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Any advice for someone about to start Memoria Press First Grade?

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Any advice for someone about to start Memoria Press First Grade?

CMM FSR CMM CCC-K CMM JrK ReviewI love Memoria Press Classical Core Curriculum, I truly do. I’m impressed with everything they’ve put together and their Enrichment is my favorite part of how it all meshes together. We have spent the last year working our way through Memoria Press First Grade from their Classical Core Curriculum. It’s shocking because I feel like I was just finishing up my reviews from our year in Kindergarten. We started with Junior Kindergarten, then Kindergarten, and the First Grade, and I’ve already started plotting my fall with Memoria Press Classical Core Curriculum Second Grade. We are that impressed that I just keep coming back for more and recommending it to anyone who asks. Truly, I could go on for hours.

It is based on years of research, that Memoria Press is able to offer a classical curriculum for homeschool families. After the second grade year, they have a split accelerated or core curriculum path depending on the appropriate route for your students. By following the daily lesson plans written for a five-day week your students will have a full-year of open and go material to provide an awesome foundation to the primary grades. While our background has Memoria Press from the beginning, their First Grade is a great place to come in. It is the year to come in after a foundation is set with phonics and jump right in with Level 1 early readers and other classic vintage picture books full of interesting and character driven text to build a love of good books. My daughter was introduced to the idea of the Little House series by Christmas themed early readers and a Christmas treasury, it has opened the door for interest in our next year when she will actually read Little House in the Big Woods herself.

We continued to grow knowledge and love of art appreciation with the Memoria Press First Grade Art Cards. My daughter has been introduced and fallen in love with the craft of cursive penmanship through New American Cursive. We’ve continued to practice her manuscript with continuity of memory work, Bible-based reading, and copywork in Copybook II. We’re also in the process of finishing out our year with the second half of Rod & Staff Beginning Arithmetic 1 in learning Addition and Subtraction Facts as well as the basics of Fractions and Counting Coins.

This year in Enrichment we’ve traveled the world stopping a while in places like Ireland and Russia. We’ve explored, read, and re-read picture books that entertained my parents or even grandparents as a youth. We’ve had in-depth discussions on author and illustrator biographies. We’ve gone beyond just the name of famous art pieces and discussed the author behind the work and decided what they might have been thinking or the era they’ve lived to create such masterful pieces. My daughter has listed to classical pieces of music and has integrated the desire to discuss the emotions that are evoked by other music we come across in our daily lives. We’ve spent time in social studies; sciences of earth, life, biology, anatomy, and more. The pegs planted in my child’s mind have already given her a desire and a passion to learn so much more.

At the beginning of our curriculum year, my daughter could stumble along and read, sounding out things as she went along. Now she’s enthusiastic and passionate about reading! She appreciates water-color and classical illustrations and compares her school books to the current publications that grace our shelves (I’m a book reviewer for new releases as well).

Memoria Press First Grade Advice

My daughter says, “It was a very very good year and I liked reading the classic books in first grade. Cursive was great and I enjoyed writing my name in cursive. More and more I’m writing other things in cursive. I liked reading books in first grade and now I’m reading chapter books. I love books. The math was really really great. The math was very easy and I should be able to finish it soon. The Art Cards were very very very great; they are interesting and someday I would like to paint a picture like that. The classical music selections are very very very nice. The classical music sounds good and it almost makes me fall asleep; I find it relaxing. This year I read and learned The Star Spangled Banner (illustrated by Peter Spier) and the Wee Sing America CD is fun to listen to and sing aloud with.”

This year we continued along with the lesson plan prompts with Classical Phonics, but we did not use Spelling Workout – we opted to use Barefoot Ragamuffin’s new Reading Lessons Through Literature Level 1 for spelling material and she has soared in skills and desire to spelling. She even wants to participate in a spelling bee next year. Oy vey! We are also personally continuing along with Christian Liberty Press’ Adventures in Phonics series instead of Core Skills Phonics workbooks as we switched while Memoria Press was currently seeking out the best replacement for their former usage of SRA Phonics. I’m happy with our choices, but Memoria Press’ replacements for these curricula appear to be sound as well for options.

Memoria Press is a company that I’m crazy about. It is true that I get some of their products for review, but I buy them as well, and then buy them again in the consumables for my next child and I will for the third child as well. Memoria Press is a company that I trust and I’m truly passionate about their direction that they are taking us in. We are getting a smidgen of American history appropriate in a unit-study per week type format within the Enrichment Guide and we are learning so much. My daughter is truly developing a love of learning and I think it is very much invested in our usage of Memoria Press curriculum. Both in their own published materials, but also in their development of lesson plans and a Classical Core Curriculum for one year. Truly it is open and go and all you need for one year.

