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Tell me anything about Memory Work and/or Poetry in Kindergarten….


rachelpants
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Now that we are settled into Kindergarten a bit (with our 3 R’s) I’d like to start some memory work and some poetry well. I am at the VERY beginning with both of these and ANY advice would be welcome. :)

 

I can’t remember if I read anything about memory work in The Well Trained Mind (we are not at home and didn’t bring my copy). I did do a quick search here and found these two resources:

 

Living Memory, Andrew Campbell:

http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/andrew-a-campbell/living-memory/paperback/product-4080865.html

 

Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization:

http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/pmb

 

I’m unsure if either would be helpful for us, as we are just starting out. I’m looking for methods and good lists of age-appropriate poetry and memory work ideas.

 

I have a few good Nursery Rhyme books and I think I have a book called, “Sing a Song of Popcorn” at home. I also have the Core Knowledge Books for Preschool and Kindergarten. I’m completely open to reading poetry just for fun, maybe doing a little activity of some sort….any resources, ideas here would be great. I think anything seasonal/holiday would be fun too.

 

DS is an older Kindergartener (he just turned 6 last week). I waited to formally start him because we debated PS for so long and I wanted to keep him with his class. I might want to do the poetry and maybe memory work in the morning with my 3 year old (she loves this type of thing) as some sort of circle time.

 

Any ideas of where I should begin poking my nose for information???

 

Thanks!!

 

Edit to add:

I forgot to ask: I'm also interested in knowing WHY memory work is important to you and your family, learning, school, etc. I'd like to gain a little perspective here...thanks!

Edited by rachelpants
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I started with the "Once I Saw a Little Bird" poem in the What Your Preschooler Needs to Know book, and then we did The Caterpillar poem from FFL 1. Both my 5.5 year old and my 3 year old have them memorized. I used a stuffed bird to animate the bird poem, and I used hand motions to help with the Caterpillar poem. I just read them three times in a row, once a day, and they picked them up. It also helped them when I wrote the words out, bigger than the book, with colored crayons on paper, so they could read it with ease.

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We tried Living Memory and didn't get too far. From what I recall (no pun intended), it is basically a book full of different things you can memorize. I loved IEW's Linguistic Development because it has a specific plan, it's focus is poetry, and you learn the poems in a specific order progressing from quick simple poems to more challenging pieces. It is very open and go.

 

In the beginning of the IEW book they explain the reasons/benefits for doing the poetry memorization and it was very inspiring! We started a bit late, in upper elementary, and after the first ten or so, did it a bit differently than the IEW schedule. Each Monday they recite every poem from the program to me and then learn one new poem. If they get them all right, their only additional review the rest of the week is in an Anki deck. (instead of reciting them every day or every other day according to the IEW schedule). If they have one or two poems that are not recited well on Monday, I ask to hear it a few more times during the week.

 

Setting up the Anki decks was pretty easy, I entered the text and linked up the sound file from the CDs. The only hassle was having to add the new poem each week.

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I loved IEW's Linguistic Development because it has a specific plan, it's focus is poetry, and you learn the poems in a specific order progressing from quick simple poems to more challenging pieces. It is very open and go.

 

 

:iagree: love the IEW program! I have used it for 6+ years now and it has been a very worthwhile investment.

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Thank you everyone!:grouphug:

 

cute!

 

Classical Conversations CD's.

VP cards- bible and history

SOTW CD's

IEW (as mentioned)

Latin words and phrases.

I've written about memory work here here and here

 

Yes! I was on your blog for a bit last night! I recognize your avatar :) Thank you for your help!

 

We tried Living Memory and didn't get too far. From what I recall (no pun intended), it is basically a book full of different things you can memorize. I loved IEW's Linguistic Development because it has a specific plan, it's focus is poetry, and you learn the poems in a specific order progressing from quick simple poems to more challenging pieces. It is very open and go.

 

In the beginning of the IEW book they explain the reasons/benefits for doing the poetry memorization and it was very inspiring! We started a bit late, in upper elementary, and after the first ten or so, did it a bit differently than the IEW schedule. Each Monday they recite every poem from the program to me and then learn one new poem. If they get them all right, their only additional review the rest of the week is in an Anki deck. (instead of reciting them every day or every other day according to the IEW schedule). If they have one or two poems that are not recited well on Monday, I ask to hear it a few more times during the week.

 

Setting up the Anki decks was pretty easy, I entered the text and linked up the sound file from the CDs. The only hassle was having to add the new poem each week.

 

Thank you for all of this! I read a bit of the reasons/benefits from the IEW sample last night...it was inspiring. Good to know about Living Memory...for some reason, I thought it would contain more methodology, etc.

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Here's what we're doing. My daughter turned 4 in August. I bought Living Memory, and although I didn't use it this year, I feel like it will be a great source for ideas all the way through school.

 

What I did (and I talk about this a bit in my blog post) is basically divide memory work into 3 sections: "Religious" (scriptures, quotes, other important religious information), "Literature" (poems, sections of books, great speeches, etc.), and "Facts and Lists" which is sort of a miscellaneous section that includes science, history, and geography. Eventually we will probably add Latin, but not yet. I found passages/lists that I thought would be appropriate for her age and made up a master list. For the master list I shot high because I didn't know what my dd would be capable of.

 

So far she is meeting or exceeding my expectations and I'm glad we're doing it.

