English for the Thoughtful Child Volume 2

My 8yo daughter and I have been using Vol.1 for eclectic homeschooling this year (for 2nd grade) and have been very pleased with it. In preparation for 3rd grade homeschooling next year, I looked into this vol.2 but was a little leary because of the single bad customer review it received. I was wrong to worry! After looking through it, it looks just as good as the first edition. The structure is very similar to Vol.1. There are 60 lessons that offer a creative variety of thinking and writing. It uses exercises in poetry, fables, famous artwork and nature lessons, as well as mixing in traditional English lessons (ie: homonyms, synonyms, nouns, expository writing, paragraphs, quotations, etc.), and other lessons that equally provide a slightly more advanced continuation of what was learned in Vol. 1. An excellent choice for 3rd grade. If you are looking for a traditional textbook full of busywork that will likely turn a child off to language arts, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for a workbook that you can just plop down in front of your child and say "Here, do it", then this book is not for you. If you want a lot of wordy explanation, this book is not for you. It is very self-explanatory and will not require a lot (if any) preparation. If you read the short Introduction and "To the Teacher" letter at the beginning, there should be no confusion as to what to do for each lesson. It is very simple to follow. It gets straight to the point in short enjoyable lessons. Lessons are not longer than 3 pages (usually just 1 or 2) and are easy to understand. The picture lessons are a favorite in our house. For example, Lesson 6 shows a small painting of cats and dogs along with a list of questions that will help your student evaluate/critique it. There are a few lessons that use too much copywork for my taste (ie: read a fable and rewrite it from memory) but we alter it to our liking (ie: write a continuation of the story, imagine what happened next), which is what the authors suggest we do anyway. I appreciate the respect parents/teachers (and students) are given, there is no "talking down". All in all a very creative hands-on thought-provoking enjoyable language arts "workbook" (though I hesitate to call it that for all the negative connotation the word implies) for the creative thoughtful child (or even for those lacking, this book will strengthen in an enjoyable gentle way).