Little Homeschool on the Prairie: The Book of Trees a Homeschool Review Crew

https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/science/book-trees/

We have used Memoria Press several times in our homeschool and have been completely satisfied with the quality of the curriculum. I was thrilled to have an opportunity to review The Book of Trees. My son has been interested in botany since he was little.

I received:

The Book of Trees Teacher’s Guide

The Book of Trees Student Book

The Book of Trees Reader

They have two reference books that you can use with the program. You can buy the set with the reference books or buy the items individually. I already owned The Tree Book for Kids and their Grown-ups. I picked up a copy of the Peterson First Guide to Trees.

Memoria Press is a family run Classical Curriculum since 1994. They have a full spectrum of subjects from Preschool to High School. Whether you are looking for language arts, Latin, science, geography, full grade sets, and many more subjects it’s available. This is an amazing Classical Christian homeschool curriculum.

The Book of Trees is recommended for grades 6-8. The student book is consumable and you will need one for each student.

The Book of Trees is so easy to use. I really appreciate the simplicity of the curriculum as a parent. At the same time there is a lot of substance within the curriculum. It’s also very hands on as some of the lessons you need to go out and look at the trees around you. It’s also versatile enough that this could be used independently or taught with the teacher teaching it.

The goal is for the student to learn basic botany, plant systems, organs, and the functions. You should be able to classify different trees from observing its characteristics. Be able to identify all the parts of a tree, including the root system, and flowering parts. Learn the process of photosynthesis, respiration, and the chemistry associated with trees. You also will learn about the process of pollination, fertilization, and how seeds are dispersed.

There are 5 units and 21 lessons in all. The units are as follows:

Unit I: The Root & Stem

Unit II: Leaves

Unit III: Flowers & Fruits

Unit IV: Observing Trees

Unit V: Photosynthesis & Respiration (This unit is advanced work)

The Book of Trees Teachers Guide is a softbound book. It has all the same information that is in the Student Book. You can follow along from the Teachers Guide while your student going through the questions. All the answers are provided for you. The only difference is that in the back of the guide contains the student quizzes, test, & keys and answer keys for them. I recommend having the teacher guide unless of course you are an expert in botany and trees.

The Book of Trees Student Book is a softbound book with 108 pages and is laid out in the same format as the Teachers Guide minus the quizzes and test. There is a lot of room to write down information on the questions and in the charts. There is reading, fill in the blank questions, diagramming, sketching, memory work, and some hands on task are encouraged.

The Book of Trees Reader is a softbound book that is an introduction to botany through the study of trees. There are 9 chapters with 83 pages. All the illustrations are in black and white. The font size is a nice size for reading. We quickly found out that the chapters don’t necessary go along with the lessons. We ended up using the student book lessons to gage where we needed to be in the reader. This was extremely easy to figure out after we realized it made more sense this way.

How Did I use The Book of Trees in our Homeschool?

Little Man who is 11 has been working through this book. It was nice that it is spring and we could go outside to observe the trees and watch them come alive with blooms and seeds. Typically, we would do lessons 3x’s a week. We would start out reading the reader. Little Man has been doing most of this independently. I would help him when needed with the student book. For the most part we could complete a lesson a week. If we did this 5x’s week we could easily do 2 lessons a week. Little Man thought that doing 1 lesson a week was plenty. With so much information given to you he felt that he could retain what he was learning at that pace. The only thing that he didn’t care for is the amount of writing in the workbook. My son doesn’t care for writing much these days. He likes the variety of activities and it really breaks it up and doesn’t feel so much like a text book style teaching. He liked exploring the trees in our neighborhood. We didn’t realize the variety of trees we had in our small town. It thought it was neat identifying the trees. He did mention that some of the words he wasn’t sure he was saying them correctly and would have preferred a pronunciation key in the back.