Gentle Cursive Practice with New American Cursive from Memoria Press {Product Review}

I am one of those educators who is adamant about learning how to write/read cursive. I started each of my boys in 1st grade and continue to have them work through cursive copybooks to keep up their skills. Over the last several weeks, my youngest son has been working through New American Cursive 2 (Scripture) from Memoria Press (one of our favorite companies), and today I am going to share my review!

About Memoria Press and New American Cursive

Memoria Press is an award winning classical curriculum company. Their full line of grade level packages are much beloved in the private school and homeschool communities. They are also well known for their electives and other miscellaneous curriculum. Some of the products in their electives and miscellaneous categories include their New American Cursive curriculum, Traditional Logic curriculum, and their Classical Composition curriculum.

Music Appreciation 1 by Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

One of the subjects I was adamant that we would add to our studies this year was Music Appreciation. I am sorry to say that though I started strong using a course I designed for myself, I petered out. Needless to say, when I had the chance to review the Music Appreciation I set from Memoria Press, I jumped on the chance. I hoped that it would not only be a mix of music history and listening skills, but also enjoyable for my boys.

About Music Appreciation from Memoria Press

Memoria Press has long been known for their award winning classical style curriculum and other products. Not only do they carry a full line of complete grade level curriculum, but they also carry an extensive collection of electives including foreign languages and music. One of the music courses is their Music Appreciation 1 set.

Exploring Nature's Beautiful Order with Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

We love science and we love studying nature, thus when we had the chance to review the Nature's Beautiful Order curriculum from Memoria Press, I hoped that it would be a blending of two of our favorite things and we would enjoy another product from Memoria Press. 

About Nature's Beautiful Order

Nature's Beautiful Order is a science (biology) curriculum intended for grades 6th through 8th. Over the course of eighteen lessons, the student is guided through the animal kingdom--starting with the invertebrates, and continuing to the top of the natural order--man--visiting the five great vertebrate classes along the way. The text consists of passages from the works of great classical naturalist's like John James Audubon, Jean-Henri Fabre, Mivart, and even Aristotle. The goal of the program is to instill in the student, the love for the beautiful and understandable of nature through the eyes of real life observationalists. 
Nature's Beautiful Order is an eighteen lesson course which includes the text, student guide, and teacher guide. No additional books or supplies are needed. The curriculum retails for $45.00.
Memoria Press carries a full line of curriculum for your classical education including their extensive award winning Latin curriculum. There is also another middle school science course The Book of Trees for your nature lover. We have been working through this course over the last several weeks with my 11 year old who will be a 6th grader this fall.

Our Thoughts on Nature's Beautiful Order

Wow. It has been awhile since I have been challenged as I have been over the last few weeks working through this course. There is

Exploring Classic Children's Literature with Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!
We have been blessed to be able to review products from Memoria Press twice this year, and today I'm thrilled to be sharing our third review from this award-winning company. For the last several weeks, we've been using the Third Grade Literature Guide Set which includes the Farmer Boy Literature Guide that we worked through. Today I'd like to share our thoughts on this product and whether or not it worked with my youngest son. While we aren't usually fans of a classical method of curriculum, I'm going to tell you why we still love Memoria Press products.

About the Product

Memoria Press is an award-winning company featuring products for every grade and subject. One of the areas that they excel in is offering literature packages for all grade levels. These literature

Poetry For the Grammar Stage from Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

Poetry. I really do enjoy reading good poetry and want to expose my children to quality poetry. But sometimes it can be difficult to work it into our homeschooling unless we are using a Language Arts program that has it built in. For the last few weeks, we have been using the Poetry for the Grammar Stage Set from Memoria Press with my eight-year-old son. How did it work for us having it as an additional program? Were the lessons easy to teach? Did he enjoy it? Today I’m going to answer those questions and more as I share our review of this award-winning program!

About the Product

Memoria Press is an award-winning program for good reason. Their products are of high quality and provide a rich foundation in knowledge for grades K-12. Whether you are seeking a complete

Bringing the Night Skies to Life with Astronomy from Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

Little Britches loves looking at the stars. We live in the country and the stars are bright nearly every night, just begging for your attention. I could identify the basics for him, like the Dippers and Orion, but I am not doing more than making guesses about the others. When Memoria Press offered our Schoolhouse Review Crew the chance to review their Book of Astronomy Set, we jumped on the opportunity and Little Britches really hoped it would give him the information he needed to be able to learn more about the stars.

Product Information

Memoria Press is an award winning company known for producing some of the top Classical curriculum available for homeschooling. Offering up a full list of subjects, you can find products ranging from Language Arts materials to Art, Music, and Latin for all grade levels. Some of their more popular sets are within the sciences.

