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We are still doing the presidents (from last year) to make sure they have them down.

 

We are learning the books of the Bible in order for our ancients history list instead of WTM's recommended list of pharoahs.

 

dd10 is working on the list of wars from the back of our KHE

 

Scientific Classifications (kingdom, phylum...)

 

Latin Prayers and for dd10 the long list of things to memorize in First Form (personal verb endings, the different tense endings in the present and perfect systems, irregular 1st conjugation verbs, etc.)

 

Math facts

 

Various lists in English (forms of be, definitions of parts of speech, etc.)

 

No poetry or speeches so far this year. We generally do 2-3 poems a year and a speech.

 

How do we do it?

 

During that subject's study time we start our time by saying our memory list a few times before we begin reading or discussing our new material. I use WTM or as a guide of what to memorize each year. Some curriculum like Rod and Staff and Memoria Press that we use are good about including memorization in the day's scripted lesson.

 

Once a year they each do a Shakespeare sonnet that they perform w/ a local Shakespeare group in a public place.

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I still only have a preschooler, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but we are already regularly doing memory work. I divide what we do into three sections: Religion, Literature, and Facts & Lists. For religion, we do religious quotes or scriptures. For literature we do poems, famous passages, or famous quotes. And facts and lists is sort of miscellaneous. Here's what we're doing this year.

 

ETA: It doesn't correlate yet, but my goal eventually is to have some of it at least loosely related to our studies.

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I am using Living Memory to pick our memory work and we usually do it in the style of the Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture memory system so that we are constantly reviewing the older pieces of memory work.

 

I try to loosely tie our memory work to other studies or things going on around us (for example, we are memorizing Luke 2:1-20 so that we will hopefully have it done for Christmas, we memorized the biomes when we started MFW ECC) but if it doesn't tie in I am OK with that too because I know they will eventually get to a place where they will tie all of the pieces together.

 

So far so good!

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My kids really like to pick out poems to memorize. We have followed the index card box idea from Simply Charlotte Mason, but we decided just to do our boxes Monday through Friday. I never thought it would be so easy for my kids to learn poems by heart. My kids have surprised me and even learned some longer poems than I thought they would pick, The Wangle Quangle's Hat, The Owl and the Pussycat, Adelie Penguin, and The Way Through the Woods. It really only takes about five minutes to practice a day.

http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/

 

I think you could use this idea to memorize just about anything.

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For memory we alternate between IEW's poetry and scripture/catechism to go with our religious studies. When the kids have it memorized we put it in a notebook and they draw a picture about it. I need a better system of review though and should re-look the SCM system.

 

We also do memory work inother subjects- math facts, states and capitals, latin prayers, grammar in FLL, etc....

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Both kids are doing IEW's Linguistic Development through Poetry memorization and enjoying it. It is nice as my 5 year old is able to use the cd's (we have it in a box with a discman) and even with just learning to read she can memorize poems. She listens over and over to them. My older listens once and then just works from the book.

It has

Jabberwocky

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Tiger

and tons more, we are having a lot of success with it.

 

Then, they also have Awana:001_smile:

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We are doing CC for memory work and it is very important in our house. I have personally found that building context around what we memorize is more enjoyable and lasts longer than when we do it the other way around.

 

We also add in poetry using Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization as others on here have said. I divided the book up into about 24 stanzas per grade level and so it will work all the way through 12th grade. My kids memorize one stanza a week. We review all the poems we've learned so far once a week.

 

We also added in AWANA this year as our new church has a program there. So far it is A LOT of Scripture and I'm concerned about their long term retention. However, they really enjoy going and my oldest one seems to be very motivated to work on it on her own so I am just going to let them do what they can on that and not stress over it. We also memorize Scripture in CC.

