg
    • capitalize "The"
    • punctuate with a period
  • Spot is my cat.  (The Elson Readers - Primer*)
    • nouns - Spot, cat
      • subject - Spot
    • capitalize "Spot"**
    • punctuate with a period
    • Yoda - My cat Spot is.

Copywork Ideas (older):
  • Character makes its own destiny.  (Mrs. Campbell Praed)
  • Fortune and love befriend the bold. (Ovid)
  • Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.  (Joseph Roux)

*Free on Google books.
**We often talk about "double capitals" - a word that is capitalized both because it is a proper nouns, and because it is at the beginning of a sentence.

The copywork below was a poem my son wrote using Magnetic Poetry.  After he copied his poem, we verbally talked through it.
  • "Can you circle all the nouns?" (black marker). (At this point we are not distinguishing between nouns and pronouns.)
  • "Can you circle all the verbs?" (red marker). (At this point we are not including helping verbs).
  • "Do you know which word is the subject in the first sentence?  It is a noun."
  • "Can you find the subject in the second sentence?  Remember it is the noun that DOES the verb."
  • "Let's check to make sure you capitalized the first word in each sentence."
  • "What is the name of the punctuation mark at the end?"


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