Book of Astronomy Set is one of these more popular curriculums. It is designed to give your student a close look at the constellations, movements of the earth, the names of stars, and the ever changing night sky, as it moves through the seasons. The lessons focus on teaching key identifiable points throughout the seasons, including the more notable Summer Triangle and fall/winter zodiacs.
It was designed for the upper elementary (3rd-5th) grades and the set includes the Teacher Manual and Student Book (retail $31.90). The website product description mentions that D'Aulaires Greek Myths book is a great resource to have on hand, since so many constellations have their origin in Greek Mythology.
We were given the Book of Astronomy Set to review with Little Britches who is in the suggested grade level.

Latina Christiana I~ A Latin Program for Beginners {Curriculum Review}

Latin. A dead language...or is it? After much research we decided that having Little Britches learn Latin as his foreign language during third grade (this year) was worthwhile, for it is a gateway language to most of the romantic languages--as well as a key component of much of the English vocabulary and sciences. We had a curriculum we were already learning, but when I was able to have a chance to review Latina Christiana I Complete Set from Memoria Press, I decided that we would give this other curriculum a try!

Product Information

Latina Christiana I Complete Set is a Latin program from Memoria Press. It is a beginning Latin grammar course for all ages, but was designed for students as young as third grade. This is a one year Latin course for parents and teachers without any Latin background. The core of the curriculum is the Teacher Manual w/CD and Student Book, but there is  DVD lessons and flashcards available for additional help.

The Latina Christiana I Complete Set retails for $98.90 and includes:
*Student Book
*Teacher Manual
*Pronunciation CD
*Instructional DVDs
*Flashcards

Here is a sample of the DVD that comes with the Latina Christiana I Complete Set:
https://vimeo.com/60465249

We were given the Latina Christiana I Complete Set to review. Little Britches (age 9) and I reviewed this product together.

How Did We Use This Product?

When this product arrived, I knew that I needed to look it over to get a handle on how it worked. I immediately pulled out the teacher manual to give it a go over. The first thing I liked (which I mention this a lot) is that it has a spiral binding. This is always a win-win for me! A few things I noticed included:
1. It is very detailed and thorough in describing how the program works
2. It includes pronunciation charts.
3. There are a couple pages of reproducible charts to be copied for the students, including quizzes.
4. It is written for a class and/or homeschool
5. It offers up suggestions on how to incorporate the program into your schedule.

6. Every page of the student book is in every lesson of the teacher manual.

This is one of the things I really appreciate about Memoria Press. They do this simple thing and it makes the teachers manual so much more teacher friendly. I also like that the answers to the exercises are right there on the mini student pages, so I don't have to try to find them.

Little Britches wasn't highly excited or motivated to try a new Latin program, but was willing to give it a shot--especially since it included a DVD like our other one did. We got started--he sitting in the recliner and I on the couch with the rest of the materials. While we listened to the Welcome and Introduction message, I worked on punching out the flashcards which were included in the package--I did them up to chapter 10.

Right away during the welcome and introduction I noticed Little Britches eyes glazing over...the DVD is presented very much in the style of a lecture hall with a teacher and slideshow. Not the ideal set up for a always on the go 9 year old. He actually at one point was upside down in the recliner listening.

Can't you tell how enthralled he is? LOL

Once we got to the Lesson 1, I had him sit up and pay more attention. He didn't mind this part since it began with greeting the teacher and learning the commands to: stand, sit and pray. He already is familiar with these words from our previous program and was glad to recognize them. Although he did look at me funny when they said we would be praying (learning prayers) as part of this program since that was something very new. At this point in the DVD, it told us to stop the DVD and listen to our CD with the prayer and song for the week/day. I already had the CD in our player, so we just switched over and listened to it, then returned back to the lesson.

Once this is done, the teacher dives right into the first lesson.

We did this for our lessons two times--but it was just way to boring, so we ceased using the DVD’s and just attacked it in a way that worked for us—with me leading the lesson (easy to do when it's written out for you in the manual) and using our whiteboard. We still did the opening dialogue and recitation, but ditched the CD’s after the first two lessons. Little Britches responded much better once we did this.

Here is how we ended up working through the lessons:

Day 1: Introduce the lesson
I wrote each word/phrase and translation on the board and had him repeat them.

Once we had them all written down, we went through and identified the nouns and verbs. It was a good reminder of ending identification. Next we read either the conjugation or declension and looked at the endings to remind ourselves about what they mean.

