Can teaching and learning about homophones actually be fun? The answer is most certainly "Yes!" thanks to Marie Rippel! As we know, homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings. This can be very confusing for children who are just learning the English language. Sometimes, even adults confuse words like their, they're, and there or to, two, and too.

Designed for students from grades 1-8, but truly for all ages, All About Homophones is a fun and effective tool to shed some light on these word pairs. This book contains over 200 pages with graphic organizer sheets, worksheets and word lists (per grade level), card games (with cards to copy and cut out), crossword puzzles, tongue twisters and riddles (fun!), as well as other teaching tools. The graphic organizers are great! Children write their own original sentences, fill in the definition, and draw a picture of each word in their personalized organizer. The word lists begin in grade 1 with simple homophone pairs (such as be/bee, see/sea, and to/two) and continue into more difficult pairs (such as capital/capitol, forward/foreword, stationery/stationary, and compliment/complement). There are 101 worksheets, each with 10 fun fill-in-the-blank questions. Here is an example for creek/creak:

Did you find any gold in the old town ______?

My knees always _____ when I bend down.

Each worksheet also contains a "Silly Sentence" exercise, a fun fact, a tongue twister or pun, and other creative exercises to incorporate research and reading. The card games are based on familiar childhood games such as "Go Fish," "Old Maid," and "Memory." I loved the suggested book list for further study and the "Mega-List of Homophones" found in the appendix. Everything you need to teach homophones, whether you want to spotlight troublesome pairs or need a full course of study, is in this fantastic book. My son enjoyed the exercises so much that he forgot we were doing "homework"! I happily recommend this book to anyone who needs to review homophones or teach them.

Product review by Amy Christy, Marketing Assistant, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November 2009