Cheryl Swope, from SC, is amazing. She absolutely will tell you what exactly is essential and what is more optional. She is one of the main reasons I use Memoria Press.

Excellent video! I felt better after hearing your thoughts about the biology text. We tried that with my 8th grader who just wanted to give it a try. I felt it was way too dense and couldn’t justify trying to give it the time required to get through it in a year. We were going to begin again this year, but now I am curious about the one you mentioned that you are loving:) Also, your comments on your blog and on the forum have influenced my own choices over the years, which is probably why I enjoyed this video so much. I believe we need a good balance in our lives and just cannot make the entire day about academics. However, I was the one who asked the question on the forum several years ago about how you actually get your kids to do the work…..and it is still a struggle. I have yet to achieve the balanced day I’m hoping for. Thank you!

This was so helpful! I don’t even use Memoria Press (thinking about it hence watching your video) but I just appreciated all you said in the beginning, focusing on the essentials and asking what us essential for a well rounded person 👏. I am so used to purchasing curriculums that create a lot of busy work for those non essentials and I really want to change that.

How do we search for specific topics?

Helpful - thank you!

We love Rod & Staff math as we've found it to be a really wonderful way to introduce things like multiplication and division. I just prefer mastery-based math programs overall, and I think it does an incredible job at that. However, the beauty of homeschooling is the ability to fix things that may not work for our family, and R&S is no different for us. I find that while I love R&S, it has a lot of busy work that just seems unnecessary in a homeschool setting, but since it's meant for a classroom setting in general, it makes senes why they have more of the busy work. So we have made a few adjustments to the R&S math curriculum. 1. I use my phone to take pictures of the children's textbook with an app called CamScanner, then I save it as a PDF and put it into my iPad. I contacted Milestone Books for permission (so if you do this, please make sure to do that), and they were good with this as long as we only use it for private use (and we have only ever done that). This takes out the unnecessary copywork that drags out the time this takes to do. 2. We do a lot of the board stuff orally, or I point to the stuff in the book. I never write the shapes and color them in for fractions. I point to them in my book. I also do this for ladder math as well as other stuff. For other board problems, I use the iPad if needed. Some of it is just review, and if my daughter has mastered it, I don't always do it. 3. We only do a couple of the lines in the Fact Forms (3-5 depending). I don't know if all 100 problems are supposed to be done all at once, but we split them up. Between speed drills, fact forms, the oral lesson, the regular lesson, and flash cards and other drills, it all just adds so much more time that is, in my opinion, absolutely unnecessary. Not to mention the lesson worksheets that would need to be done. We tried this approach, and it often took close to an hour, and many times took longer than that. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to drag this out so much in a homeschool context. 4. We don't do anything at all with the classroom style printables. I don't make place value charts or multiplication tables. For the blossom charts, we use the book page relevant to that in the front of the book and point to it. We are remodeling our home right now, so we don't have any walls to hang any of this stuff on, and we just find it all unnecessary. In a classroom setting, it does make sense. In a homeschool setting, it just isn't for us. My oldest is now 15, and I credit R&S for giving her a wonderful foundation in math to learn her facts! I recommend this program to so many people! We also use their English for my youngest. My oldest ended up going to CLE math and English because as she got older, I wanted her more independent so I could work with her sister, and CLE is far better at student independence. R&S is now redoing some of their textbooks for more independent study, and I do like that!

Can you please make more videos. It’s been so comforting to watch these Memoria press videos !!

Excellent advice. Thank you, from a new homeschooling mama of 3.

Thank you so much for sharing this tip! It is revolutionary / such a game changer!!! I’ve used this method for the past two days after seeing this video (for 6th & 8th gr.) and it worked perfectly!😊👍📚

I would love to take the leap to this curriculum but I am nervous.

Thank you so much for your wisdom 🙏😊

Do you need a laptop for homeschool ? I’m new to this

Great ideas! I had no knowledge of the classics until college. I loved the Greek mythology beginners course so much that I made Classical Studies my second major. Even in my hardest classics course, we were not expected to memorize verses. We dissected, studied, and discussed the Iliad. I plan to read and discuss these topics but not make it formal until my kid is in highschool.

I can relate with the neighborhood issue, I have a son who is completely disabled, undergoing financial difficulties, Divorce, working night shifts at the hospital, bouts of depression… we homeschool year round to compensate for the many weird days I can’t see my other kids due to my youngest son’s hospitalizations… I can’t tell you how much this resonates with me. Definitely doesn’t seem like we are the right candidates to homeschool, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I “delight” in sitting down with my children and giving them a purposeful education. Even tedious math just seems right. They also grow so fast, I’d like for them to remember me this way, and of course I’ll treasure it forever. Thank you!

