Boxed curriculums are a mixed blessing. Those pre-assembled packages and lesson plans make it so easy to choose each year’s materials. But they also bring out the grade level monster. If a book is in the 4th grade package, and we use it in 6th grade, we assume our child is behind.

Here’s how we make Memoria Press for work us when it comes to homeschool grade levels!

In all my years of schooling I never figured out the meaning of two little words: review and study. I ignored assignments with those words because I had no idea what they meant. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t figure it out until my own kids were floundering and a friend/mentor reached out with an article on how memory works. Ever since, I’ve been gathering engaging study tips to help build memory.

Here’s what to do when it’s time to study!

While I love the philosophical reasons for Memoria’s approach, I’ve also found it to be highly practical. It means our ability to learn isn’t dependent on whether I remembered to buy experiment supplies. We can add hands-on science activities when we want to, but they’re a support to our learning rather than the means of learning.

It’s the best of both worlds.

But how do you add hands-on science activities without losing your mind? Here are some of the things we’ve done over the years — and a few from my “maybe someday” list!

Everyone says it’s easy to kill our children’s love of learning. It can happen if we expect them to do things they don’t enjoy. It will never return if we “do school at home” instead of homeschool. Our children could have life-long scars if we fail to make all our learning as sensory and relaxed as a nature walk.

Besides all this, we’ll become stressed, demanding mothers who lack any sense of joy or beauty.

These beliefs ruled our homeschool for five years. Here’s what happened when I finally dared to push back.