Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew
There are certain things that I tend to shy away from in Homeschooling. Greek and Latin being two of them. They seem to be hallmarks of classical education. I’ve never been one for the classical model of education… though I see great value in it and recommend it all the time. I see the value in learning language roots and what not, but I have never quite been able to incorportate it into my homeschool. When given the opportunity to review It’s NOT Greek to Me! From Ready to Teach, I’ll admit I was hesitant. But just as I encourage my children to try new things, I try to practice that as well.
The premise of the program is that “Teen learners possess much more vocabulary knowledge than they realize.”
We received two books and a USB. We received the Student book as well as the Instruction manual. The course is all about using Greek morphemes to understand and use words better. “Morphemes” is a fancy word for root words and prefixes/ suffixes. Much of the English language is built from these morphemes. In fact:
- over 40% of all English words involve Greek morphemes
- over 50% of all English words involve Latin morphemes
- over 90% of all English science, medical and engineering terms involve Greek and/or Latin morphemes
I have two high schoolers this year. The SAT is on the horizon. It’s NOT Greek to Me! states that it provides “lasting keys to unlocking the meaning of thousands of words and thus increasong SAT vocabulary scores.”
In my life, I have currently bitten off more than I can chew. I work part time in youth ministry which is very time intensive. I also do website maintance and social media management for our church. It is not time intensive, but still has to get done. But wait… there’s more. I took on a position of co-directing a homeschool co-op with close to 200 students this year. I’m teaching 2 elementary classes, assisting in a middle school class, and teaching one high school class. Oh… and you know… homeschooling my own four. And I manage this blog and try to produce reviews and content for all you lovely folks in the blog-o-sphere. Y’all… this mama is stretched thin!
Why am I telling you this?
Once upon a time, I loved creating my own curriculum. I still do, but don’t necessarily have the time or energy to do so. When a program like It’s NOT Greek to Me! comes along that requires no-prep and comes ready to just open and go… well… that’s a good thing!
The program includes 12 student lessons. Each lesson involves 15- 22 Greek morphemes. Each lesson builds on the one prior. Lessons are designed to reach visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.
In addition to the book set, we received a USB with a self-paced power point presentation. We have Power Point, but I know some people do not. So… I’m not sure if you’d be able to open the files with something like Google Slides or if you’d have to make sure you have Power Point. The Power Point slides are amazing and do the teaching for you. Don’t overlook them as they are a valuable part of this program.
I really like how the program builds vocabulary knowledge and unlocks the knowledge that students already have. By using over 200 word parts in this program, students are able to unlock the meanings of many other words.
We also received a hole punch (office supplies speak to my love language) to assist in putting together study flash cards. They really did think of everything!
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