Then we recited them a few times. I simply followed the teacher information in the teachers guide to teach the lesson.

Day 2: Derivatives
I started by reviewing the conjugation and phrase we learned the previous day. Then, I skipped ahead and did the derivatives portion as a reminder of what the words meant. I encouraged Little Britches to think of words with the Latin root in it and 9 out of 10 times he could think of at least one. Then we wrote down the words on the board—and he picked the one he knew the best to write on his vocabulary list next to its Latin root. From here we completed the derivative exercise in his workbook.

Day 3: Vocabulary and Translation
Again we reviewed the assigned conjugation/declension through recitation. Then we worked through the exercises in the workbook for translation, vocabulary, and pronoun endings.

Practicing our phrases

Day 4: Review
On this day we began with the recitation of the new conjugation or declension and then we played the flashcard game I made up. I had him start on the other side of the room from me and I held up and read a flashcard. If he got the translation correct, he got to take a step forward. If he didn’t, he had to take a step back. If he stumbled over the translation, I would give him the derivative words to help and they always give him the assistance he needs. He likes this game a lot and it helps him remember what everything means.

The book provides some other ideas for review...

We completed a lesson a week, but there was a week or two where we reviewed instead of learning new vocabulary. I made up review lessons using our vocabulary--like a lot of matching.

Working on matching chapter 1 verbs

As of this week, we are working on our review of the first five lessons. We were easily able to do it, even while we were travelling in the car.

Finishing the review for first 5 chapters

What Are Our Thoughts About This Product?

Little Britches: 
“I do not like the DVD. The lady was boring so I had mommy do the lesson herself. I didn’t like the music or prayer recitation. I liked the flashcard game mommy did to help me remember the words. I just think this program was boring.”

Me:
In general, I have to agree with Little Britches. I think this program is very classical in nature—much more textbook style where you watch a lesson, recite, and then do worksheets. The DVD’s are very useful, but not geared for a younger age, so Little Britches asked if he HAD to watch them, because he’d rather I teach him myself.

I do think that the way I adapted the program to fit us, made it work. He seemed to have a pretty good retention of the words as long as we did LOTS of review. The derivative portion of learning Latin ended really being helpful in regards to determining translations. For instance, Little Britches knows what spectacles are, therefore it helps him remember that the base root “Specta” means “too look at”. I personally think learning the derivatives was the most helpful and useful portion of the whole program.

Little Britches quickly caught on to the process of conjugating a word, for Latin makes it easy since it uses the same ending for nearly every verb. Little Britches rattled off his conjugations with ease every morning and week.

I think the DVD is something I would use myself, but not something that I would or will continue to use with Little Britches. I am confident that I can teach it using the teachers guide—though I like knowing I can watch the lesson on DVD if I need help with a pronunciation or lesson.

While the CD with the prayers and songs was helpful, we ended up just saying them ourselves without listening to the CD because we felt it was “boring.” It also started feeling like I was in a Catholic church hearing vespers. I picked and decided which prayers I liked for us and which I was just going to pass on. The prayers are written out with complete pronunciation which is lovely!

I really liked that the teachers guide was spiral. I adore spiral books because they tend to hold up better. The flashcards were thick and I liked how they had the lesson they went with clearly marked on each card, as well as having the translation and derivatives. I totally forgot about the reproducibles, but plan on using them for the rest of our units because I think they will be very helpful. I also forgot about the quizzes that are included for each chapter. I will use them from here on out for sure.

So will we continue to use this program?
For now, yes, but with the adaptations that I have made. I don’t know that I necessarily like this one over the other Latin program I purchased. It think I like them each for different reasons, so I might just sort of combine them.

Would I Recommend This Product?

Yes, but with reservations. This is not a program designed to really be “kid friendly”. It isn’t flashy or “fun”, but it is very well done. Completing the program would give you an excellent grasp on beginning Latin, and you will notice and find Latin in our English words all the time after working just a couple lessons. I would definitely say that this program fits the Classical teaching style, so if you teach in that manner, you would probably enjoy it. The DVD’s are very helpful if you aren’t confident in teaching the program yourself—especially in regards to pronunciation. I am enjoying it myself and find myself picking up the words very quickly.

If you are seeking out something with fun kids songs, fun graphics, games, kid friendly video lessons—I would NOT recommend this program.

Want To Know More About This Product?

We reviewed Latina Christiana I Complete Set ($98.90) from Memoria Press. You have read our thoughts on this program, but what did other crew members think? Did you know that our team also reviewed two other Memoria Press products? Make sure you check out those reviews as well!

