Classical Writing

Homeschool Review Crew

Memoria Press is a favorite homeschool curriculum provider of our families.  They excel with all things language, literature, and reading in our minds so we use quite a few of their products.  When given the chance to review Simply Classical Writing from them through the Crew I knew it would be great!  Simply Classical Writing Book One: Step-by-Step Sentences (Bible Story Edition) and Simply Classical Writing Book Two: Step-by-Step Sentences (Bible Story Edition) with Teacher Key, Skill level about 1st-3rd grade is the formal name of the products we received.  We did not receive The Story Bible though it can be purchased to go with the set.

This is a physical product review.  We received three physical books.  Two are student guides and one is the teacher key.  You do need The Story Bible in order to use this curriculum.  We already had a copy at home so that was not a deal breaker for us.  

The Curriculum

Book One

Book One of Simply Classical Writing is geared for ages 6-8.  This is either physical or mental age.  It includes 34 lessons from beginning classical copy work to grammar rules, sentence writing, and composition.  These lessons focus on stories from the Bible including Genesis through the New Testament.  

Simply Classical Writing book two takes what has been taught in book one and expounds on it.  Those simple grammar rules and sentence writing then become knowing what a noun, pronoun, verb, etc are and how to use them properly.  This book is geared for grades first through third.

The book A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories needs to be in the home to use this curriculum to its fullest.  You can purchase it with the curriculum or separate through Memoria Press.

This series is also available in read-aloud format.  With the read-aloud format, you’re going to be using lots of good books to read and use with the grammar lessons, copywork, etc instead of the Bible Stories book.

The entire Simply Classical line from Memoria Press is geared towards special needs and I for one am very happy that such a wonderful curriculum is working to help those with special needs flourish and thrive with a curriculum geared specifically to them.  

Book Two

Book two takes up where book one left off.  It takes what they’ve been working on and adds in nouns, verbs, etc and how to use them properly.  More rules are added.

This book also has 34 lessons or weeks of instruction.  So each book is designed to be used for one year.  Each week has lessons A, B, C, and D.  So this indicates using it four days a week.  Four days is the perfect schedule for us as we have one town day or day where we run errands.  That day it is hard to get a full school day in.

A part that I really appreciate is picking out the main focus of passages versus just details.  I’ve noticed that my daughter has a hard time picking out the parts of a story that are important.  She wants to repeat back the entire thing word for word via reading it instead of summarizing and just telling me the key points of a story.  I’m hoping that working through this will help her in this regard.  

Teacher Key

The teacher key is for book two.  There is no teacher key for book one as it’s all within the student book.  I personally have not had much need to use the teacher key so far.  Maybe I will later on in the book but most of this has not been to such a degree I need the answers.  That being said I am always glad to have answer keys or teacher keys so that if someone else needs to take over teaching they can and can be on the same page as I am without having to worry about finding or coming up with the right answer.  

Our Thoughts

Simply Classical Writing book one is geared towards ages 6-8.  This does not mean your child has to be these ages though.  The reason I wanted this curriculum is that it’s focused more towards special needs as well as actual ages.  So my child who is quite a bit older with some special needs that really needs this curriculum is using it.  Her handwriting is actually pretty good but her grammar and spelling are atrocious.   Really bad guys.  For the purposes of this review, she is age 14 but due to trauma as a child, she is closer to an 8-year-old with school and mental capacity.  

I wanted something simple and laid out that she could go in every day and do what I’d assigned her.  Starting at the beginning of book one was a bit too easy for her.  I rejoiced!  Seriously, finding out she wasn’t quite as far behind as I thought was nice.  Definitely a good feeling to know you’re actually not starting over at square one.  So for her, we started out in book two.  This was more where she needed to be.  A different curriculum she finished had been working with her on nouns and verbs so this was a great starting off spot.  

More Thoughts

I can see myself using this curriculum again but definitely starting earlier.  It is helpful for my older special needs child.  I think I would like to get the read-aloud edition for my up and coming first grader so that she can just start out with it and enjoy both good literature and learning grammar aspects.  

This is a good curriculum and I will endorse it as really a good one for my specific special needs child.  I have two others that I consider special needs as well.  They have not used this curriculum but I did look through this with them and have them read and verbally answer a few things to see how it might work for them as well. 

My personal thoughts are that this is a good curriculum for special needs.  I think though that I would like to start it at a younger age than where we are at.  As I mentioned the one I’ve used this with is 14, the other two are 12 and 10.  So again they are definitely past the age that most children are learning these concepts. 

We have worked on them before but other curriculums haven’t “cemented” the information into their brains and have left me wondering if we got anything out of it.  I can’t say whether or not anything will be staying in their brains from this until we’re done but so far I am noticing an advancement in these areas within our other school studies as well so I’m holding out loads of hope!

A Bit About Our Choice

Memoria Press bases its materials on the classical model of education.  If you’re not familiar with that a quick google search will give you more information than you need to know.  Our personal homeschool philosophy follows a Charlotte Mason meets unschool approach.  So I’m sure if you’ve followed me for long you’re wondering why we like Memoria Press and the classical writing style so much.

Writing is one area that I have struggled with my children.  They don’t enjoy writing, they’re not very good at it, and they fight doing it.  So I knew that a new approach was needed.  This is really what I needed to begin teaching proper writing to my children.  And thus the beauty of homeschool!  You’re not locked into one curriculum or one way of learning.  You get to explore them all and find what works for you and your child in each subject.  

Now What?

Since I did not end up using book one with my 14-year old I am going to use it with an 8-year-old special needs girl who is still struggling to learn to read.  She may not use it this year though so I’m just going to shelve it until she is ready for it.  I really think she will do better with this book than the normal grammar curriculum I use for all my kiddos.

Book two is going to be completed by my older daughter.  I’m not adhering to strict weeks right now because she did know some of the material already.  So some weeks we have done two weeks worth of curriculum and others we may just do one once we get to a part that she is starting to struggle more in.  I know it’s coming since she’s having a harder and harder time picking out the main focus of the stories each lesson.  

Will I buy this curriculum?  As I mentioned above I am considering buying the read-aloud version of this curriculum for my 6-year-old daughter to use for her first-grade curriculum.  I will buy book two for my 8-year-old daughter who is going to use the book one.  At this time I’m not going to buy the curriculum for my other two special learners as I feel they are past this classical writing grade level.  

Learn More

You can learn more about Memoria Press and their vast array of homeschool products by finding them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.  Also, make sure to go to the Homeschool Review Crew Blog where on the main post for Memoria Press reviews you will find all the reviews linked up to be read.  Members of the Crew were given a choice of products to review so there are more than just the Classical Writing curriculum to delve into how they work and whether they might work for you or not.  

Because we do love this company I really recommend you check out all of the products, and their reviews, that were offered to Crew members.  We were able to review their The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set and 200 Questions About American History set, grades 5-8 before and really enjoyed it.  This has been redone since we reviewed it but you can find our review HERE.