This was so helpful. I have left out several recommended subjects the last two years (4th-5th grade) and felt like I was cheating my child. This was a very eye-opening perspective. Thank you!

This was so very helpful! I also have about a 4 hour window for school each day-this was so freeing to hear that a 4 hour window is actually acceptable! Thank you so much!

I can relate to this so much, this was such a blessing to listen to!

Thank you, Jennifer! It's good to see you.

Freeing! Thank you!

So much wisdom. Thank you, really!

Thank you for sharing your experience and perspective. Very helpful.

We jumped into homeschooling this month (January) bc of an out of state move. Bc Memoria Press builds so much, we started at the beginning of the 1st grade curriculum, even though our child was already half way through the 1st grade year before we moved. Then I realized that Memoria Press has first graders go through Part 2 of 1st grade Rod and Staff Math and Part 1 of 2nd grade Rod and Staff Math. Any idea why they do this?? Is it just to keep a rigorous pace? So unfortunately, it feels like we are way behind in math (2 semesters behind!!) bc I started at the beginning of 1st grade Rod and Staff Math. The concepts build and I didn’t want to jump in the middle of the book. It’s really easy for him right now. And we easily go through 2 lessons a day. Sometimes I wonder if we should do 3 a day to catch up faster. But I would love the clarification! He’s our oldest so we wouldn’t have this problem with our other kids if we continue! I do love the curriculum from Memoria Press overall. And I am not even really teaching him anything from the Rod and Staff math curriculum yet, but having him do the work book so he understands concepts and gets stronger in just knowing facts immediately. P.S. Thanks for this video! There’s not a lot of videos of homeschool moms using Memoria Press so I appreciate this break down

I have all the catalogs from 2009. It was interesting that there was about a $20-$35 dollar increase per grade level complete package per year. I completely agree with your take. I use Memoria as the spine of my homeschooling, but don't restrict us to the program. I really appreciate the planning they have done and really needed someone else to do that work, so I do not want to cast a pall over Memoria. They do a good job.

Thank you!!

Thanks for sharing ❤. It helped me to not get overwhelmed with MP.

WOOT WOOT a new video by a beautiful, intelligent woman. Can't wait to watch😊💚

This is impeccable. Would love an update! Cozy chairs? 😊

Thanks for this video. I have never used this curriculum, but the school I’m teaching at is having me teach third grade math, English, Latin, Bible and homeroom, so I’m trying to learn about this math curriculum. My kids used “The Good and the Beautiful” for math when we homeschooled. This was really informational and helpful for me. It will give me a good running start when I go to the “hand off” meeting on Tuesday with the former teacher.

Math is my weakest subject so it scares me to try to teach this myself

Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for the advice for using other concepts instead of the flannel board. I was a little stressed about it but now I will be using cubes.

I am so excited to have come across your video. I have felt so frustrated teaching 1st grade. I came from other math programs created for homeschooling so this has really thrown me for a loop. Do too buy the practice sheets? We have them but find we don’t need them.

Great information! We are using R&S for the first time, so this is so helpful!

Where did you buy the student desk?

I'm so glad you made this video! You've answered many of my questions that I had about R&S before I even asked. I really appreciate you sharing your experience here or in social media!

I liked this video. I wish more MP moms would come out and show how they’re using Rod and Staff since it’s one of the most hotly debated MP pieces.

This is so helpful to see how you've used it! Thanks for making this.

Could it be used as a non-consumable or are there too many... How do I phrase this? Things in the workbookd that would be too paintstaking to write out by hand, or that have to be a certain size (such as measuring problems)? I've been using a similar program called CLE and I love it, but inflation has caused the workbooks to shoot up in price. We do school year-round and in a couple of years I will have 4 in the program, so two levels each year per child. That's $400 just on workbooks! 😵‍💫

Thank you for your video!

Are you back to making videos??? I just recently found you and I love your videos!

About how big is this school room? I'm thinking of getting a shed (insulating it and making it pretty inside 😊) to use as a school room and can't decide on what size.

We have been using MP for 3 years and didn't know these tricks. Thank you 🙏 God bless

The desks look amazing

Is there a way to remove the literature books? We have most of them already and would rather thrift them or use the library for the ones we don’t have.

I like the tab ideas. It can feel like you’re flipping forever to find things. Initially my kindergartener wasn’t able to handle the copy book so we are really behind on that. I figure we can work on that during the summer if we have to. Her fine motor skills have really improved as we have worked on writing.

Very pretty and simple! And def functional. 👏

The link no longer works. Any ideas on where to find something similar?

Where’s all the stuff for his room?

I’d love to see any MP day in the life you’re willing to do and how your new homeschool space will work!

Is this something that I can purchase once and reuse for other children?