Want to keep in touch with the latest Memoria Press news?  Make sure you check them Facebook and Twitter! ***

***

Latin is a fascinating language and the more I learn about it as I teach, the more I realize that it is NOT a dead language, but one that pervades through out modern day language and vocabulary. I also think that even having a basic handle on it, will make studying other languages a lot easier because so many of the popular romantic languages have their Latin influences. I know that regardless of Little Britches thoughts on it, I am enjoying learning more and more about the language!

The Wars of the Jews from Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

I have had the chance to work with Memoria Press materials several times over the last five years of reviewing. Their products are always a highlight to what we use, and we have incorporated several of them into our regular curriculum. One area that I have not had much experience in, however, is their high school level material, due to my children still being in elementary and middle school. I was able to explore one of their high school curricula when I was asked if I could look over and review The Wars of the Jews Set. Being that this is a historical event that I’ve had a growing curiosity about, I eagerly agreed to look it over myself. 

About the Product

Memoria Press is an award-winning classical Christian education publisher. They carry a full line of curriculum and

Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set from Memoria Press {Curriculum Review}

One of the areas of curriculum I feel is very important, is studying literature. There are many companies that offer Literature Units and I have used many of them. One that I have had my eye on for quite awhile is from Memoria Press. When we had the chance to review the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set, I jumped at the chance and hoped it would work well in our school.

Product Information

Memoria Press is an award winning company known for producing some of the top Classical curriculum available for homeschooling. Some of their more popular curriculum are their grade level literature sets. Carrying a full range of literature units from pre-school through high school, it is possible to find a level perfect for your child.
Each literature unit includes the teacher guide and student guide for each of the books included in the unit. It is also possible to purchase the literature units with copies of the novels for an additional fee.

We were given the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set (retail $95) to review. It includes the printed teacher guide and student guide for each of the following books: *Cricket in Times Square *Homer Price *The Blue Fairy Book *Dangerous Journey
It is possible to buy each part of the unit individually if you are working through this with more than one child.

How Did We Use This Product?

This is a four book literature set containing the teachers guide and student activity book for the following novels: Homer Price, Cricket in Times Square, Dangerous Journey, and The Blue Fairy Book. Because we had actually JUST finished Cricket in Times Square, I decided that we would start with Homer Price--a book that I was confident my oldest would enjoy. Our library had Homer Price, but neither of the other two books that I needed (which they ordered specially for me), so the book we were going to start with was rather obvious anyway. 
I took some time to glance through the teachers manual to get a feel for how they expected me to do this unit. I noticed the lesson is separated into three sections: pre-reading, after reading, and enrichment. Pre-reading consists of going over a few terms they might be unfamiliar with (cultural or historical usually), reviewing the vocabulary for the day's reading, and reading the comprehension questions. Once this is completed, the student or teacher reads the passage for the day--about 10 pages or so. After the reading, the student can then complete the vocabulary exercise and comprehension questions, as they are taken straight from the day's reading. The next aspect of the lesson is a quote from the book and open ended discussion questions that can be completed orally with the student. Finally, there is the enrichment section, which takes what was discussed further. With every chapter, one of the lessons (there are 2 lessons per chapter) has a copywork passage straight from the book. The rest of the time the enrichment might be sequencing, matching characters with quotations, illustrating passages, or other types of activities like that. I appreciate that all the answers to the questions and vocabulary are printed clearly in the teacher guide for reference.

I already knew that Little Britches was going to balk at all the writing--he's just not a writing kind of person and prefers to answer everything orally. I knew, however, that he NEEDED to practice writing his thoughts and answers down on paper, thus I was going to require him to at least do a portion of the writing in his activity book. 
I also knew he was going to be upset at having to look up definitions of words for the vocabulary portion. He hates using a dictionary (except I just purchased a new one that he does admit he likes) and would prefer just asking SIRI on my phone. LOL. But we talked about the words--using them in the sentences provided--and he successfully was able to come up with the proper definitions for at least half of them without having to look them up. And yes, I "made" him look up most of the other words.
As we have continued through the book, I have him talk through all the vocabulary and see how many he can figure out without looking them up, and then he looks up the handful he doesn't know. Out of the comprehension questions, I allow him to do 1-2 of them orally--usually the ones that are longer, however, the others must be written down. This works well for us and once I did this, he has no problems completing it.
He has already fussed that we stopped in the middle of the story, and I saw him sneak the book and start reading ahead. I got on him laughingly and he sheepishly grinned and put the book away for the next day.

