Kids should get to love grammar.
That's the whole idea. In Grammaropolis, the parts of speech are characters with real personalities: Nelson the Noun runs the tightest office in town, Jake the Adjective can't stop describing things, and the grammar is what happens between them. Hailed as a Schoolhouse Rock for the 21st century, the town has taught this way since 2010.
It started as a classroom assignment.
Coert Voorhees taught seventh-grade writing for six years. The best assignment he ever gave asked students to pair up and write a children's book from the point of view of a single part of speech. An adverb as a definition was abstract; an adverb as a protagonist became bossy, memorable, alive. His students read their books aloud to the younger grades and forgot the whole thing had been a grammar lesson. Grammaropolis is that assignment, still going, fifteen years on.
Here is how he explained it at the original launch.
I taught 7th Grade Writing for six years at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, California. Many of the students had come from Pinewood's Lower and Middle Campuses, where there was an incredible effort to teach grammar, but about half the students came from schools with very little grammar background. This presented a challenge. How to teach grammar to a class where half the students could diagram noun clauses in their sleep while the other half had trouble with adjectives and adverbs?
My most successful assignment was when I had the students pair up and write a children's book from the perspective of a single part of speech. Using personification, strong characterization, and a clear storyline, the main requirement was that the story effectively convey the purpose of the chosen part of speech.
I'd already taught my students that an adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb, but this assignment forced the students to think about the parts of speech in ways they could relate to. An adverb as a definition was abstract, but an adverb as the protagonist of a story suddenly became bossy, became personified, became memorable. The students weren't thinking about parts of speech anymore; they were thinking about characters.
At the end of the assignment, the students illustrated the books, bound them, and read them to the younger grades. They were so excited to share their stories that they actually seemed to forget that it had been a grammar assignment all along.
As a fiction writer I have always believed in the power of story, but even I was surprised by how successful the lesson had been. Although students learn in many different ways, most of my grammar workbooks focused on the same approach: memorizing the dictionary definitions of the parts of speech. I became convinced that there had to be another way to do this.
I'm hoping that Grammaropolis is that other way. I hope it helps kids connect with the parts of speech on a human level. I hope they'll be so entertained that they'll forget they were supposed to hate grammar.
Best Wishes,
Coert Voorhees
The Mayor of Grammaropolis
Written 2010 for the original Grammaropolis launch. Still load-bearing fifteen years later.
The cast is the company history.
Nelson Noun 
Vinny Action Verb 
Lucy Linking Verb 
Jake Adjective 
Benny Adverb 
Roger Pronoun 
Connie Conjunction 
Li'l Pete Preposition 
Izzy Interjection 
Chief Comma 
Officer Period 
Prosecutor Apostrophe 
Court Reporter Quotation Marks 
Detective Question Mark 
Sergeant Exclamation Mark 
Sheriff Semicolon 
Deputy Colon 
Hyphen 
Dash 
Defense Attorney Parentheses 
Assistant Defense Attorney Brackets Nine parts of speech lead the cast. Behind them stand a twelve-officer Punctuation Department, the Mayor, and Slang, who shows up uninvited. More than two dozen fully voiced characters in all, each with a teaching domain, signature phrases, and relationships with every other character. The site's copy comes out of those voices, not out of a generic marketing voice.
They have been in continuous production since 2010: eight storybooks, the songs and animated music videos (character art originally by Powerhouse Animation), the apps, and now a complete digital curriculum. The original insight still does all the work: the characters ARE the grammar, not metaphors for it. Nelson's bureaucratic streak IS what nouns do. Jake's compulsion to describe IS how adjectives work.
The town, by the numbers.
"Move over, Schoolhouse Rock."
The full counter board lives at Grammaropolis by the Numbers. More reviews in the press room.
What we make.
One catalog, delivered four ways.
Five departments, grades 1 through 8, every lesson hosted by the character who owns the concept. Explore the whole cycle at grammaropolis.com/curriculum.
Daily word games from the cast at play.grammaropolis.com. A new challenge every day.
The print line at books.grammaropolis.com, same characters, same curriculum, on paper.
standards.grammaropolis.com maps every title and lesson to the exact CCSS, TEKS, NY NGLS, or FL B.E.S.T. standard it covers.
Six kinds of people show up here.
Kids who would love learning about grammar if only it weren't so boring. The Arcade, the music videos, the storybooks. Built for ages 6 to 12.
Parents who want to help with homework but could use a refresher themselves. Fair warning: adults get just as into this as kids do. Start with the Arcade at play.grammaropolis.com.
Homeschool families looking for a complete grammar curriculum. The workbook line at books.grammaropolis.com aligns to four state and national frameworks, with digital lessons to match.
Teachers tackling varied learning styles in one room. The Standards Hall at standards.grammaropolis.com maps every Grammaropolis title to the exact CCSS, TEKS, NYNGLS, or FL B.E.S.T. standard it covers.
ESL and multilingual learners of any age. The characters carry the grammar in a way that survives translation: a character with personality is easier to remember than a definition in a second language.
The fun-loving grammar geek in all of us. The cast is the cast. You don't need a reason.
On the books, by city ordinance.
There is no advertising in Grammaropolis. No banner ads, no "kid-safe" ad networks, no sponsored anything.
We don't sell data. We collect the minimum needed to run the town, and what your kid does here stays here. Details in the privacy policy.
Grammaropolis is funded by the families and schools who join, not by advertisers. That's the whole business model, and it's why the first two promises are easy to keep.
Built in Houston.
Grammaropolis is independent. The catalog is published from a small studio in Houston, Texas. Coert is the founder, the author of record, the Mayor's voice actor, and the person you will reach if you email the company.
New in town? The Visitors Guide is the Mayor's tour of the whole place. Press inquiries head to the press room. Everything else: support@grammaropolis.com.
Take the Visitors Guide tour