 

In addition we do First Catechism (Christian Liberty Press) and Character First. For First Catechism I divided it up by grade level using a book called The Memory Work Notebook (which CLP also sells). I believe starting in 5th grade they begin learning the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I don't agree with some of the latter answers in First Catechism, but we will adjust it when we get there. For Character First we memorize one character trait per month as a family. We do the opposite (for example obedience vs. rebellion), the definition, and 5 I will statements. I have videos and a CD that go with this as well as hand outs and even though we don't do much with the handouts right now I still like that we can and maybe will at some point. Now when I want my kids to be attentive or obedient I can have them repeat the action steps or definition and they have a much clearer picture of what I mean or where they fell short. This month's character trait is Truthfulness :-) Also, Character First sells little collector cards that I like too.

 

I made memory binders for them with tabs for poetry, catechism, character, Scripture, lab sheets (part of our CC work), this week's CC memory work, memory helps (charts in page protectors), presentations, song lyrics, and fine arts (also for CC papers we work on). I have playlists and tabs set up with youtube videos for memorization (and last year we used the cd constantly in the car) and they write in their binders. So each day the goal is that they will hear and say/sing the memory work as well as see and write the memory work. We add motions whenever we can. This really helps with retention.

 

For context we mostly read the backs of the cards we are learning and use maps and the Bible and then notebook what they learn using narrations and copywork. They draw pictures and maps to go with what they are learning and that really helps too. They also read a lot on their own based on what interests them from what we learned. It works!!

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My son is in K. During Calendar time I have him work on memorizing things like his birthday, address, phone number, etc. I also do one thing related to what we are studying. For example, this month we are doing the MSB kit on rainbows and light, so he is memorizing the colors of the rainbow. Last month he did the names of the continents. It is all short and simple stuff. Just trying to get him in the routine for later.

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That is one thing I need to do.....add in telephone number, address, etc. because unless it is written into a curriculum I forget that they need that because I am with them so much of the time I don't think about how they might be in a situation at some time where I am not there to tell them that info......Thanks for the reminder!!

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Both kids are doing IEW's Linguistic Development through Poetry memorization and enjoying it. It is nice as my 5 year old is able to use the cd's (we have it in a box with a discman) and even with just learning to read she can memorize poems. She listens over and over to them. My older listens once and then just works from the book.

It has

Jabberwocky

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Tiger

and tons more, we are having a lot of success with it.

 

Then, they also have Awana:001_smile:

 

We use it for our poetry memorization and love it too

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Two things you might consider are the Veritas Press history cards, or the third edition of CC's Foundations (look for it used).

 

Thank you for those suggestions! I did find a 2nd edition of CC foundations...would that work? It's at a great price, so if it would work for memory work, I'd take it. I bought the audio CDs (third edition) when they went on sale for $5 at CC, but only found cycles 2 & 3...would they be vastly different from the second edition book? Anyone have a cycle 1 cd they wanna sell for cheap?:D:001_huh:

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My kids are memorizing:

 

Poems- most of which relate to something we are studying, either in history, language arts, science, etc.

 

Latin phrases that are commonly used in speech or literature

 

Grammar lists such as prepositions, personal pronouns, linking verbs

 

 

I also make flashcards for their Latin vocab, French vocab and science vocab. They review these daily when they are working on the memory work.

 

As they get older, I plan to have them memorize the Presidents, parts of certain documents, speeches, etc.

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We memorize a seasonal poem each month. Quality literature is extremely important to our family, and learning poetry reflects that. I find it helps them grasp beautiful language and increase their working vocabulary and grammar. I second what a pp said about how surprisingly easy it is for my dc to learn a new poem, even a longer one.

 

We also use seasonal verses and transition songs and verses during our day that the children learn and say with me, but they don't recite these formally like they do with poetry.

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What do you do for memory work?

This year ds12 and dd9 are memorizing Horatius at the Bridge, they are on stanza 17, there are 70 total. World Geo, countries and capitals (MP), Christian Studies IV fact sheets. They are memorizing stuff for Lego League (core values, team goals, cheers, etc). They are memorizing math facts and formulas as well

Ds 18 is memorizing 3 poems for Poetry Outloud, along with parts for drama and Shakespeare Camp. He is also doing The Divine Comedy with MP and memorizing info from that. And had memory work for staffing the Challenge program.

In addition they have memorized huge chunks of Charlie Brown, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes comic books.

 

How do you decide what is important? I base it on curriculum and what I want them to own, not just be familiar wtih.

