Weekly Resource Introduction to Classical Studies

One reason why I like the Classical approach is because it ties students to traditional history and literature. Memoria Press' Introduction to Classical Studies is a great way to do this.  It uses the Golden Children's Bible which draws from the King James Version of the Bible, Famous Men of Rome and  D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths as the key texts.  Although Memoria Press has now expanded their offerings, this is the original program where they recommend reading through these three books each year for three years.  The schedule recommends you read the Golden Book Bible in one year (so it is scheduled for three days a week), read one story from Famous Men of Rome and a Greek myth a week.  They also include memory verses for each week and discussion questions.  I like the format of the Introduction because it provides an outline of key ideas, terms and a reading plan.  This provides a great outline and from there I can tweak it as necessary.

I did not get the student workbook because I intend to use this during our circle time in the morning and just want my sons to narrate the stories.  I also don't intend to re-read these same texts yearly. Instead we will probably use another version of the Bible, maybe Picture Smart Bible or God's Great Covenant series from Classical Academic Press.  We might also just read another version keeping the pace they use with the Golden Book.

I will then use Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of the Middle Ages instead of re-reading Famous Men of Rome.  My kids remember fairly well after one reading so re-reading all of these stories would probably be too redundant for them.  We will review stories from previous years though.  I did buy all of the "textbooks" recently when they were on a great sale and I am very pleased with their quality.  Easy to read type, great color pictures and stories worth remembering - what else can you ask for!

I like the idea of reviewing the stories using the pictures from D'Aulaires.  So we will probably do that and then include the literature selections from Latin Centered Curriculum which provide further background for Greek and Roman studies.  Some of the options include using Rosemary Sutcliff's books and probably Padraic Colum's work or possibly some from Alfred J. Church.

I hope that this will give them a great background in the literature and story of these cultures and a great sense of the Bible narrative.  I mostly wrote this post so that I can stop thinking about it in my head and have it written somewhere more permanent than the scraps of paper around my house!