Homeschool Crew Review: Grade 2 Lightning Literature Set

My favorite language arts curriculum is Lightning Literature from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources.  I have used elementary, middle school, and high school levels of Lightning Literature and have been very, very impressed with each one.  I was excited to have an opportunity to use and review Grade 2 Lightning Lit Set with my 8 year old daughter.

Lightning Literature and Composition has been used in home and public schools for many years.  They started with upper level grades and in recent years started adding in elementary levels.  Grades 1-4 are available now and Grade 5 is in progress. Lightning Literature will instill a love of reading in your child because it uses wonderful books and other classic literature.  It also teaches deep reading and and writing skills. In addition to literature Lightning Lit also teaches grammar and mechanics and composition.

For this review we received the Lightning Literature and Composition Grade 2 Teacher's Guide and Student Workbook.  When you purchase the  Grade 2 Lightning Lit Set from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources you also receive The Random House Book of Poetry For Children.  This was not included in our review, but I already own it from a previous level.  You can also choose to purchase the Teacher's Guide and Student Workbook separately.  Some of the topics covered in Grade 2 include:

• Learning to capitalize titles and proper nouns
• How to make words plural
• Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs
• Synonyms/antonyms
• How to punctuate dialogue
• What is a subject and a predicate
• How to diagram sentences
• Line, stanza, rhyme, repetition, imagery, rhyme, vivid words in poetry
• Fiction/ nonfiction; fantasy/realism
• Personal essay, explanatory, essay, friendly letter, poem, and biography

There are 36 weeks of lessons with the course intended to be completed in one school year. The lessons are based around wonderful books.  The first several weeks use picture books with those lessons lasting one week and then they move into chapter books with lessons lasting a few weeks for each of those books. Picture books are read at least twice during the week and the chapter book lessons are split up by sections.  Many of the books you may already own or can be borrowed from the library or purchased.  The books included in this level are:

• Max’s Words by Kate Banks
• The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant
• The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco
• Teedie, The Story of Young Teddy Roosevelt by Don Brown
• Insect Detective by Steve Voake
• The Three Questions by Jon Muth
• La Mariposa by Francisco Jimenez
• Sequoyah by James Rumford
• Anatole by Eve Titus
• Pop’s Bridge by Eve Bunting
• The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
• The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy) by Barbara Kerley
• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
• The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl
• Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
• Many Moons by James Thurber
• Sam, Bangs and Moonshine by Evaline Ness
• This Is New York by Miroslav Sasek
• The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh
• A Mouse Called Wolf by Dick King-Smith
• The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
• 26 Fairmont Avenue by Tomie DePaolo
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne and Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling are optional lessons with assignments given for those books if you choose to do them. There are also 4 selections from the Random House Book of Poetry.  Each week you will read stories to your child.  They will answer comprehension questions, complete grammar and mechanic workbook pages, and have a composition assigned to them.  There are also journal pages, dictionary pages, sentence puzzles, and extending the lesson activities.  A suggested daily schedule is given for a 4 day work week but the course is very flexible and you can make changes as needed. 

The Grade 2 Teacher's Guide is a 350 page paperback book.  The guide explains how to use the program, contains comprehension questions with answers, answers to the workbook pages, and instructions for the composition assignments.  It also has ideas for expanding the lessons including reading assignments for Winnie the Pooh and Just So Stories.

Here are a few photos of inside the Teacher's Guide

And the cover of the Student Workbook.

The Student Workbook is a 358 page paperback consumable workbook.  In it you will find colorful daily grammar workbook pages, journal pages to fill in for the stories, and dictionary pages.  The book is three hole punched with perforated pages that you can remove if you choose.

Here are a few photos of inside the student workbook.

Emmie and I have been loving the Grade 2 Lightning Lit Set.  We have been following the 4 day a week suggested schedule in the book.  On Mondays I read the book aloud or for the books we didn't have listened to them on YouTube, she answered the comprehension questions aloud, completed the grammar page, and chose a topic for the composition.  On Tuesdays we talked about the story, characters, setting, details, and conflict of the story and she dictated to me what to write in her book, worked on the grammar page, and composition.  On Wednesdays we read the story again, answered the questions orally from the teacher guide, completed the grammar page, and worked on the rough draft.  She dictated her story to me and I wrote it for her.  On Fridays we worked on the grammar page and finished up the final draft to the composition.

Emmie working on trying to read it on her own after hearing me read it

What do we love about Lightning Lit?  We love the stories that are chosen. Honestly in all of the levels I have used I have never found one we did not like.  Emmie's favorite so far was The Old Woman Who Named Things.  We had never read that one before and it has really stuck with her.  I love that this is so much more then just a literature program.  It includes grammar and composition as well.  The grammar pages are very age appropriate and fun for the children to complete. The pages are visually appealing without being overly distracting.  The comprehension questions ensure that the child is actively listening to the story.  The composition exercises are a great fun way to get children writing and even if they are not used to writing compositions they can work through the assignments with you and dictate their stories to you.  The program does not need a lot of advanced teacher preparation.  Everything the teacher needs is included in the guide and as long as you have the book on hand all you need to do is open and go.  The course is very flexible and can be tailored to your child's needs. We follow a four day a week schedule in our homeschool so it has worked great for us, but even if you normally work 5 days you can use that 5th day as a flex day to catch up if you need to or do some of the extending the lesson suggestions on the 5th day.

If you are looking for a language arts curriculum for your homeschool, I highly recommend Lightning Literature!  Members of The Crew reviewed several different levels of Lightning Literature and other products from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!