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Here's what we're doing. My daughter turned 4 in August. I bought Living Memory, and although I didn't use it this year, I feel like it will be a great source for ideas all the way through school.

 

What I did (and I talk about this a bit in my blog post) is basically divide memory work into 3 sections: "Religious" (scriptures, quotes, other important religious information), "Literature" (poems, sections of books, great speeches, etc.), and "Facts and Lists" which is sort of a miscellaneous section that includes science, history, and geography. Eventually we will probably add Latin, but not yet. I found passages/lists that I thought would be appropriate for her age and made up a master list. For the master list I shot high because I didn't know what my dd would be capable of.

 

So far she is meeting or exceeding my expectations and I'm glad we're doing it.

 

I love this...thank you! How do you rotate through the 3 sections? Is it systematic or do you pick and choose?

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Have you looked at the Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory Box? We use that for all of our memory work, not just Bible verses. Before I purchased Living Memory I chose a lot of our poems for Favorite Poems: Old and New and also used a few Scholastic eBooks that set some memory work to familiar songs (ex. right now we are memorizing the types of nouns set to the tune of London Bridge). So basically when you find a system of memory review you don't need anything more than the selections you want to memorize. I would say start slow and add in subjects as you feel you are ready. We started with Bible and poetry, and have since added in hymns, patriotic songs, science, math, grammar, history, and geography. My kids love doing memory work and I can see the benefits of it as they recognize pieces of their memory work in their regular school work.

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I love this...thank you! How do you rotate through the 3 sections? Is it systematic or do you pick and choose?

 

My original goal was to rotate through the three sections, but in practice what is happening is that we are rotating through the religious and literature section and doing the lists constantly. I think this is because the lists we've done so far require visuals. It's working for us. So yeah, first we did a religious selection, then a poem, then the 7 continents. Then, because it made sense, we started doing the oceans too, while moving on to a new religious selection and now poem.

 

I'm also doing the shorter selections first as we get the hang of things.

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As to why. I know there have been many articles linked here through the years. Some I have printed out and filed. I can't seem to find any links now though.

 

We memorize from different resources and I let my kids pick most of their selections themselves. One recent purchase that we enjoy is Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn by Heart.

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Thank you for the explanation, Meagan :)

 

Have you looked at the Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory Box? .
I will look into this! Thank you!

 

As to why. I know there have been many articles linked here through the years. Some I have printed out and filed. I can't seem to find any links now though.

 

We memorize from different resources and I let my kids pick most of their selections themselves. One recent purchase that we enjoy is Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn by Heart.

 

Thank you for the links, these are wonderful :)

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Thank you for the links, these are wonderful :)

 

No problem. I tagged this thread and found this and this. Lots of good links in these. Search for "poetry memorization" and you'll find more, I'm sure.

 

ETA: The second thread I linked above has a "memory work" tag. Click that and it will lead you to too many threads to read. :D

Edited by Alte Veste Academy
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No problem. I tagged this thread and found this and this. Lots of good links in these. Search for "poetry memorization" and you'll find more, I'm sure.

 

ETA: The second thread I linked above has a "memory work" tag. Click that and it will lead you to too many threads to read. :D

 

I just turned on PBS for my kids ;)....thanks!

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We just started the IEW program with my kindy girl last Monday. She has already memorized the first 4 poems. She loves it. I got a portable CD player with headphones. I showed her how to use the cd player and she was off. I think she likes the independence of it. She then recites all the poems to me each day. She puts on a performance.

 

She is very proud of herself and is constantly asking people now if they would like to hear a poem. The first 3 were very short and easy, they get harder, but those first 3 let her know she could do them.

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Thanks! I sometimes hate that we are limited to two. Should have chosen differently. Decisions, decisions... :lol:

 

But then I'd be sad that I didn't get to add my two :lol:

 

OP There was a thread I tagged last night and I linked to a post of mine. We're heading to soccer or I'd find it, but it has our Memory Work stuff and links to two talks about the rationale for memory work. HTH.

 

I also can recommend the book Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer.

Edited by ladydusk
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But then I'd be sad that I didn't get to add my two :lol:

 

OP There was a thread I tagged last night and I linked to a post of mine. We're heading to soccer or I'd find it, but it has our Memory Work stuff and links to two talks about the rationale for memory work. HTH.

 

I also can recommend the book Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer.

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showpost.php?p=3781572&postcount=4

 

Thanks! This is it, right?

 

I'm loving researching this.....thanks everyone :grouphug:

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We keep it simple around here. Using Poems for the Very Young, I just pick one poem. These past three weeks I repeated the poem daily with dd5, and by the end of week three she had memorized the two stanzas. It was called Merry Sunshine. We also explained, tying it to Geography, how the earth rotates and gets sunlight at different places. Last Friday I videotaped her reciting the poem and sent it to Daddy, Grandmas and Grandpa via my phone. It was fun. She even got to dress up for the occasion.

 

I will post it on my blog within the next few days. It was her first time, and she does get a bit shy, but I think she did pretty well. It was nice as it gave her a feeling of accomplishment.

Edited by sagira
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I do similar things as some of the other ladies so I wanted to share with you HOW we do it each day. I use Youtube. I add the videos I want to use each day to a playlist and we just watch them doing our memory work. The skip counting videos were made by me. Here is what we are learning right now...

 

I turn the volume off on this one and I recite the pledge with my son. I emphasize proper etiquette.

 

 

Skip Counting by 7's

I sing this with him.

 

Star Spangled Banner

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