Memoria Press Science

Memoria Press Science is a classical grammar-stage natural-history program organized around observation and classification, zoology, botany, astronomy, earth science, rather than the experiment-and-inquiry model that dominates contemporary science publishing. It is the answer Memoria Press gives to the question "what should elementary science look like in a classical curriculum?" It is not what most people who trained in K-12 science education in the last thirty years would say.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Classical (grammar-stage), subject-specialist, natural-history / nature-study approach
Worldview	Christian-ecumenical (the program reflects traditional classical-Christian natural-philosophy framing; not explicitly young-earth or old-earth in its core classification material)
Grades	K-8 typical (program is grammar-stage; does not extend into dialectic- or rhetoric-stage lab science)
Formats	Print, student text, student workbook, teacher guide, read-aloud supplements
Cost tier	Standard
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	Yes
Accredited	No
Established	Memoria Press science sequence developed from approximately 2012 onward; Memoria Press founded 1996
Website	memoriapress.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	3	Strong in classification and observation; thin in experimental science and modern methodology
Ease of teaching	4	Parent-friendly read-aloud and workbook format; minimal lab setup
Content quality	4	Uses classic natural-history texts (Burgess, Comstock) that have aged well
Flexibility	3	Individual titles usable alone; designed for the Memoria Press grammar-stage sequence
Value for money	4	Complete sets run $50-$90 per year, below most K-8 science programs
Worldview scope	4	The core classification content is worldview-neutral; read-aloud selections reflect classical-Christian literary tradition
Visual/design	3	Functional workbook design with line drawings and classic illustration
Support resources	3	Teacher guides are solid; thinner multimedia support than Apologia or BJU

Who the publisher is

Memoria Press is a classical Christian curriculum publisher founded in 1996 by Cheryl and Martin Cothran in Louisville, Kentucky, and shaped by Highlands Latin School. The Memoria Press science sequence is a comparatively recent addition to the catalog, it emerged in the early 2010s as the publisher filled in the grammar-stage subjects surrounding its core literature and Latin programs. Unlike the literature and Latin lines, the science program was not built around a single authored text by a Memoria Press editor; it was assembled from existing classic natural-history texts (Thornton Burgess, Anna Botsford Comstock, Jim Arnosky, and similar authors), supplemented by Memoria Press-authored student workbooks, reading guides, and teacher materials.

The philosophical framing is explicit and worth stating clearly: Memoria Press treats grammar-stage science not as proto-laboratory work but as natural-history observation. The pedagogical conviction, articulated in the publisher's own articles on classical science, is that young children should learn to see, classify, and name the natural world before they are asked to design experiments or manipulate variables. This approach descends from the classical-Christian natural-philosophy tradition, from Charlotte Mason's nature-study method, and from a long line of American elementary-science writing that preceded the Next Generation Science Standards framework.

The science sequence is organized by natural-history domain rather than by grade level. A family typically works through one domain per year: Animals (Burgess and related texts for zoology), Plants (botany-focused reading and observation), Earth Science and Astronomy, with additional thematic units. The Memoria Press science catalog page lists the full sequence and suggested grade placement.

The core pedagogy

Memoria Press Science at the grammar stage is built on four pedagogical moves:

(1) Read the narrative. Each unit is anchored by a classic natural-history book. Burgess's Burgess Bird Book for Children, Burgess Animal Book, Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, or comparable texts. The student reads the assigned chapter or passage, typically a few pages a day, introducing the animal, plant, or natural feature at the center of the unit. These source texts are, almost without exception, a century old and well out of copyright. They are also, in most cases, genuinely good, written for children, respectful of the intelligence of both reader and subject, and filled with specific observation rather than generic description.

(2) Learn the classification. The student memorizes or formally learns the classification of the organism or phenomenon under study, for an animal, its taxonomic family, common and scientific name, habitat, diet, and distinctive features; for a plant, its botanical family, growth pattern, leaf structure, flowering habit. The Memoria Press student workbook provides a structured framework for recording this information, and teacher guides reinforce the vocabulary (genus, species, habitat, nocturnal, herbivore).

