Common Sense Press publishes curricula designed for homeschoolers, traditional schools, and parents who want to enrich their children’s education. With Common Sense Press products, meaningful hands-on activities replace textbook methods that are often detached from the learning process. For example, our Learning Language Arts through Literature series incorporates spelling, reading, vocabulary, grammar, writing, penmanship, and phonics in the same lesson. Research shows that language arts taught in this way is much more effective than when taught in the traditional isolated and fragmented manner.
Before being published, all of our products must pass two tests. First, because we know just how busy a homeschool mom’s life can be, we publish materials that are complete and require a minimum of planning. Second, we believe that education is more than just getting the right answer on a multiple-choice test. Learning should be meaningful, comprehensive, and stimulating to the student.
This is not a dumb question! Printing the little books can be confusing. The Great Science Adventures were designed to cut out the pages from the back of the book. If you need more than one set, you do have permission to make additional copies for your family. If that proves to be too difficult, let us know, and I'll send you a .pdf to print from. Frankly, we felt printing the little books was often frustrating. That is one reason we have been working for the last couple of years converting the books into a much easier form. You can check out the new series, Common Sense Science, to see what I mean. It is the same material and graphic organizers but you don't have to cut your book up and everything is much clearer. Let us know what you think!
I’m so glad I found this video! Made my decision to purchase the gold book, world literature, for my twins for the next school year as they start high school!
What a sweet, well mannered, handsome young man. He looks like such a good student. 👨🏻🎓 I wasn’t looking for this video, but am glad I came across it. Helpful info!
I like the concept of the integrated approach. The built in assessment is great. However, my only concern is review and standards. Is review integrated throughout the book? What is included for extra review? Where is the scope and sequence being pulled from (the source) to make sure every skill is being taught within their education career? Thanks.
I love the family feel of this video. I had glossed over LLATL before, but something brought me back when shopping for next year's curriculum this year. Reading quality literature is so important to me in our homeschool. I love this approach and can't wait to start. I also purchased Grocery Cart Math and didn't realize it was Common Sense Press as well until tonight. I guess we are a Common Sense family now!😄
I'm glad you got a family feel from us instead of how uncomfortable we all are in front of the camera! I hope that both LLATL and Grocery Cart Math work well for your family. You are definitely part of the Common Sense family now!
Wow! What an incredible video getting to know who is behind this curriculum. This is our 3rd year homeschooling. 5th and 2nd grade boys! We finally found something that works for both kids using LLATL. I love how open and go it is and the simplicity of it. We are on week 23 and can’t wait to use it next year. 🎉
This sounds amazing! I have recently been trying to figure out how to pull LA all together, with our current spelling and grammar not transferring to real life, wondering if I should try put something along these lines together myself (but I don't have the time bc I have 7 kiddos to be caring for and schooling). Off to order! :)
@Common Sense Press we did lesson one today (I purchased the digital) and it went quite smoothly! A new format for my son to learn, but so easy to move from step to step 👍
thank you for sharing!!! 19 years in homeschooling and i'd not tried this yet.. >>> crazy.. this year we will be using blue yellow orange and tan... i enjoyed learning that you had pre read all the books :) i learned about llatl from oikos :)
Thank you for the video!! We love LLATL!! It’s our son’s favorite curriculum!! Would be great if we could buy a CD/audio with the dictations/spelling… This would be very helpful for people like me that don’t have English as their first language. Just an idea, we could buy it separately. 😊
I'm considering the Tan book for my grand daughter next year. Would you say that the book studies are comprehensive, or might it be a good idea to use another full study guide with the book? I'm thinking of adding Progeny Press study guides as all the reviews I've read aren't clear on how thorough a book study is, but I don't want to make a study too long or difficult. I know with the elementary LLATL I occasionally used another book that my child enjoyed more and simply adjusted the questions. I also thought if I knew a different book would be a better choice for a child, then getting a study guide would allow for a thorough study and literature review. It's not really made clear how necessary the suggested books are for the middle school and high school years. Are they only used with a short book study or are they necessary for completing the entire LLATL workbook throughout the year?
LLATL approaches book studies as opportunities to enhance the student’s enjoyment of reading. Our studies, for the most part, are not intended to be comprehensive. Most follow the pattern of introducing the book, focusing on some vocabulary, discussing the book, and ending with suggested activities that take learning beyond the pages of the book. For example, after reading Big Red, students can choose to sign up for or observe a dog training class, study different types of dog breeds, research the pros and cons of hunting, and look for ways to save money by doing things themselves as the characters in the book did. The book studies stand alone, so you can substitute another book and follow the guidelines above. To help you with this, you can find free book studies on our website here www.commonsensepress.com/bookstudies.html. Please let us know if you have any other questions.
This was an excellent walk through of this program. My children love doing lapbooks, so this curriculum looks perfect. Thank you for sharing! This was very helpful!
Just bought the Yellow and Red books for my boys. So excited! I’m a second generation homeschooler and I remember loving your language arts as a student. ✨
Yes, unfortunately the first run of the new 3rd editions had some problems. The update of the series had been languishing for years when the company changed hands. We were very new at this and only had two people trying to proof 16 books. All the books needed to be released at the same time. We, of course, were distressed by the mistakes that slipped through and have since worked hard (with the gracious help of people who love the program and took the time to point out errors) to make the needed corrections. At the time, we offered free curriculum to those who sent in corrections and posted the changes on our website. The newly run copies reflect the changes. Thank you for the opportunity to address this issue. If you have any other questions, please give us a call!
It depends on how deeply you dive into the information and how old your students are! For the most part, though, it should be very easy to get through 2 books in a school year.
@@andreagarcia3934 I hope that the curriculum works well for you and your family! Feel free to give us a call if you have any questions while working through the books!
I'm so glad the video helped! And I hope the Green and Purple books work well for you and your family. Please let us know if you ever have any questions!
@@Nar3lle You are probably right! I know other programs use graphic organizers as well, and I thought maybe she had seen one for a student's graduation. Every book has a section at the beginning about how to use the graphic organizers, but it still may be a challenge for those of us who are not extremely crafty (including myself!). You can browse that section of the book here: www.commonsensepress.com/uploads/9/5/0/7/95072726/gsa_using_graphic_organizers.pdf. Take a look at let me know if you still have questions!
This did help quite a bit but I need an explanation of the Investigative Loop and how that works. I’m not really fully understanding the concept of this and how to implement it into the lessons.
The Investigative Loop is a procedure we use for the labs. It is designed to teach students that there are steps to follow in such a process. Have you had a chance to look at how the books describe the process? You can find that starting on page 4 here: www.commonsensepress.com/uploads/9/5/0/7/95072726/gsa_space_how_to_use_the_book.pdf. Does that help?
Very helpful video thank you. I'd like to veer away from workbooks for our Language Arts and think this way sounds fun and natural. How often would you say to attempt copywork with a 10yo boy that melts at any writing?