Classical Poetry

Homeschool Review Crew

As you homeschool you start to get companies that you really enjoy every product you’ve used from them.  Memoria Press is one of those companies for us.  We love their books and were excited to try out a new set this year.  As part of the Homeschool Review Crew we received Poetry for the Grammar Stage Set to help teach some classical poetry to my children.

Memoria Press follows the Classical Education model.  This particular classical poetry set covers grades 3-7.  

In our set we received three books.  These three books included the student guide, teacher guide, and anthology.  The anthology is all the poems needed for not only this year but the entire four year course set built around this classical poetry.  So for grade 3 you use this set and then the next three years you get new student and teacher books to finish covering the poems in the anthology book.

There are 32 poems covered in the anthology.  When I first got the program I thought that this set was only going to cover the first quarter of the poems, but it doesn’t.  It actually covers all of the poems within the book.

Another thing that you can see in the teacher guide is that on the contents page it shows you which classical core curriculum each of the poem studies is related to.  We don’t use a classical core curriculum or any actual set curriculum so this wasn’t that helpful for us but I think it would be great to have if you do.

My Thoughts

I love introducing my children to good classical poetry.  Now I have a nice set of poems that we can not only study through the curriculum but work on having my children memorize or at least become familiar with.  

In the beginning of the student guide there is a section called how to teach a poem.  It gives you step by step instructions on the best way to teach each poem to your children of students.  This curriculum is not written specifically for homeschooling so you do see things like — your students (your child)— for example.  It’s not difficult to decipher but I did want everyone to know that it is there.

I love that the kids copy each of the poems.  They also draw an illustration.  This gives us a better appreciation for a poem in my opinion.  They have to at least understand it enough to draw a picture.  Writing something also helps them to learn it.  Some kids as you know learn well from hearing while others need to say or read it for themselves or write it to help cement it.

We actually do a lot of copy-work in our house.  It really helps them to focus on what they’re learning but also helps them to practice their penmanship.  For longer passages have them switch between manuscript and cursive.  It helps keep their minds occupied on what they’re doing and not become quite so distracted. 

One of my goals with this curriculum is to have my children memorize some of these classical poetry works.  The first one studied is The Pleiades by Amy Lowell.

Other things that are done for each poem is a section on vocabulary, an analyze section, and finally comprehension questions.  The student guide and teacher’s guide are basically the same book but with the answers put into the teachers book where they are blank in the student guide. 

How We Used

The child I have using this curriculum is 7th grade this year and so she is working double lessons in it.  Instead of doing one poem study per week she is doing two since this is the grammar stages or the first level in a four year study.  I’m not exactly sure which poems are supposed to go with what years as I haven’t researched the literature studies they go with to know for sure what grades they’re in.  But I do know the poems get longer and more difficult the further you go into the book

I also got a second set of books to allow another child to work through this.  Initially I had thought I’d have my oldest son work through it.  He’s a sixth grade level but he was a bit resistant to poetry and I didn’t want to fight with him over poems at this stage of the school year.  So instead I decided to let my eight year old daughter use our second set.  She is advanced for her age and doing 4th to 5th grade work.  

The fit for my younger girl is definitely better than for the older.  It doesn’t provide enough challenge for my older daughter so I’m hoping that the fourth year cycle of the study would have provided the challenge she needs.  This one book is really supposed to be used over the four years in conjunction with the literature studies.  So we adjusted that by my older daughter just working through it quickly.  Once we get to the poems towards the end that are more challenging she will slow down.  

I definitely think that the recommendation of using this book with third grade is the best so that by seventh grade they can use the more advanced ones.  Makes me wish I’d had this when my oldest was that grade so that she could have had more exposure to poetry.  We will definitely be checking out the other levels while we attend our local homeschool convention next weekend.

Few More Thoughts

The set costs $42.00 for the three books.  If you need to purchase additional books like we did the student guide is $14.95.  I enjoyed being able to just purchase one additional book per child since they can share the poem book and I only need one teacher guide.  

Since our review period is ending I’m re-looking at how we want to use this curriculum for long term.  I would like to start it over again this fall with ALL of my middle grade children using it.  That means more student books but also more exposure to poetry for my children.  I thoroughly believe that children are capable of memorizing passages of literature or Bible and really want to work with mine more on that subject.  

And of course there is the fact that it gets me to spend more time with my favorite poem. . . . The Lady of Shallot.  I think it is my favorite due to Anne’s love of it in Anne of Green Gables.  So of course it pleased me to see this poem spotlighted as well as The Bells to go with the Anne of Green Gable literature series.

Learn More

Learn more about not only this classical poetry set but the other levels as well as so much more!  To do this simply go over to the main post on the Homeschool Review Crew blog that covers this crew review series of products from Memoria Press. Somr products you’ll learn about are the different levels of Latin, other poetry levels, and some Classical Phonics with their First Start Reading program.  You can also find more about Memoria Press on Facebook, twitter, pinterest, instagram, and youtube.