Curriculum from Memoria Press

New American Cursive

Memoria Press

We just started a new handwriting curriculum here.  I have used Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) for printing and its worked for my girls.  I knew that we would be starting cursive soon, and I just didn't like the look of the HWT style.  Here's my problem, the oldest, my 8-year-old angel is right-handed and the second, my 6-year-old princess is left-handed.  I had to find something that I could teach both of them easily.  Angel and I looked at a few samples together as I was only going to start her on cursive writing to begin with.  But then, I came across a couple of independent articles about the benefits of starting cursive handwriting in first grade instead of the now common 3rd grade.  Which hit me that I could teach two children one skill at the same time.  Who doesn't love that?  So I picked a program that had simple, pretty formed letters and would work for the two.  I am thrilled.  Both girls look forward to penmanship and willingly complete extra practice.  I can't wait to see where this goes with them.  

Best features of the New American Cursive include the top bound book, straight forward lessons, reinforcing activities and practice throughout the book.  There is a computer program that can be bought to make worksheets for copywork if desired, but I did not invest in that.  Less attractive feature is the cost.  It cost more for 2 students to work through this than our previous curriculum.  

Prima Latina

Memoria Press

The Angel hated the Language Arts from Sonlight.  I'll be honest,  I did too.  It was hard to teach to her--and that's ok to admit.  I just wish I hadn't invested in 3 years of Sonlight Language Arts before I'd realized that.  Part of it, is Princess did ok with it so I was determined to power through it.  This year, though we stopped and took a break.  I didn't want the girls to hate table time, since the time we are at the table is so important overall--its when we do Language Arts, Math, Handwriting and so many other activities.  I felt the guilt of not addressing any sort of Phonics or Spelling, or writing and started to stress out about it.  I knew that I was going to run the kids through a Latin course at some point, and Prima Latina is marked as appropriate for grades K through 3.  So I ordered the teaching manual, pronunciation cd, flashcards, 2 student books, plus the 3 DVD course.  I have never learned Latin and didn't have the confidence to teach this to the kids on my own.   

First, I am so glad that I bought the DVDs.  I couldn't have instructed the children in Latin as well as the lessons are presented on the DVD.  I also wouldn't have reviewed the materials as thoroughly.  The girls are learning so much about the basics of English language from this course.  I am very pleased.  While I intended to work through a lesson a week with them, that pace is too slow.  The longer lessons take about 2 days to finish and the shorter ones only a day.  The princess complains about the amount of writing required, and it is a lot for a 6-year-old.  

The Prima Latina CD comes with 4 songs from the Lingua Angelica course.  All three kids love to listen to these songs and I will be ordering the CD for them when I place my next order.  All three kids have also learned 3 of the 4 prayers that are in the course and enjoy saying them.  I think that's pretty awesome especially for a 3-year-old who is just sitting in for fun. 

Memoria Press also just came out with the Prima Latina cursive copybook using the New American Cursive. I wish that I had known about this to begin with and maybe I would have rearranged the order that we started these two courses to take advantage of that.