Page from the teacher guide

page from the student guide

We did the curriculum as it was designed, working through each chapter's work. Every chapter had a 4 page spread geared to two sessions of work--with half the chapter being read in each session. I found that we usually did each chapter over the course of a week--because it typically took two days to do each part, but sometimes we knocked out both pages in one day. At the end of each chapter, is a chapter review usually consisting of short answer questions, sequencing, matching quotes to characters, character identification, and other things like that. 

Answering comprehension questions

One of the fun "extras" we did to go with this was to play with yarn (to go with the chapter about collecting string into balls). I timed him to see how big of a yarn ball he could make in 10 minutes, and then I had him unroll it throughout the house (we have a circular hallway) to see how many rounds he could make before he ran out. He enjoyed it very much!

As of this week, we have finished Homer Price (the reading portion), and are just finishing out the student guide as it reviews the book via crosswords, sequencing, characterization, short answer questions, drawings, and such. I will let him choose the next book--either The Blue Fairy Book or Dangerous Journey.

What Are Our Thoughts on This Product?

Little Britches:  "I really liked the book. It was funny and I think the pictures were interesting. I really don't like writing out the answers to the questions, or looking up the vocabulary words. And I don't like writing down the quotations. I would like it better if we could just read the book and mommy ask me questions out loud. NO writing."
(bwahahahahaahahaha. My auditory learner and his abhorrence to writing)
Me: I really think this is a great literature unit. The books that were picked are a great collection. Each of them is a "classic" in regards great children's fiction. Two of them (Dangerous Journey and The Blue Fairy Book) were unfamiliar to me, which makes them even more enjoyable because I get to enjoy them fresh. 
This is a very classic style of literature unit--everything is read and write. There isn't anything "out of the box" in how it's taught, nor is there any hands-on activities included. There are quizzes and reviews throughout the guide that were pretty low key. I did like the addition of pages where Little Britches could draw his favorite scene from the reading, or do crosswords/word searches. 
One of my favorite parts was in a chapter where two stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Pied Piper of Hamlin, were mentioned. The study guide then had the fairy tales included for the student to read. The next activity was to compare and contrast using those stories--with the chapter in Homer Price. This was great practice for Little Britches AND allowed him to learn two additional stories in the process. 
This not a "complete" language arts program, as it is missing the grammar, spelling, and writing. However, these are easy subjects that could be added to this great literature core.
Even though we didn't use the other Literature units yet in this program, I wanted to briefly mention how they are similar and different from Homer Price:

*Dangerous Journey
This one has a similar set up in that it has pre-reading, vocabulary, and comprehension questions. The enrichment portion is a bit different, as it has multiple choice questions, a drawing page, and information concerning maintaining a map of the story throughout the reading. 
*The Cricket in Times Square The set is similar to Homer Price. The enrichment portion is also almost identical. There does appear to be additional map work and teaching information in the appendix section that goes with the unit. This includes chapter quizzes (1 every 4 chapters) and a final book test.
*The Blue Fairy Book Very similar in format. The appendix includes the quizzes and a final exam, as well as answers to the discussion questions. There is also lined paper that can be used for copywork.
In principle, I would say that each of the guides mirror the others, thus once you get in the routine of using them, you will be able to pick up the next one, knowing what to expect with little variation. Each book is intended to be a 6-7 week study, thus with 4 books in this unit, you are looking at a minimum of 24 weeks of lessons, although the way we separated our Homer Price, we would be pushing more towards 28 or 30. This makes up almost an entire year of literature. 
Another pro--IF you wanted to turn these into more hands-on units, I think there is a lot you could do with them. Because these are all actually well known stories, there are a lot of online crafts and activities to go with them, which might make them a better fit for a more hands-on learner. These are totally adaptable, in that if your child doesn't like writing, you could have them orally answer and dictate, however, they are perfect for the visual learner too.
If you are a lapbook or Charlotte Mason method, these probably won't be for you, as they are very traditional in their layout and application. 
Any cons? Actually, the only con I had, was that I would like to see at least some additional resources that connect with each book--for taking it further, exploring rabbit trails, or finding hands on activities to match. I was able to find a few on my own, but I think it would add to the program if there was a page included in the teacher guide that listed additional resources that could be used.
I think that the program was designed to be adapted for each end of the grade level spectrum, as it does suggest that teacher adjust the assignment to fit what the child is capable of. 
Will we continue to use this program? Absolutely! I think it's very well done and I like having the guides laid out for me. Now that we aren't doing it as a review, I plan on exploring each book a little further and incorporating more of those crafts and activities as they fit the chapters we are learning. 

Would I Recommend This Product?

