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Rating: 
Summary: Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words
Review: A friend and I are using this workbook (along with English from the Roots Up) with our children, ages 8, 10, and 12. The kids are working on the pages together, one root word per session. Each root has three workbook-style pages (each covering the same 10 words) of varied and fun (and often funny) questions. The workbook pages approach the words from a good variety of angles, taking advantage of different strengths and learning styles. The kids really enjoy it and it has succeeded in making them fascinated with this subject, which is just what I hoped it would do. The only drawback is that there are only 36 roots (350 words) covered. I know we will all be sorry when we finish this fascinating book.
Rating:
Summary: Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words
Review: A friend and I are using this workbook (along with English from the Roots Up) with our children, ages 8, 10, and 12. The kids are working on the pages together, one root word per session. Each root has three workbook-style pages (each covering the same 10 words) of varied and fun (and often funny) questions. The workbook pages approach the words from a good variety of angles, taking advantage of different strengths and learning styles. The kids really enjoy it and it has succeeded in making them fascinated with this subject, which is just what I hoped it would do. The only drawback is that there are only 36 roots (350 words) covered. I know we will all be sorry when we finish this fascinating book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great but not exactly what I was hoping for....
Review: I just started using Words on the Vine with my homeschooled 9-year-old a few months ago. I stumbled across it one day while browsing Amazon and thought it looked like it would be fun as well as educational (it is). I also thought I had found a secular text, I was wrong. We were several roots into the book before I noticed the first one - a question that asks, "Name a holiday that a Gentile does not celebrate. Why?" Uh-oh, so I start flipping through the book. Sure enough there's more - like "name two Archangels", a modern day Jonah & the Wale tale, along with a few others. On the other side of the coin, to be totally fair, there are also questions about what astrologers are, a writing assignment about what it would be like to be reincarnated as a bird, and mentioning of T-rex ruling during the late Mesozoic Era. If ANY of these things seriously bother you, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.That said this is still a really great book and I would certainly buy it again! You'll definitely do a lot more that just learn some Latin/Greek roots and improve your vocabulary. Many of the questions are related to history, geography, and science so unless you're a walking encyclopedia you'll probably need to do some research to answer them. For example: In what South American country have hydrolyte geodes been found? How did the ancient Egyptians use geometry? Who developed ideas that contradicted Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe? What famous subterranean tourist site is located in New Mexico? Where is John F. Kennedy interred? Name three Mediterranean countries.... Etc. You'll definitely want to have a dictionary and an encyclopedia handy (or at least access to the Internet).
Rating:
Summary: A good intro to the subject
Review: We use this marvelous book as a supplement to our formal Latin program for our 4 homeschooled kids. It's wonderful, I can't rave about it enough. It is a good introduction to roots in our language, and it's amusing, also, a fact that has kept our kids hooked for about a year. Each root (mal, mano, gen, etc) has about 5 pages of activities to help seal both the root and its English derivatives into a kid's head. These are often VERY funny. They're short...each page is covered easily in about 1/2 hour. They're reproducable. The skill-level is variable. The humor makes it suitable for a wide range of kids...4th-5th grade through High School. I know that sounds ambitious, but it's really true! Each page has the root and its origin printed at the top. By the end of the book, a kid should know 35 roots and hundreds of new English vocabulary words. Magic! I've searched in vain for a sequel to this gem. Sadly, so far there isn't one. But whenever Latin gets unbearably dull for my kids, I pull out "Words From The Vine", and we have some fun.
Rating:
Summary: A good intro to the subject
Review: We use this marvelous book as a supplement to our formal Latin program for our 4 homeschooled kids. It's wonderful, I can't rave about it enough. It is a good introduction to roots in our language, and it's amusing, also, a fact that has kept our kids hooked for about a year. Each root (mal, mano, gen, etc) has about 5 pages of activities to help seal both the root and its English derivatives into a kid's head. These are often VERY funny. They're short...each page is covered easily in about 1/2 hour. They're reproducable. The skill-level is variable. The humor makes it suitable for a wide range of kids...4th-5th grade through High School. I know that sounds ambitious, but it's really true! Each page has the root and its origin printed at the top. By the end of the book, a kid should know 35 roots and hundreds of new English vocabulary words. Magic! I've searched in vain for a sequel to this gem. Sadly, so far there isn't one. But whenever Latin gets unbearably dull for my kids, I pull out "Words From The Vine", and we have some fun.
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