(3) Observe and narrate. Where possible, the program directs the student outdoors, identify the bird in the yard, sketch the leaf from the tree by the front step, observe the phase of the moon over a week. The observational work is not always logged in elaborate lab notebooks; often it takes the form of narration, a short written or oral account of what the student saw.

(4) Copywork and drawing. Students copy short passages from the source texts or memorize descriptions of particular organisms, and they draw what they have observed. Drawing as a scientific act, slow, careful, attentive, is a deliberate component of the program, drawn from the Charlotte Mason nature-study tradition.

What the program explicitly does not do, at the grammar stage, is set up laboratory experiments, teach the formal scientific method, or address the Next Generation Science Standards. These absences are pedagogical decisions, not oversights. Memoria Press's own framing is that laboratory science, the scientific method, and experimental methodology belong to the dialectic and rhetoric stages, and that the publisher does not currently offer a full secondary science sequence, preferring to recommend third-party programs for high school lab science.

A day in the life

A fourth-grader working through Memoria Press zoology opens the Burgess Animal Book on a typical morning and reads the day's assigned chapter, four to six pages covering, say, the muskrat or the woodchuck. The reading may be done aloud with a parent or silently depending on the child. The student then opens the Memoria Press student workbook and completes the day's work: perhaps a short comprehension section (What family does the muskrat belong to? What is its habitat? What does it eat?), a vocabulary entry (two or three terms from the chapter to define), and a drawing or identification exercise.

Once or twice a week, the student is directed outdoors for observation, identify tracks in the yard, look for signs of a specific animal in a local park, sketch what they see. Drawings are added to a nature notebook that accumulates across the year. The parent reviews the completed work, corrects any errors, and leads a short oral discussion drawing on the teacher guide prompts. Total daily time: twenty to thirty minutes for younger students, thirty to forty for older.

The program does not have a fifth-day experiment or laboratory component at the grammar stage. The weekly rhythm is reading, workbook, observation, and review.

What they do exceptionally well

Natural-history classification. By the end of a zoology unit using Burgess, a student has learned the names, habits, habitats, and classification of dozens of North American animals, not as memorized flashcard items but as characters in a narrative sequence. The same holds for the botany and astronomy units. This is a substantial body of natural-history literacy that most elementary science programs do not deliver because they are focused on the scientific method rather than on naming and classifying.

Source-text quality. Burgess, Comstock, and the other public-domain naturalists the program draws on are writers children can actually read without boredom. The prose is clean, the observations are specific, the authors treated their child readers with respect. Materials that have survived a century of use in schools and homes have survived for reasons. Memoria Press makes a good choice in leaning on these texts rather than writing from scratch.

Fit within a classical sequence. For families running Memoria Press as their primary curriculum. Latin, literature guides, Christian Studies, Famous Men, the science program fits the day's rhythm without introducing a different pedagogical register. The child who is memorizing Latin paradigms and Greek mythology is also memorizing animal classifications. The pedagogical approach is consistent; nothing about the science slot requires the family to shift gears.

Low setup friction. Memoria Press Science does not require a lab kit, microscopes, chemistry reagents, or specialized equipment at the grammar stage. A yard, a notebook, a pencil, a magnifying glass, and the books are enough. This keeps cost down and makes the program teachable in small spaces.

What they do poorly

Experimental science and methodology. This is the largest gap. Students using Memoria Press Science at the grammar stage are not running controlled experiments, not designing investigations, not formally engaging with variables, hypotheses, or data analysis. The publisher's pedagogical position is that these belong later; whether parents agree depends on their educational philosophy. Families who want their elementary student to do weekly hands-on experiments with measurement and hypothesis-testing should look to Apologia Exploring Creation or BJU Press Science, both of which weave experiment into every unit.

No high-school lab science. Memoria Press does not currently publish a full high-school science sequence. Families running the Memoria Press grammar-stage science program will need to pivot to a different publisher, typically Apologia, BJU Press, or a secular textbook, for biology, chemistry, and physics in the secondary years. This is not a flaw in the grammar-stage program, but it is a transition families should plan for.

