Minimalist Grammar + Mechanics

Two years ago, I started my student teaching in high school physics. A year and a half ago, I got my teaching credential and began working part time for a California charter school. Last summer, I decided that when school started in the fall, I was going to try working full time while still homeschooling 3 of my 4 kids. I actually was still homeschooling my oldest as well, but he was doing it through our public school system so that he could play soccer for our local high school. I knew I was going to have very limited time to focus on my kids’ education. I needed to have a plan.

Many people know that I made my kids’ Minimalist Math elementary curriculum. I’m pretty proud of this. I worked hard to make sure the math covered all the same content kids would see in a traditional curriculum and it has built in repetition that helps these concepts to stick. For science, we have been using Science is WEIRD for the past 4 years and love it. For history, we’ve tried different things, but last year, I just read a chapter each week from Curiosity Chronicles and it went fine. Language Arts though! I love Brave Writer. I used to work for Brave Writer. Their philosophy about education aligns really well with my own unschool-y tendencies. However, it’s a bit parent-intensive. You read great books and discuss. A LOT. I knew I wasn’t going to do it justice while working full time.

That awareness of my own limits led me to create 36 worksheets last summer that covered the basics of what I felt like kids should know from looking through the various language arts curriculum I’ve purchased over the years. Capitalization, punctuation, homonyms, parts of speech, sentence structure, verb tenses, point of view, even a little spelling…I wanted to make sure they were touching on these topics throughout the year so that they could get more comfortable with them.

Brave Writer uses actual passages from actual books written by real authors which I love. I didn’t want there to be any sort of copyright issues and I wanted to tailor the passages to the concepts that I wanted kids to think about, so I wrote my own. I am not an author. These passages are a little silly and far-fetched, but I wrote things that I hoped my kids would find mildly amusing. Each page is one week of work, which takes about 15 minutes with help.

There are 3 parts to each page. The top part focuses on mechanics through corrections (end marks, commas, punctuating dialogue, capitalization, that sort of thing) with a little bit of spelling through having them pick the correct homonym (such as there/their/they’re) and correcting spelling mistakes.

The second part focuses on sentence structure by having them learn to identify the subject and predicate as well as the type of sentence (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory). We also focus on verb tenses (past/present/future) and point of view (first/second/third).

The third part is entirely grammar work by having them identify parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, articles, adverbs, etc.).

After I had made 36 worksheets for the 36 weeks of the school year, I still had a little time, so I decided to go through all 36 sheets and make a LEVEL 2 for my middle schooler. It is the exact same passages, but I added at most a sentence or two and asked them to do more (make more corrections, identify more parts of speech, etc.). I also added in some more difficult concepts like gerunds, participles, and appositives. Not that I think my kids really need to know these things, but I don’t them to be afraid of words they’ve never heard of before.

Minimalist Grammar and Mechanics - Two Levels

More than anything, these sheets became conversation starters. To be fair, I think most adults don’t know all of these concepts (and we’re just fine, aren’t we? 🤪). It got to the point that my husband wouldn’t help their kids on these sheets, because he didn’t have a lot of confidence that he was doing it correctly. The reason why I didn’t post these last summer was because I wanted to have experience using them, and I wanted to make an answer key. I just finished the answer keys about a couple weeks ago, but they are currently only available to Patreon subscribers. It is $5/month and you can cancel after one month, but if that is a financial burdern, just let me know and we can work something out.

Minimalist Grammar and Mechanics Answer Key

These sheets definitely served their purpose. My third grader used Level 1 all year. My 7th grader used Level 2 all year. My 5th grader started with Level 1, but partway through the year, I realized there wasn’t any reason why he couldn’t do Level 2 so I switched him. If you know what you are doing, I would say Level 1 takes about 60 seconds and Level 2 takes about 3 minutes. Since the kids inevitably need help and require some explanation, overall, they would work on it on their own for about 5 to 10 minutes, then I would help them for around 10 minutes, reminding them what all the different concepts mean.

There is no instruction included, so if you need help, you will likely need to search on Google (or YouTube) for concepts like conjunctions. (I know I did!) After having put this together, though, and writing up an answer key, I feel pretty confident that I know what I’m doing, so also feel free to reach out if you have a questions or think I got something wrong!

Recommended Age Range: Elementary, Middle School (roughly 3rd to 8th grade, should have some basic reading skills)
Time Required: about 20 minutes per week
Difficulty: varies, there are easier and harder concepts each week
Cost: Free printable

Materials
paper

Instructions
Print out the curriculum and help your child complete one worksheet each week for each of the 36 weeks of school. If your child is in 3rd through 5th grade, I would try Level 1 first. If your child is in 6th to 8th grade, you may want to consider starting with Level 2.

Free Printable

Minimalist Grammar + Mechanics – Level 1

Minimalist Grammar + Mechanics – Level 2