The English Zone (Verbs)– scroll down and choose sites that have sunglasses by them. Examples: Lie or Lay, Be Verb Present Tense, There Is There Are, Be Verb Present Tense, Be Verb Past Tense
Grammar Blast Verbs
verb tenses exercises–This site has exercises for each form of the verb within the verb tense
Other Verbs (infinitives, gerunds, etc.)
Irregular Verbs
Main Page for Grammar Sites

I just gotta add this site to my list of educational sites. It contains easy to understand writings of history. Mrs. Happy Housewife uses it in teaching her children. Here are a couple of good books found on this site, God’s Troubadour, The Story of St. Francis and American History Stories, Volume I. It’s called the Baldwin Project.

My sister is teaching English as a Second Language in another country. She said her classes really like American idioms. I want to teach my children the most creative and best idioms to make their speech more colorful also. Here are some website I found:
Clichesite.com
Dave’s ESL Cafe
The Idiom Connection
Self-study Idiom Quizzes
EnglishZone.com
Teaching Idioms
Fun Brain: Paint by Idioms

Last week I gave my children a vocabulary word,
abstract.
I was trying to describe its meaning outside what the dictionary said. I contrasted it with the word concrete and then told of the difference between a concrete and an abstract noun. I gave them the example that freedom is an abstract noun.
I found a quote that gives several examples of the abstract and it also sends a good message. It is by a former president, Calvin Coolidge. I found it on Mrs. Happy Housewife:
We do not need more material development,
we need more spiritual development.
We do not need more intellectual power,
we need more moral power.
We do not need more knowledge,
we need more character.
We do not need more government,
we need more culture.
We do not need more law,
we need more religion.
We do not need more of the things that are seen,
we need more of the things that are unseen.”
-Calvin Coolidge

Here is a site listing short stories and describe the elements that make a good story. It is called the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. The lesson plans are intended for upper grades (7-12).
Here is a list of the stories (most if not all can be found online):

Continue reading →

Here is a site that gives notes to several famous writings. It is called enotes. If you use it as a reference the site shows specifically how to site it’s reference on your research paper. Here’s another exciting feature, it provides quizzes specific to the book! There are 3500 guides you can look through.

Here is a webpage from the AskOxford.com that discusses the history of our English Language.

Here is a site called Ask Oxford where there are many word games that can benefit anyone wanting to learn more about words.

Have you ever heard of a double negative in grammar? My mother used to get on to me if I spoke a double negative in a sentence. (I think one of my mother’s secret passions has to do with a love for the English Language and I inherited a love for words from her. My grandmother loved words too!)
Here’s a site that discusses it called LEO: Literacy Education Online
Here’s an example of wrong usage. See if you can fix it:
The pilot could not find nowhere to land.

2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon baking soda
Combine and store in an airtight container. Use in place of store bought baking powder.
Makes 1/4 cup
Holiday cooking season will be arriving soon. I used to go and buy among several other cooking items, baking powder. And then I would not use but one or two tablespoons of it. And then whenThanksgiving would come around again, I would check the sparsely used product hoping it was not outdated.
This year I’ve decided to cook more from scratch. I want to make some homemade cornbread and biscuits. It requires baking powder. I found this simple recipe on the internet. It is healthy (contain no aluminum powder) and will only make a small amount.