Improving memory work with music: A review of Cross Seven Classical Education

One of the most common questions homeschoolers ask is how to teach math facts to their kids in ways that will actually stick. It's so frustrating to go over and over the material, only to discover that your children have not retained much, if any of it. Unfortunately, this is often the case when it comes to basic math facts, like sums and multiples, and it's enough to make many new homeschoolers want to throw in the towel.

Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right way to present the material, though, that makes the difference and finally allows the information to register in your child's long term memory. Worksheets and computer games may not be doing the trick, for instance, because your child may be an auditory learner.

Auditory learners, and almost all students, really, can benefit from having material presented in ways that stimulate more of their brain. Combining music, rhythm, and visual cues can give your child's brain more ways to process and store the information, and to remember it later.

That's one reason I began teaching my own kids their math facts set to music with which they were familiar. We set the multiples of eight to the tune of Frere Jacques, and the multiples of seven to Beethoven's Ode to Joy. 

But that was before I was given a complimentary review pass to the Cross Seven Classical Education website. This cool site not only provides homeschoolers with lots of great resources on all the primary subjects, it has a whole library of videos with memory work set to music, including science, history, geography, math, English, Latin and more.

I checked out several subjects, but what interested me most were the math videos, because the method used by Cross Seven was exactly the same as the most effective way I found to teach my own kids their multiplication tables and other concepts.

Skip counting, geometric formulas and more are set to the tune of familiar Christian hymns like "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands" and "When We All Get to Heaven," and also to Christmas carols kids will be sure to recognize.

Cross Seven Classical Education could be used by anyone, but I feel that it would be particularly useful for Christian homeschoolers who enjoy singing traditional hymns, or remember them from their youth, and would like these songs to be part of their children's education.

You can check out the many free resources on the Cross Seven website at any time. The videos with memory work set to music are a feature available to paid subscribers for a very small monthly fee.

Disclaimer: I received a free pass to honestly review this curriculum, but was not compensated for an endorsement.