Yes! This is a great program for the Classical/Traditional/Unit Study method of classroom. I added Unit Study, because it would be very very easy to take these units further and incorporate other subjects to them. They are open and go, and a routine can quickly be set which makes it easy to schedule them into the day. The books can be found at the library (for the most part), and if not, can easily be purchased on the company website. The program encourages critical thinking and analysis of the stories. 
If you want a literature unit that is more hands-on with frequent deviation from the actual reading, this is not going to work for you. If you aren't a big fan of review quizzes and exams, probably not going to work for you (Although I don't think they are necessary if they aren't your style). 

Want to Know More?

We reviewed the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set from Memoria Press. You have read our thoughts on the program, but why not head over and see what the rest of the crew did with their units?! We had members checking out levels Pre-K through 9th grade, so you can get a peak at what to expect at all the levels. Want to stay up to date with the latest happenings at Memoria Press? Follow them on these social media outlets: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/memoriapress/
Twitter (@MemoriaPress) - https://twitter.com/MemoriaPress
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*** I am very happy that this unit was what I was hoping for. I look forward to continuing the rest of the books that we were given, and I will definitely be checking out the upcoming grade levels for future use!

Upcoming Reviews for July and August 2019

Well, it is official that we are in the HEAT of summer here on the farm! Wowza are we having a "real" Kentucky summer this year. But when you have fields and fields of hay, that's an excellent thing. LOL. Summer is my husband's favorite season because he can get the most down on the farm. I don't really mind it myself since I have the blessed invention of an Air Conditioner to help me manage! LOL. Because it is summer, we are technically on a summer school break. But if you have been readers for awhile, you know that we review homeschooling product all year long--which means there are still a few school items in house for us to dabble in over the summer. Today I'm going to catch you up with what we've got in house for July and August. It really is a mix of things, including some we most likely will continue into the new school year.

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links. 

Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!

UPCOMING REVIEWS FOR JULY 2019

1. Music and Creativity-Foundation Course, Simply Music
This is a program I was very curious about as soon as I heard about it. It's a completely online piano lesson program! As a former

Upcoming Reviews for June/July 2018: What Are We Working On?

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!
Happy June! May was our last month of "regular" school for us, so we are officially on SUMMER BREAK, but we are going to still be using review products through the summer a few hours a day! It's time for another check in on what we've got in house for review products over these summer months. Since my last check in, I've added our reviews for Reading Kingdom, books from Kayla Jarmon, Kids Email, and Home School Navigator. Have you checked those out yet? In house we have an elementary art curriculum, some consumable workbooks, a high school art history curriculum, a bible study guide for kids, and some unit studies. Let's see what's coming up!

UPCOMING REVIEWS FOR JUNE 2018

1. Something Fishy at Lake Iwannafisha (The Critical Thinking Co.)
The Critical Thinking Co. is a best selling publisher for workbooks and products that promote...critical thinking! LOL. We've reviewed some of their excellent material in the past, and we are doing it again. This time we are reviewing a detective style book. My son will work as a police detective to solve this fun and engaging crime mystery. The book and activities teaches basic forensic information and how it is used to solve crimes. Using the lessons and his brain, my son will then have to work through the mystery to determine who committed the crimes. This is a great workbook for us heading into our summer break! My review will be going LIVE the week of June 4th, 2018.

First Start Reading: Phonics, Reading and Printing {Curriculum Review}

Baby Britches loves school. He's just 4 1/2, but I've been doing active schooling with him this year. He's already learned all his letters, can write almost all of them (upper and lower case), and knows most of the their sounds. I have been wondering how close he was to kicking off into reading and was wondering how to go about getting started on it. Imagine my delight, when Memoria Press offered their First Start Reading curriculum as a review product to the Schoolhouse Review Crew--Could this be just what we needed to open the world of books to him?

Product Summary

Memoria Press has designed First Start Reading, a phonics, reading and printing curriculum for Kindergarten. Though there are already a ton of phonics based programs on the market, First Start Reading is different because it is not only a very age appropriate and balanced approach to phonics and reading, but it also puts an emphasis on proper pencil grip and letter formation right from the beginning.  Unlike most of the traditional phonics, instead of a consonant-vowel blending ladder approach, First Start Reading goes with a more traditional vowel-consonant method matched up with word families. 
First Start Reading consists of four student books and thirty-one phonetic stories; however, there is just one teachers guide for the whole curriculum to make it easiest for teachers. The program retails for $42.95 (teachers guide and student books) and is geared towards Kindergarten. You can see samples of Book A, Book B, Book C and Book D as well as the Table of Contents.
We were given the First Start Reading program to review with Baby Britches (Age 4 1/2).