Advice? Oh wait, was that the question…

Coming in, I’d be sure my kiddo had a handle on manuscript and just needed to continue it to gain more confidence. If my child wasn’t quite phonetically reading, I might keep on that a bit more before jumping into the readers with StoryTime Treasures, and actually with a newer release of the lesson plans they have added in more time with Classical Phonics and the EPS Primary Phonics beginning readers (we started before that re-write in 2015). Once the child is ready for Little Bear they are ready to proceed and soon soar! Rod & Staff Math is amazing and I love the way little bits of scripture are woven in, especially in some examples and word problems. It has to be a part that I was a little unsure of but thanks to the recommendation from Memoria Press I’m in love with it and delighted to go on to continue in Working Arithmetic 2.

With my passion for reviewing curriculum and with a constant curiosity I have looked at a lot of curricula for the primary grades, especially those focusing on a Classical Christian methodology and Memoria Press is a treasure. I wouldn’t mind a bit more American history, but there is a foundation and it is definitely a springboard worth jumping to and from and they appear to have added some readers in the 3rd and 4th-grade years that will enhance that for students as well as keeping a focus on the classics. I’m delighted with where we’ve been and I’m delighted with where we’re going.

You can do the entire curriculum, just the literature, or even just the enrichment or parts of it. Either way, Memoria Press has a great group of items here that are fabulous for educating our children. I’m delighted to have discovered this company and definitely plan to keep coming back for more. From the primary grades and more, Memoria Press is one of my favorite curriculum providers. I love the amount of hand-holding their lesson plans grant and it is truly a joy to teach.

Monthly Homeschool Round Up - January 2020 {Homeschool Collection}

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The Creative Madness Mama also known as Margaret is a Christian Stay-at-home Mama, married to the Enginerd, quilter, cross stitcher, avid reader and book-a-holic. As book blogger for various publicists, she loves to share the latest and greatest about books coming out as well as her needle art and other crafty projects with some pictures of her fourteen-year-old AppleBlossom, twelve-year-old OrangeBlossom (the Princess), nine-year-old Almond Blossom (the Rascal boy!), six-year-old (red) Mermaid Warrior, the four-and-a-half-year-old Viking Dragon, and Huckleberry (due in June 2024!) in between. Homeschooling, cloth diapering, breastfeeding, babywearing, bone broth brewing, tea drinking, list making mama full of a little creative and a lot of madness.

10 Comments

  • Liana

    I have been using Memoria Press preschool with my kids and am starting Jr. K with my son and SC B with my daughter. I am intrigued by Beautiful Feet Primary package as well, later down the road. How would you incorprare BF with MP Full programs? Also, so you like BF or Story of the World better? Love your site. It has been so helpful for me as a mom with very young ones!

    • CherryBlossomMJ

      Liana, your comment has made my day! 🙂 I too have the BFP guide, but I find the Memoria Press Enrichment Guides K-2 to be far better for the way my students learn. I thought I would like BFP because of the paintings and illustrations, but I actually have turned more toward the Memoria Press Discussion Guide for Third Grade Read Alouds (which includes some of the same books) for our conversations more often. I like the concept of using the composition notebook, but we just haven’t done it. It turned out for us that BFP was an exciting thing to look out, but not quite something that was looked forward to and in the end accomplished.

      What I am doing to incorporate BF with the MP Classical Core Curriculum is using the books not added in as American Studies Read Alouds to our book list. Then if my kiddo finished a MP book earlier than as scheduled we reach for another from the BF list. When I order the books, I’ve labeled them by color (much like Sonlight originally did) and my daughter knows that for her third grade study to grab any yellow labeled book and we go from there. If she’s unsure, I’ll pull up my visual list (on Goodreads) and talk to her about the books and let her choose. It has made for a book loving, read thirsting year, but a way to learn and truly enjoy without too much stress on specifically what is in what book. She can do full book reports and reviews later in her education, for now, I want her constantly thirsting for more. It’s the goal and seems to be working.

      BF or SOTW. I do not think they can truly compare. We are using SOTW as a book, as a reader, not as a program. We tried with the Activity Guide and it just was too much busy work for her. She’d rather read than fill out worksheets, or do activities. We do however, use Homeschool in the Woods Paks. (She’s finishing up Ancient Egypt there, and hoping to start Greek Myths with that soon.) I bought all the SOTW from the Well Trained Mind Press during their ding and dent sale and it was very affordable to me to just use as a book then, and not meant as a full program.

      • Liana

        Thank you so much for great insight! Sounds like MP Enrichment is the way to go (no arguments here 😉). I like how you utilize the BF books as extras. Great idea! Good to know about the SOTW activity book as I’m not a fan of busy work! Have a Merry Christmas! May the hope, peace, joy, and love of Jesus dwell within you and your family always!

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