Critical Thinking: Editor in Chief Level 1 Review

Who knew that teaching/learning grammar could be so enjoyable?! Well I do now. I have to admit I don’t find teaching grammar nearly as fun as say science or math; necessary, but not as much fun. We have been reviewing Editor in Chief Level 1  from The Critical Thinking Co. and we really, really like it.

For this review, we received the physical book Editor in Chief Level 1.  There are so many things I like about this curriculum.  For one, I am thankful that I can make copies of the workbook to use with multiple children.  (Hooray!)  The lessons are just the right length, not too long, not too short. A wide variety of topics are taught and reviewed and the passages that the students edit are interesting and filled with facts.

Editor in Chief Level 1 contains 12 Lessons which are then divided into four activities each.

The lessons cover:

• Lesson 1 Content
• Lesson 2 Capitalization
• Lesson 3 Punctuation
• Lesson 4 Spelling Rules
• Lesson 5 Nouns and Pronouns
• Lesson 6 Adjectives, Adverbs, Articles
• Lesson 7 Verbs
• Lesson 8 Agreement
• Lesson 9 Conjunctions, Prepositions, and Interjections
• Lesson 10 Confused Word Pairs/Negative Words
• Lesson 11 Homophones and Homographs
• Lesson 12 Run-On Sentences and Sentence Fragments

At the beginning of each lesson, the student is introduced to the topic of the lesson.  For example, in Lesson 2 (Capitalization) the rules for using capital letters are introduced with examples for each rule.  These rules are written out in such a way that the student can easily refer back to them while they are editing the activity passages, if they need a reminder.

Each activity then contains errors in the passage that the student must identify.  Each passage also lists the number of errors the student must find; this is helpful so they know how many errors they are trying to find.  There is also a space provided at the bottom of the page for the student to rewrite the passage without errors, this is optional.  Generally, I had my children rewrite one passage per week.

There are also Mini Reviews following Lesson 3, Lesson 6, Lesson 9 and Lesson 12.  A Review after Lesson 6 which reviews Lessons 1-6, a Review after Lesson 12 which reviews Lessons 7-12 and a Final Review which reviews all 12 Lessons.

The last section of the book contains the Answers.  The Answers section has the passage written out with the corrections made in bold.  Below the passage, it also lists each individual correction and why it should be corrected.

I also really, really like that I can use the same workbook for multiple kids.  When we received Editor in Chief, I took it to a local business and asked for them to cut the binding off and three hole punch it so I could put it in a binder. They were gracious enough to do this for no charge. (Don’t you just love small town, locally owned businesses?!)  By having it in a three-ring binder, it is much easier to make copies when I need them.

The Critical Thinking Co. copyright states the that “you do not need permission to copy materials, and are not required to complete the application, if you wish to reproduce pages from The Critical Thinking Co.™ books that belong to you for use in a single classroom. Please note that in the case of parents and home educators, “classroom,” signifies a single household.”

Check our more reviews of The Critical Thinking Co. from other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

Blessings,

Jennifer