How Did We Use the Product?

We were very excited when our books arrived for this curriculum. Baby Britches kept saying "For me? These are mine? Not Bubby's?" He knows he usually isn't the one receiving the books so he was tickled they were for him. And the fact they had farm scenes on the front...well, that just made them even better.
I spent the first day reading through the Teacher's Guide to get a feel for how the curriculum worked. Here were a few things that I noticed:
1. The Table of Contents is very easy to navigate

The introduction shows an explanation about how the program works, the emphasis of the curriculum as well as guidelines for teaching the program. 

There are instructions for using it as a group, or in a homeschool setting

I like that since this program includes penmanship, there is a portion discussing pencil grips. I think this is very important when starting printing at this age.

In the appendix (as it notes) you can find reproducible (or just tear them out and use) posters to use with this curriculum. These would be great to tear out and laminate (which I will soon). 2. You can view all the lesson plans for all four of the student books

The lessons are clearly labeled and identify what skill is being taught. It shows you if there is a new letter/sound, the common words included in the lesson, what reading skills (if any), the sentences being taught, and then what page number it's on. This is invaluable for getting an idea on the scope of the program. Every book is listed in this manner. This is a good reference for when you notice there is a lack of comprehension on a certain sound. I can quickly flip through this chart to see what lesson needs to be repeated.
3. The lesson plan is very open for use with a group or individual student.

This is a page from the very first lesson. It is easy to see the dialogue they suggest for using it. I also see that every page of the student book is here in my teacher book. The instruction is written for a "group" but can easily be used for just an individual student. It's very simple and logical and shows how to introduce whatever the concept is. Including guidelines of what to do, or not to do.

Love that they include ear training at the beginning of each lesson

Each lesson comes with printing right away and emphasizes proper strokes for forming the letters, including "air letters". 

Letter Formation Review Includes Great Interaction from the Child before they ever put pencil to paper

4. The lesson is definitely open and go, without set lesson guidelines on how much or how little to do I looked throughout the book and there wasn't anywhere they said that you should do X amount each day. It really is just a go-your-own-pace program. I think that this very good for the age group as you will never know from one lesson to another, or even one day to another how much they will be willing to do or can remember.
This is also open and go. Nothing extra is needed besides crayons, pencil and a whiteboard or chalkboard of some kind for the teacher to use. I used our big white board if we were in the classroom or our lap white boards if we were not.
So we got started... Baby Britches was eager to get started on his new book. For the first lessons, I stuck to the "script" just to get the flow of how it was supposed to work. I learned that it was very easy to do, and easy to tweak according to the needs of your child. 
The first day, we did Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 which were all about the letter M and A. It was good practice to review the sounds and letter formation. He already know sounds and how to write, but it was a great review on HOW to write them. 
The routine of the program is like this: *Introduce the letter and sound it makes
*Show the pictures and have the children name them *Talk about the sound it makes and have the children repeat the sound *Have them listen for the sound as you say other words beginning and ending with the sound. *Print the letter (capital and lowercase) on the board and talk about how many times you pick your pencil up. Repeat this process. Then mimic it in the air. Have children mimic in the air counting their strokes and lifts. *Have child trace letters while you watch pencil grip. Mark their best efforts. *Have child write using the bubble starter. Watch pencil grip and mark their best efforts. *Now allow them to color the objects beginning with the letter/sound.  *Finally, have them draw something in the given space (if it's there) that also starts with the sound they are learning.
One of the things that the teacher's guide suggests is that after advising them to start printing according to the lesson, that the teacher mark the BEST printing with a special pen. This was HUGE for Baby Britches. I pulled out a pen that wrote in red sparkles and he would write his letters and then tell me "Time for stars! Time for stars!" At which time I would go through and talk about his letter formation and mark the letters I thought were his best. 

He liked to offer up suggestions. I played around a bit too and said things like "whoops! He wanted to be super tall! He needs to remember he has to stay under the line." or "Yikes! What a tail he has! Is he trying to be a lion instead of an a?" If I kept it playful, he was more than willing to keep doing it.