Aesthetic dating. The source texts are old, and though this is mostly a feature (see above), it does mean illustrations are black-and-white line drawings or reproductions of century-old color plates. Families comparing Memoria Press Science to modern colorfully illustrated elementary-science textbooks will notice the difference on the shelf.

Not aligned to NGSS or state science frameworks. Memoria Press Science does not attempt to align with the Next Generation Science Standards or with most state elementary science frameworks. Families in states that require some demonstration of science curriculum for homeschool portfolio review or ESA compliance should check what their state specifically requires and whether Memoria Press's classification-and-observation approach will satisfy it.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Memoria Press Science if: you are running a classical or Charlotte Mason-influenced homeschool and want science that fits the grammar-stage pedagogy; you want to build natural-history literacy before laboratory methodology; you value classic source texts and drawing as a scientific act; you have access to outdoor observation opportunities; you are planning to transition to a different publisher for high school lab science anyway.

• Skip Memoria Press Science if: you want weekly hands-on experiments and laboratory work at the elementary level; you need alignment to NGSS or a specific state science framework; you want a single publisher from kindergarten through twelfth grade for science; you are in a dense urban setting with limited outdoor observation opportunities; your student responds primarily to video or app-based science content and struggles with text-based reading.

Cost honest assessment

A typical Memoria Press Science unit or year-bundle, including the source reader, the student workbook, and the teacher guide, runs approximately $50-$90 per year of the program per the Memoria Press pricing pages as of April 2026. Individual components are generally sold separately, so families can adjust costs by purchasing used source readers (many of the Burgess and Comstock titles are available cheaply on the secondary market or free via Project Gutenberg) while buying the Memoria Press-authored workbooks and teacher materials new.

Compared to Apologia Exploring Creation (roughly $60-$80 per textbook plus notebooking journals at $25-$35, with hands-on experiments integrated throughout), Memoria Press is priced comparably per year but delivers a substantially different pedagogical product. Compared to Berean Builders (roughly $35-$45 per chronological-history-of-science textbook plus supplies), Memoria Press is priced similarly and reflects a different approach. Compared to Real Science-4-Kids (roughly $35-$55 per level, with hands-on experiments and a more secular scientific-method posture), Memoria Press is priced comparably and sits on the natural-history rather than experimental-science side of the pedagogical divide.

A realistic all-in budget for one student running Memoria Press Science for a full grammar-stage year, including new student workbook and shared-family source readers, is $50-$85.

ESA eligibility notes

Memoria Press is approved on most state ESA marketplaces that permit classical or Christian materials, including Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's Step Up For Students MyScholarShop, West Virginia's Hope Scholarship, and Iowa's Student First Scholarship. Science titles within the Memoria Press catalog are typically listed alongside the publisher's broader materials. Because the core content of Memoria Press Science is natural-history classification and observation rather than explicitly religious material, the program tends to pass ESA restrictions cleanly even in states that scrutinize religious curriculum. Families should verify title-specific eligibility within their state program before ordering.

Alternatives

• Apologia Exploring Creation, a family would choose Apologia over Memoria Press Science when they want hands-on experiments integrated into every unit, a young-earth creationist framing stated explicitly, and a single-publisher sequence that extends into high-school lab biology, chemistry, and physics.
• Real Science-4-Kids, a family would choose Real Science-4-Kids over Memoria Press Science when they want elementary science grounded in the scientific method and experimental methodology, with a more neutral worldview stance and a stronger bridge to secondary science.
• Nature Anatomy / The Peterson Field Guide family paired with a Charlotte Mason-style nature notebook, a family would choose the field-guide-plus-notebook approach over Memoria Press Science when they want pure Charlotte Mason nature study without the Memoria Press classical workbook framing, at significantly lower cost.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the Memoria Press Science product pages at memoriapress.com in April 2026, including the zoology, botany, earth science, and astronomy components, and examined the publisher's articles on classical science pedagogy. We reviewed sample pages and teacher-guide excerpts made available on the publisher's site, confirmed the source-text authorship and public-domain status of the Burgess and Comstock titles, and verified pricing against the current catalog. Cross-referenced against Cathy Duffy Reviews and classical-Christian homeschool forum discussion of the program's classroom use. Prices and program details verified April 2026.