do you have your kids memorize "stuff" for school??

[ProudGrandma]

IF so, what do you use? poems, Bible verses, hymns, etc? How do you implement this in your day? Is it something they do on their own, with your help, is it worked on daily, do you have a set number of things per quarter, semester, year that they must memeorize and they do it on their own?

 

I guess I am thinking I want to do this next year. I will have a 12, 10, 8 next year.

 

thanks.

[ThisIsTheDay]

We did when my kids were younger. We used Bible verses, silly poems, historical/science info (13 colonies, presidents, classifications, etc.) I am quite sure that TWTM book goes into this much more extensively than we did.

 

We basically set up a notebook binder with tabs similar to this:

Daily--would be their current memorization. Once I knew they had it down, they would do it 2-3x weekly, and eventually it would move into the next section.

Weekly--they would review all work in this section once a week, and it would remain in this section for one year before moving to the next section. (I'd pencil in the date on the bottom.)

Monthly--they protest, but I still have them review this from material they learned eight years ago!

 

It sounds involved, but it's not. We never had large enough pieces that made this take much time. Even so, it couldn't take more than 15-20 mins. per week.

 

While I wish we would have done more when they were younger, I probably still wouldn't have continued it as they got older. It's a great thing, but with everything else, it's doesn't make my own priority list. I chose to do it more because it was a good exercise for their brain, and I always told them it would be good at parties when they grew up. (They've already done this, haha.)

[Chris in VA]

We did, for a time. Dd memorized some bible verses and a couple of short poems. She'll prolly homeschool next year, so we'll be doing some world capitals and map work, as well as some more poetry and bible verses.

We used her bible curriculum to glean verses, but also used Living Memory by Drew Campbell.

 

One nice thing was that, while we didn't get very far with our first long poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, she finished it last year all by herself. It's kinda neat to hear her recite it! She was proud of herself and I was proud of her. :001_smile:

[Twigs]

…Monthly--they protest, but I still have them review this from material they learned eight years ago!…

 

This sounds fantastic!

 

So, how well do they remember the older material - do they still know it perfectly, do they need prompting, etc.?

 

Best wishes.

[ProudGrandma]

anybody else?? Trying to figure out how to do this now, so I can plan for 3 kids during the summer.

[Hannah]

You can use this file as a start (please check authors of poems becuase I know that there is one that is wrong - but can't remember which one!!)

[happypamama]

We do memory work. Mostly it's Bible verses (I like the system at simplycharlottemason.com a lot), but we've done other things too. Earlier this year, my children memorized the Preamble to the Constitution, and right now, they are working on the Gettysburg Address (and are about halfway through it).

[Pretty in Pink]

Yes. My younger boys have memorized a slew of children's poetry. My eldest son has memorized things like the Gettysburg Address and the Preamble to the Constitution.

[ladydusk]

I added the 'memory work' tag. There are several recent discussions of memory work on the K-8 board.

[ProudGrandma]

You can use this file as a start (please check authors of poems becuase I know that there is one that is wrong - but can't remember which one!!)

 

thanks for that!!

[Parrothead]

Dd memorizes poetry, lines from Shakespeare, and whatever lines from prose I find interesting. Such as "Whosoever pulleth this sword from this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England."

[myfunnybunch]

My children do memory work.

 

I choose Bible passages, poems, history passages, scientific laws, lists. We have some poetry books, and I check Ambleside online, and I printed a list that Aubrey (I think) posted long ago.

 

I keep a folder with two pockets per child: Current and Review. They work on the current piece and one review piece daily. On Fridays, we have a recitation tea. They recite their current piece and 2-3 review pieces. Review pieces rotate so that in a month's time they've covered most of their review pieces. At the beginning of each school year, the boys and I choose a few review pieces to continue, and they review those for the first week or so, then we start adding new pieces.

 

Ds7 is working on his memory pieces right now....let me see what he's got here in his folder. Maybe it will give you some ideas... :)

 

Current:

A blank map to fill in the original 13 colonies, and the preamble to the Constitution

 

Review:

List the original 13 colonies (in no particular order)

Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll)

Falling Up (Shel Silverstein)

Who Has Seen the Wind? (Christina Rossetti)

Boats Sail on the Rivers (Christina Rossetti)

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Jane Taylor)

One Thing at a Time (M. A. Stodart)

The Harvest (Alice C. Henderson)

A Was an Apple Pie

Monday's Child

Newton's Laws of Motion

 

Next is Christina Rosetti, What is Pink? and he wants to add a couple poems from A. A. Milne's children's poetry books since we just finished reading those together.

 

We've also got a set of Christmas memory work, Bible passages and poems that we work on during the holiday season.

 

HTH :)

 

Cat

[OK Family]

I am going to start using Learning Linguistiics by memorizing poetry from IEW. My kids have memorized some poetry, time line events and a lot of other things we were involved in classical conversations for the past three years. We are just going to do poetry this year. It comes with a cd so we can listen to it on the go!

[ThisIsTheDay]

This sounds fantastic!

 

So, how well do they remember the older material - do they still know it perfectly, do they need prompting, etc.?

 

Best wishes.

 

They remember the old material well. After solidly learning it, they continued to recite it weekly for a year. Now they just review it monthly. The hardest part is convincing them that they need to keep it up. :D

[ScoutTN]

Yes, we do Bible verses, catechism, hymns, poems, history info, science info and adding geography starting in the summer. We'll add speeches/documents as dc get older.

 

I've been using the Simply Charlotte Mason box system for Bible verses and tailored it to our family by skipping Saturday and Sunday when we never get around to it.

 

I have been doing memory work 2-3x a week for about 15 -20 minutes this year.

Probably the same next year, but I may make a SCM style notebook to organize our other-than-Bible content. I teach it and go over it with DD at least once a week. The other times, she studies/reviews on her own and recites a bit for me after.

 

Anything for which I have a recording we do in the van.

[Twigs]

They remember the old material well. After solidly learning it, they continued to recite it weekly for a year. Now they just review it monthly. The hardest part is convincing them that they need to keep it up. :D

 

Thanks for responding.

 

Good job for you and your children!

[Kelly1730]

We've done bible memory verses practically since they were old enough to talk. They know the continents, the order of the planets etc. I am trying to be more systematic about it this year and actually made a list of things I want them to memorize to be revised as needed.

[PeacefulChaos]

The kids do either a poem or memory verse type thing (they've memorized the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23) every 3 weeks. They do the 'lists' suggested in WTM every semester.