Very dedicated to his printing

Our second day brought a review of the sounds of M and A, and then we dove into Lesson 3 which was our first word and first sentence. The program is very heavy on phonics and blending (yay!). It guides the teacher on how to teach the blending for each lesson and is very open dialogue with the student on how it's done. 
A brief synopsis of how the lesson works: *Remind student of the sounds of the individual letters
*Show them the blend marking. *Write it on the board exactly as on their paper. *Say and trace the blend. Repeat this process saying it faster and faster until you are saying the word. *Have them trace the blend and repeat the process using their finger on their own page. *Student now traces the letters/words. Teacher checks for pencil grip and marks best efforts.
This continues according to the lesson. Most of the blend lessons end with a sentence of some sort. Usually just 2-3 words. It gets traced and then said and then written (sometimes).
By the end of Lesson 3, Baby Britches was reading his first two word sentence! It's simple, but it brought a lot of excitement. (I have a video...but I need to figure out how to get it off my Kindle to upload it here because it's super cute.)
From here on out, we always started our day with review over the precious day's work and then added in 1-2 pages depending on what was being covered. It was easy to see that the routine described above was to be consistently used as new material was added.

We typically worked on this three days a week as that was usually all that I could get Baby Britches to willingly do. I really went by whether he was willing to work or not, because forcing it was pointless. If he said "I don't remember." or "I don't know." more than once or twice, I just stopped the lesson. 
We were able to complete 16 lessons over the course of our review.
Because I didn't get into the next three books (Book B, C and D), I took some photos of what is covered in them to give you an idea of the progression of the program.

Lesson 25, Book A

Book B

Book B

Lesson 21, Book B

Each book has a list of all the words learned

From Book C

Lesson 26, Book C

Book C

If you look at the right side of the lesson it guides you through what is expected for each line

Every book has a series of assessments based on the words learned

Book D

Book D

Lesson 12, Book D

Final Lesson, Book D

As you can see, when the program is completed, the student will definitely have a fantastic reading level and capability as well as plenty of practice with printing.

What Are Our Thoughts on the Product?

Baby Britches:  I like reading I am Sam! And the fat rat. And I like to 'tolor' (color).
Me:  I was excited about this product because I believed that Baby Britches was on the brink of reading. He is 4 1/2 and knows all his letters and all their "normal" sounds. I thought that this program might be able to get everything all lined up for him to kick off his reading.
I like the way that the program is open for you to do as much or as little as you want with your child. This was IDEAL for us since he's still IS just four. He's not ready for a lot and I had to really choose what we did based on his mood for the day. There were some days he wanted to do everything I wanted, and others he didn't even want to touch it. But the good news is that this program let you do that!
I liked the way the routine of the program went. It had a cycle that worked well for us. He knew what to expect and that worked. I found he liked the writing more than anything else and enjoyed practicing his "air" letters. He did well with listening for the new sounds as I said them. 
When it came time for actually learning the words, blending was a bit difficult at first. But the more we did it, the more he got a hang of it and it became easier for him with each new blend. 
We really didn't get very far. But that is because we needed to review a LOT and that was okay. I didn't feel like the program was insufficient. I liked the way that it worked. There was PLENTY of things to review and when he started getting mixed up with his blends, we simply reviewed those pages. 
After using it for these first 16 lessons, I can tell that he doesn't quite have the skills needed for reading yet...but we've definitely made some initial progress and he can read a few words!
Something that I would like to see would be a review page put in after a certain number of lessons. I think this would help for the kids who need the CONSTANT review. As it was, I just had to keep flipping back to earlier lessons to do our reviews. 

Would I Recommend This Product?

Yes! I really enjoyed it and think it is an excellent program, especially if you are teaching more than one child at a time. It is definitely geared towards learning by phonics and blending, not pushing for sight words which is so common in today's early reading education. 
If you are seeking a curriculum that will combine phonics with reading with the added bonus of printing, this is definitely for you. I would definitely put it at a Kindergarten level, though if you have an advanced 4 year old that already can write and identify letters, it should work well too. It is scripted, and yet you can do as much or as little as you want. So it works for several different styles of teaching. We used a phonics heavy program for Kindergarten with Little Britches and it was actually very similar to this...but I think this one goes even further. I looked ahead to the last book and it will be quite awesome what Baby Britches will be able to do by the time we finish the curriculum.
Will we continue to use this program? Yes. I don't know if I will keep using it right now though. But if I don't continue at this time, I will be pulling it back out when we "officially" start Kindergarten. I really liked the way it progressed and look forward into incorporating it.

Want to Know More About This Product?

We reviewed First Start Reading by Memoria Press. You know what our thoughts are on the product, but what did other families think about it? And what about the New American Curvive program? Make sure you check out the rest of our crew's reviews for more information!

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It is fun to try out Kindergarten things with Baby Britches with him only being 4 1/2. Some things he gets easily and other things you can tell he's just not ready for. This was one that crossed over where we had good days and bad days! I definitely think this will be the program for us to use continuing on as we "officially" start Kindergarten this fall. And it really wet my whistle for Memoria Press products.