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How do you decide what to have your children memorize???


Nakia
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I know there have been oodles of threads about memorization, but I just can't seem to get a hold on it. My girls have memorized several Psalms and they do AWANA at church, so we have bible memorization covered. In the past, they have also memorized a few short poems. I want to do more poems and history type memorization. We are doing American History (SL core 3) so I want the poems and history selections to tie in with that time period. I'm afraid I will go nuts if I try to come up with a list on my own. I do have a list of Early American Poets that we are going to study when we get to the appropriate time in history, so should I just have them pick a selection from that poet and go for it? What about a list of good memorization passages for actual American History? Can anyone help me out? Thanks!!

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I base what we memorize on what we are studying using a couple of different resources: Living Memory, Classical conversations CD's, SOTW, IEW's Poetry.

I've blogged about it here .

 

Thank you. I feel like we really have Bible covered with AWANA. I also forgot to mention that Anna memorizes a lot of things in her grammar work such as the "be" verbs, helping verbs, etc. I looked on Amazon and Living Memory looks like it might be out of print. Do you know of another place I could get it? Does it have an actual list of what children should memorize for, say, Early American history, or do you have to pick what you want them to memorize?

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I have been following these memorization threads too, and I am a little at a loss as well. I can manage bible, but for history, science, or literature/poetry don't have confidence in my choices. I will probably re-consult TWTM, but I have also checked out the Core Knowlege books from the library..."What every 3rd grader should know" type books. I may get them again and check their poetry lists. I am all ears on this too.:bigear:

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I do have a list of Early American Poets that we are going to study when we get to the appropriate time in history, so should I just have them pick a selection from that poet and go for it?
I think that's a great idea, to let them pick at least a couple of poems that they enjoy.

 

Don't forget about Longfellow, parts of Song of Hiawatha and Paul Revere's Ride are fun to memorize and easy because of the meter and story-telling.

 

Here are some things on my list for history memorization this year, though I'm not sure how much of it we will finish:

 

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

Declaration of Independence, introduction and preamble

states and capitals

the Patrick Henry "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech is a possibility, but we are not ready for that this year

inscription on Statue of Liberty (poem by Emma Lazurus)

Words to the Star-Spangled Banner, or maybe the whole poem

 

the Wee Sing Kids CD "America" is very good for songs and other tidbits

 

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/living-memory/4080865

You use the book to pick and choose what you would like them to memorize. It's a nice collection and a large one, but much of it is Bible, hymns, and poetry, and since I have other sources for those, I haven't used mine much.

Edited by Penelope
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Here's a link to a free grammar stage memorization file I made when my daughter was in first grade. I needed to have something to open and go.

Over the years, we've chosen other poems, science and geography facts and so on, but it might give you some ideas.

 

I also have history memory cards available for free at the files section of this yahoo group. ETA: I just realized these won't work for you as they're for SOTW1, 2 & 3. Maybe someone else could use them.

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Living Memory is at Lulu. Occasionally you'll see it on the For Sale boards here.

You can purchase the Classical Converation CD's alone and they have 8 subject ares set to song. My kids love the history sentences. It's not a comprehensive curriculum but it's a good place to start and they are affordable. It's easy to go from there to creating your own sentences based on Hannah's wonderful list (sorry I forgot to include that!!) or from TWTM.

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Party Pieces are an old fashioned idea of bringing something to a party to share. Custom comes from the times we created entertainment rather than consumed it.

 

I'm having my kids memorize the Night Before Christmas because when you are grown , it's cool to really KNOW a few poems to share.

 

I let my kids pick some of what they will memorize. Cottleston Pie ( Winnie the Pooh) is a favorite. They are kind of perking up for Jabberwocky too.

Hilary Belac ( spelling?) is fun oh and Ogdon Nash

 

Oh Oh,,,

 

Look at the list from IEW for some poem titles. Google Institue for Excellence in Writing.

 

~Christine in AL

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I sit with our history lesson plan and pull out documents pertinent to our studies. I also look for poetry from famous people of that time. I sat with Bing and searched, "Poetry by Abe Lincoln (fill in the name)." Geography, equations in math, grammar definitions, I love Hannah's book :) Definitions and timeline information. Most of the materials we memorize I just pull from the resources we use. I spent a day planning out an entire semester of memorization for 4 learning levels, for poetry, bible, history, math, science, and grammar.

 

I use Quizlet.com and PurposeGames.com to help where applicable.

 

 

This is a cool website for poetry.

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We memorize hymns (our church sings hymns) and other songs, too.

 

I try to do things "seasonally". For example, in March, we learned "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" before Palm Sunday or "Christ, The Lord, Is Risen Today" before Resurrection Sunday. We'll learn "For All the Saints" and "We Gather Together" in October and November in order to prepare for Autumnal holidays. We learned "The Star Spangled Banner" in June so we'd know it before Independence Day, etc. My kids are little, but it is fun to be out somewhere and see them recognize something we've been learning when they don't expect it :)

 

We use IEW poetry, The Catechism for Young Children, and do skip counting. We've memorized the Apostle's Creed and Doxology this year. Next year, we'll learn the Gloria Patri and Nicene Creed.

 

We do a lot of memory work and I have found it a great part of our educating.

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Seconding what Tina does- pick the areas that you want to do memory work in, then plan by semester. Each week put up posters you've made or use a white board for your memory work. then it's out for the kids to see all of the time. You could even make a notebook for them.

I would suggest doing some research on how to memorize: you can use the fading sentence method, the repition method, etc. Pick some techniques and utilize them with your kids as you teach them whatever it is they are memorizing. I know some families just let their kids do the memory work on their own but I do it with mine. I am going for mastery, rather than overview (as in: you have the alphabet memorized- you KNOW what B, or Y or Q looks like, sounds like, "says" but probably just have a vague idea of the presidents (unless you've memorized them ;))and when they served- kwim?

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We eat our breakfast doing our memory work (= captive audience).

 

I have a binder for memory work where I have listed what we're working on (a la the memory pages from the CM site). 98% of it came from Living Memory, other bits have come from whatever we're working on that is not in Living Memory (usually science facts).

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Here's a link to a free grammar stage memorization file I made when my daughter was in first grade. I needed to have something to open and go.

Over the years, we've chosen other poems, science and geography facts and so on, but it might give you some ideas.

 

I also have history memory cards available for free at the files section of this yahoo group. ETA: I just realized these won't work for you as they're for SOTW1, 2 & 3. Maybe someone else could use them.

Thanks for sharing this. I use SOTW, so I definitely will benefit from this site.

Thanks a lot!

J

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Okay, I wrote out the Apostle's Creed on our big white board, and we will start memorizing that tomorrow. I'm already working on some more nursery rhymes with Cora, and I'm going to pull out some poetry books and let the older girls just pick something to memorize, like they have done in the past. Thanks everyone!

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