Language Lessons for Children Primer Two Set, for grades 3-4, is a complete language arts set from Cottage Press that includes: Language Lessons for Children Primer Two Autumn, Language Lessons for Children Primer Two Winter, Language Lessons for Children Primer Two Spring, and Language Lessons for Children Primer Two Teaching Helps. Each book is $20, for a total of $80 for the set. The three student books for Autumn, Winter, and Spring are consumable; the Teaching Helps book could be used for many children. The books are all softcover, with colorful covers and black and white pages.  The only illustrations are the ones to be done by the student! Teaching Helps book is 136 pages, while each student book contains 128 pages. The set requires various pictures and stories that are either available for purchase from Cottage Press or free in ebook and online. I have not had to purchase anything extra to successfully use the curriculum.

Lessons are laid out beautifully. Each book contains twelve weeks of work, and each week contains four days laid out in day-by-day instruction. I downloaded the necessary extra materials, for free, onto my phone and we began without issue. I’ve been doing this with my daughter who does both second and third grade levels, and she’s done very well. She loves the stories and has learned much as we’ve gone along. Copywork, dictation, grammar concept studies, vocabulary, nature study, and more are included in lessons. We work a four-day school week, so this was perfect for us. If five days of study are preferable, stretching the work a bit further would not be difficult. There is much to do on each day. It appropriately challenged my daughter who is at the younger end of the age range recommended, and I can see it working well for older ages as well. Since a “grade” is not listed on the book, this would easily work for remedial work for an older student as well.

We loved this! It’s been a complicated year, keeping my daughter challenged with the curriculum I typically use for her age. This filled in beautifully and we plan to finish out the year and continue on in the fall. The books do go in order from Fall to Winter to Spring, gradually increasing the challenge, so having started this in February, we are in the “wrong” book, doing Fall currently, but it has not been an issue thus far. My daughter has enjoyed the stories and the challenge of dictation work especially.

I haven’t found anything in Language Lessons for Children that I haven’t liked. The tales we’ve read have been, from what I can tell, the original versions without any of the recent changes the story to keep it less tragic, but I kind of appreciate that. The books are plain and without flair, but I rather like that too. It takes a Charlotte Mason approach, which I love. Picture study lessons are flexible, so I can include my other students in that portion as well. And, to top it all off, it comes from a Christian, Biblical perspective, “dedicated to developing ‘ready scribes’ - scholars who are able to pen pleasing and winsome themes, flowing from hearts of virtue”. I’m glad to have been introduced to Language Lessons for Children and all Cottage Press has to offer!  

-Product review by Adrienne Falkena, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, May, 2018