Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Memory Work

Homeschool Review Crew

Cross Seven

Do you often work on memory work with your kids?  Other than Bible verses we really haven’t.  So I was intrigued with a new review we embarked on with the Homeschool Review Crew and Cross Seven.  We were granted access to a one-year subscription to Cross Seven Ventures- Homeschool Musical Memory Tool. 

About the Program

Cross Seven offers a classically based approach to memory work.  They have four cycles to work through.  Ideally, you would work through them starting with one and ending with four, but you can skip around and make it work however you need as well. 

The history follows along and corresponds with the Story of the World books.  We have all four of those so that is a nice thing to know.  As for the Bible, most of the Bible is ESV though the upper cycles do have some KJV thrown in. 

Some of the topics covered are history, Latin, scripture, grammar, science, math, geography, hymns, as well as a timeline and the timeline song.  Each of the topics is covered within the weekly memory work and within the cycles.  You can use their weekly schedule or make your own.  

I personally liked that they have a Roku channel so this can be streamed to a television if you have a Roku stick instead of trying to crowd everyone around a laptop.  

The target range for students who will benefit the most from this program is K-6th.  That’s not to say older children who have not done memory work cannot participate or get anything out of this program.  

They do offer a one-day free trial so you can see if this program might be for you.  This is not a parent intensive program as the student can do it independently and you can keep track of how they’re doing by what their quizzes are showing.  As for subscriptions, you can purchase monthly or yearly.  You can purchase by cycle or by subject and you have the options of doing a yearly subscription for all four cycles. 

Parent versus Student

So, the parent has their login.  From here you can get to all the cycles and memory work.  Each child then has their own account under that so that they can take their quizzes under their own name.  This lets you easily keep track of who has done what quizzes and how well they are doing. 

Because I am a large family and I always love knowing if there are limits I went ahead and put my junior high and high school kids in this curriculum as well.  I have ten of my eleven children in the program currently.  Since we have never done memory work I was curious how my older children would perform and also just thought it would be a good way of keeping their school going over the summer and while I’m on postpartum recovery mode. 

I do think that the Roku channel is a wonderful thing as my kids can all sit down and watch the videos together and then do their own quizzes.  I also like that this is something we can do as a family.  Computers or pads/tablets are needed to do the quizzes.  I would also encourage having notebooks handy and they do have other things that you can research with fun links as well.

Subjects

You can pick and choose which subjects you use and which cycle you’re in or you can just simply use the weekly schedule and start with cycle one.  I appreciate that there is a schedule set out per cycle or you can pick your own.  I do think this would be best if you start with cycle one and work through it that way.  

Cycle one starts with creation and beginning geography.  Cycle two builds on that and takes you to the next steps in learning.  If you’re wanting to use this for a full curriculum and start off with it then it’s perfect to start with cycle one.  Since this is geared for grades K-6 they will cycle back through a few cycles.  

My thoughts would be that in kindergarten they’re just memorizing whereas when they go back through at a higher grade they are actually comprehending and learning and understanding what they’re memorizing to music. 

Grammar is probably the only subject that I would not recommend skipping around in. I would recommend starting either where they are at or if you’re not sure starting with week 1 cycle 1.  If you’ve never done any Latin this would again be a good one to start with cycle 1 week 1.

What subject you do first is up to you!  They do have a recommendation of doing the pledge, Lord’s prayer and then the timeline song.  My kids are loving the timeline!

Our Thoughts 

As someone who has never done a classical approach and who was not homeschooled, I was very curious about the timeline aspect of this program.  This is the subject we have mostly focused on though I did let the kids browse around on the others as they wanted.  

In Cycle one the timeline starts at Creation for week one.  Basically, you get two videos for each week.  The first is what I call the events portion and the second video is the hand motions to go with the video.  I’ve never done anything like this so I’m hoping I’ve done it correctly but I had the kids watch the timeline video first and then watch the hand motions one.  So every time they would watch a timeline video the next video they would watch is the hand motions one. 

Now, this is where I do have to agree with the age levels for who the program is geared for.  My junior high and high school kids who are in that actual age range mentally did not want to do the hand motions.  But my elementary-age kids loved the hand motions.  

Verdict

Having used the program for a little bit now I can definitely say that it’s something that most of my children enjoy.  I personally really like all the information that they’re gleaning without even realizing it.  It’s amazing how much a young child can learn by memory without understanding all of it.  

I don’t think I would ever just do a classical method for our homeschool but I think this is a great way to get facts into your kids.  I can see us pulling from this for quite a while.  Through this, I have noticed a few areas that we have missed filling in and that is why my older children are still using the program.  An area they are focusing on right now is the presidents through the timeline.  

Our Memory Work Plans

Areas that I really want my kids to focus on and use and learn are Latin, Geography, and Hymns/Scripture.  I am making focus charts or really just a lesson plan with what subjects I want them to work through for this summer.  My younger children are just going to work through cycle 1 week by week doing all the subjects.  Because that’s a good fit for them. 

For my older junior high and high school, we are using it as an extra school over the summer.  They are going to focus on subjects.  The goal is to do around two weeks of each subject per week for the summer so that I can count it as a summer semester course and give them transcript credit for those subjects.  Our main core focus areas for my high school especially are going to be Latin, timeline, geography, and scripture.  This way they can fill in a few gaps and keep themselves learning through the summer.  Our summer schedule will be June through September.  

While this would never be a full curriculum for us I can definitely see where this would be a good thing for us to subscribe to and use as a supplement to our school.  I can see us using certain subjects weekly and daily while others we probably would only use if they had something that we needed or were studying in our own school.  

Learn More

You can learn more about Cross Seven and what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew thought of the program by reading all of the reviews linked up on the Main Blog Post over on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  Cross Seven can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.