We had the opportunity to review The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set and 200 Questions About American History Set by Memoria Press.
We live in America, so it would seem logical we should know about American History. I have to honestly tell you I don’t remember much from the American History class I took in high school. Right now, we are studying American History in our school, so I am learning, again, right alongside my children. Adding The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set and 200 Questions About American History Set by Memoria Press has made the whole history study even more interesting. I love history and so do my children.
Both studies are part of the seventh grade curriculum package, but the suggested use is for fifth through eighth grade students. The presentation of Memoria Press products is always nice. The books are high quality and well bound with glossed covers. Color is used on the book covers and the content is straight black and white. No frills are necessary for this comprehensive material. Memoria Press was founded in 1994 by Cheryl Lowe and is the publisher of classical Christian education material. The company is family-run and caters to the classroom instructor as well as the homeschool family. The curriculum was originally created to be used in the Highlands Latin School. Homeschoolers have been able to easily create a Classical home education experience for their children using Memoria Press curriculum.
We received the following items for this review:
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic text
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic Student Guide
The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic Teacher Guide
200 Questions About American History Set
200 Questions About American History Student Guide
200 Questions About American History Teacher Key
200 Questions About American History Flashcards (150 drill questions, 30 timeline dates, 20 notable quotes and 44 U.S. Presidents)
Something I really like about Memoria Press is they include suggested schedules for completing the work for their studies. Although I often create my own schedule, I like having a guide or suggestion of the pace material should be completed. Along with the Memoria Press selling books of its grade level lessons plans, you may now purchase lessons plans for individual subject sets.
Using the lesson plan, I created this schedule that we followed:
Monday – read chapters 1-3/9-11/15-16, etc.
Tuesday – completed Student Guide lessons 1/4/6, etc., presented drill questions
Wednesday read chapters 4-6/12-13/17-19, etc., reviewed drill questions
Thursday – completed Student Guide lessons 2/5/7, etc., reviewed drill questions
Friday – read chapter 7/14/20-21 and completed Student Guide lessons 3, etc., reviewed drill questions
We looked at the timelines together at the beginning of the study. There are also six tests and one final exam.
I was going to let Lily work through the curriculum alone, but I wanted a history refresher, so we read through The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic text together. The chapters in the Great Republic text are short, but contain a lot of information. Just like the Memoria Press literature guides, this study has a lot of writing. Lily happens to love writing, so completing that portion of the material was something she enjoyed. For your children who would rather wash dishes than write, you could choose some of the writing assignments and not do them all or allow your child to give you oral responses. They will still be learning.
Students complete the 200 Questions About American History Student Guide in conjunction with the Great Republic text chapters they read for the week. Following the question in the student book are references of where the answers (besides on the flashcards) were introduced in the reading, so the student is not just memorizing facts, but has a story or point of reference for what they are memorizing/learning.
My daughter (all of my children) is a whiz when it comes to memorizing information. The flashcards contain American History facts starting with the Native Americans and finishing with Barack Obama through 2017. That is a whole lot of history and many, many facts. If your child even memorizes half of the information contained on the cards, he will know more American History than the average American. Hmm, I am not sure if that is good or bad.
You could use each set independently, but both The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set and 200 Questions About American History Set work well together giving your child a great picture into American History.
I have to add, I am already a fan of Memoria Press Curriculum. We have been using the grade literature guides for years. I am impressed with this study of American history and Lily will continue working through it this school year. She will actually be moving to the full Memoria Press curriculum next year for eighth grade.
You may purchase the The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set set for $48 and the 200 Questions About American History Set for $27.90.
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