We are a very language rich household and poetry memorization has been high on our list for a long time. Horatius is part of Latin Highlands School 5th gr curriculum-those who complete it are awarded the Churchill Challenge. My kids will earn a reward and get a vlog on my blog, a certificate stating that they completed the challenge. I'm going to make a big deal of it. But it's a great study and going along with FMOG- history, language, maps, vocab, tropes. Here's more about it.

Geo is part of tutoring center and they have tests. My kids like scoring high- they're competitive that way.

Lego League- team goal is to win- so everyone is committed to working hard.

Math- it's just part of it.

Comics- my kids are junkies ;)

Drama- my kids LOVE drama camp and LOVE Shakespeare camp. Total ownership of the play by the end of it.

 

Does it correlate with your other studies? Yep.

We've done CC Cd's, VP cards, SOTW, etc. My kids are also listening to N.T. on CD- they are all very auditory and easily memorize stuff they've listened to.

I have tons more info on memory work on my blog. Check under "classical ed."

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laughing lioness, I have a question for you. When your kids are memorizing the VP cards, do you use the VP order? Also, do you only memorize the cards for the time period you're studying? Thanks

 

Hey Mama,

The one year that we were with CC we did them in their out of order way. The kids memorized all 160 of them.

The next year we put them back in VP order AND I wrote the dates on the front (sacrilege, I know). But I discovered that I was memorizing the dates because I saw them from the back- and they had a hard time doing so because I had to tell them- so I was getting more learning channels than they did (auditory from saying and visual from seeing) than they did.

 

Now we just do the time period that we are studying.

 

My goal is to get through the Bible Cards too- maybe this spring. I just keep running out of day!

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Hey Mama,

The one year that we were with CC we did them in their out of order way. The kids memorized all 160 of them.

The next year we put them back in VP order AND I wrote the dates on the front (sacrilege, I know). But I discovered that I was memorizing the dates because I saw them from the back- and they had a hard time doing so because I had to tell them- so I was getting more learning channels than they did (auditory from saying and visual from seeing) than they did.

 

Now we just do the time period that we are studying.

 

My goal is to get through the Bible Cards too- maybe this spring. I just keep running out of day!

 

 

Thank you!!!! We're going to start this week and i'm nervous and excited about trying it again.

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I just want to briefly chime in here that we've had a lot of Memory Work posts this fall (hooray! My favorite subject!) and I've been trying to tag them with the "memory work" and/or "circle time" tags. If you click on those tags, you'll find a lot of resources and ideas.

Dawn- awesome! :001_smile:

 

Thank you!!!! We're going to start this week and i'm nervous and excited about trying it again.

Have a blast!

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LL, I have one more question for you. Do you think I should bother trying to do CC at home or just branch out on my own for memory work? Do you think it would be worth to have my 11th grader join us, if he wants too? He did have some memory work in elementary and he does have to memorize his latin conjugations. I was thinking for my elementary students, I could just write my own science sentences or use their narration sentences as memory work using the scholastic Everything You Need to Know about Science Homework. Do you think that's an o.k idea? I do plan to put Living Memory on my wtb list and purchase it when I get my book budget for next year.

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LL, I have one more question for you. Do you think I should bother trying to do CC at home or just branch out on my own for memory work? Do you think it would be worth to have my 11th grader join us, if he wants too? He did have some memory work in elementary and he does have to memorize his latin conjugations. I was thinking for my elementary students, I could just write my own science sentences or use their narration sentences as memory work using the scholastic Everything You Need to Know about Science Homework. Do you think that's an o.k idea? I do plan to put Living Memory on my wtb list and purchase it when I get my book budget for next year.

 

 

Have you looked at CC? Do you like what you see? The biggest downfall with CC is that the facts to memorize are haphazard,imho. I do like their CD's as a supplement- but for a foundation to build a curriculum on, it's weak.

Having a high schooler join you is a great idea if it works with the schedule and stuff that's not too elementary for him.

Definitely build on the science that you are doing! GReat idea!

I love LM- great stuff to build a whole eled curriculum out of!

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