The Book of Trees Review: Learning Botany with Memoria Press

The Homeschool Review Crew was given an opportunity to choose from several different Memoria Press products to review.  I love Memoria Press because they create wonderful classical Christian homeschool curriculum.  We've used some of their curriculum products in the past but I've never tried their science or botany curriculum so I chose The Book of Trees for the product I wanted to review.


The Book of Trees Set

For my review purposes, I received the three main books in The Book of Trees set.  This included:

Memoria Press also offers two other books to round out this set and I would highly recommend them both - The Peterson First Guide to Trees ($7.95) and The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown-Ups ($15.95).  Both of these books provide great explanations and pictures to help you learn to identify trees.

The Book of Trees is included in the Memoria Press 7th grade curriculum set.  I used the Text as a read aloud for Rachel (2nd grade) and Nicholas (7th grade).  The Student Book is a consumable product and can only be used by one student so Nicholas completed it.  The Teacher Guide covers the goals of the program, a model lesson plan, answers to all of the questions and diagrams in the Student Book, as well as quizzes, tests, and keys.

The Book of Trees Text covers the information in short lessons so even my younger student was able to sit still long enough to listen to the Text.  

The Student Book includes questions and diagrams for the student to complete.  Everything is explained clearly in the Text so Nicholas was able to easily complete the lesson pages in the Student Book.


What I like most about the program is that at the end of each lesson there is a list of hands-on activities.

For the study on root systems, the activities included uprooting plants (with parental permission) and determining the type of root system, looking for root hairs, then making a cross section to look at the internal parts of a root.  

My kids enjoyed this part!  They uprooted two different plants (with my permission).  They examined the roots and determined that one is a fibrous root system and the other is a non-storage tap root.


This fibrous root contains a lot of roots about the same size and all clumped together.


These roots were rather small so Nicholas used a magnifying glass to try to find the little root hairs on it.


While Nicholas looked at the fibrous roots, Rachel studied the tap root.


Together they looked at the epidermis and root hairs.  They were easier to see on this big root.


Next, Nicholas cut a cross section of the tap root.  He made this video explaining what he had learned about the different parts of the root system.


The Book of Trees covers nine chapters including The Beauty of Trees, The Root System, The Stem, The Leaves, Flowers, Fruits, Observing Trees and even some advanced work on Photosynthesis and Respiration.  My kids have enjoyed learning about Botany with The Book of Trees and we would definitely recommend it.


Memoria Press


Some of the other Memoria Press products offered to the Homeschool Review Crew included:


If you would like to read reviews on these other products or other reviews on The Book of Trees, just click the banner below to see what other Homeschool Review Crew members had to say.

Latin, Nature and Trees {Memoria Press Reviews}


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