What do you use for memorization?

[Janeway]

I am using the good and the beautiful for language arts and it’s asking my children to memorize the poems they have. While I think they’re palms are beautiful and everything it just seems to me there’s so much more that I would actually like them to memorize during their education that memorizing poems written by the author of the curriculum might be a little bit of a waste. If you have your child doing memory work, can you tell me what you draw from? I have a first grader, fourth grader, and a sixth grader. 

[Slache]

Living Memory

Our Science and History texts

Grammar Recitation from MP (we do not use MP)

Spelling rules from our chosen curriculum

Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization

The Memorization Study Bible

Foreign language vocabulary from our chosen curricula

[jrichstad]

We've recently started using Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization. I was resistant at first--the poem selection seemed so odd to me--but my 5yo LOVES it. I've been really surprised. He's halfway through the first set of poems and it's his favorite part of "school". 

My 10 yo is less enthusiastic--as she is about everything 😄

We'll probably make some substitutions if/when we get into the upper levels of the program, since the selections don't all align with our family culture. 

[2_girls_mommy]

preschool:

months of the year, days of the week, the poem that tells how many days in each month

phone number and address, parents' names

nursery rhymes and songs

Bible verses

elementary:

math facts

english definitions, phonics rules, etc. 

books of the Bible for ancients

list of Kings of England for middle ages

the Fifty states in alphabetical order, and the capitals etc for American history 

getting older, we added major wars

science definitions for whatever we are on 

poetry and Bible verses 

Latin conjugation and declension endings, model verbs, poems and songs in Latin, sayings from First Form lessons, colors, etc.

[PeterPan]

When my dd was little I got books of poetry from R&S. They were delightful, very positive and uplifting. There are orgs like Scripture Memory Fellowship that sell inexpensive books to help with scripture memory. LOVE their stuff. You can also use audio cds.

Pudewa has his terrific poetry program. 

Sometimes with dd I would select poems to go with the weather or occasions. 

My ds struggles much more because of the language piece. He couldn't even *repeat* a Bible verse, let alone memorize it without stress. But he was, at the same time, memorizing long passages in audiobooks, sigh. Go figure. But I think the difference is comprehension and how it files in the brain. 

 

[HomeAgain]

I draw from relevance to their studies.

I did purchase the enrichment guides from Creek Edge Press, and there are various memory pieces for each week: math facts, art/history/science sentences, Latin, and poetry, speeches, and lists.  It would be overwhelming if we tried to do it all (especially since it didn't match all our studies), but I appreciated the poetry, speeches, and lists part to help me form our own studies.

[Clarita]

11 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

I draw from relevance to their studies.

My kids are young so it's easy stuff like numbers up to 100, phonics thing with a few example words, Bible verse, science tidbit (from G&C preschool nature). In some ways they just read off my lesson plan. I use the statements as a jumping off point to their lesson and to gauge their interest in a skill/lesson and/or where they are in a lesson. My kids are 4.5 and 3 so I am always having to access what they know. That may be different when they are older and you just need to plod through a lesson a day.

[HomeAgain]

8 hours ago, Clarita said:

My kids are young so it's easy stuff like numbers up to 100, phonics thing with a few example words, Bible verse, science tidbit (from G&C preschool nature). In some ways they just read off my lesson plan. I use the statements as a jumping off point to their lesson and to gauge their interest in a skill/lesson and/or where they are in a lesson. My kids are 4.5 and 3 so I am always having to access what they know. That may be different when they are older and you just need to plod through a lesson a day.

It's similar as they get older. 🙂  I pick things I can weave into the rest, but aren't necessarily a part of the lessons we're doing.  Like, when we did a year on the human body, I had my kid memorize Brainstem from the Animaniacs' Pinky & The Brain.  We got to do a whole unit on just the brain's functions and ds loved having an easy reference in his own mind.  We do famous poets from the time period, speeches given, or any other relevant thing. 

The memory pieces I found that didn't work were disconnected or reduced to tidbits.  Like, CC would absolutely never work here because it's a fire hose of info, but nothing that is particularly relevant to a full week of work.  It wasn't enough for him to memorize a sentence.  He'd forget half a year later, and the rest would make no sense. 

[Publia]

We mostly pull poems from poetry anthologies, selecting poems that we particularly like. For the past few years, we've also done something longish from Shakespeare.

Since we’re not using a curriculum and our memorized poems are scattered across a bunch of different books (with bookmarks/post-its marking them that are perpetually in danger of being removed by a younger sibling in the course of bookshelf unloading…), I put them all in a document and get it printed and bound each year. Then once a month or so, we read through some of the past things to review.

[skctgbrlis]

We use Claritas memory work guides, along with the crossseven website. This has very nice weekly pacing, helps to structure our school year, and the website makes it easy.  We don’t do the Latin or grammar memory work (use separate programs), but it’s still worthwhile. 

[AnneGG]

When IEW had the 12 days of Christmas they gave away a 3 month subscription to their premium content which has the Linguistic Development level 1 as a PDF. I would wait for a promo before you buy it outright. It was just ok, IMO. 
 

I mostly use Discovery Poetry.com and add in facts memorization from whatever we are studying. King things on YouTube has some CC stuff set to music which we enjoy even though we aren’t in CC. 

 

[cintinative]

We used the IEW poetry memorization product. 

We memorized songs for the Presidents, skip counting, grammar (lists of be verbs and prepositions), etc.

We memorize Bible verses.

They have to memorize for Spanish and previously for Latin.  We did have some songs we used to learn the declension endings and verb endings for Latin. 

ETA: I know there are songs in the Well-Ordered Language product from CAP because I know the teacher who wrote them/the curriculum

Edited June 15, 2021 by cintinative

[LauraBeth475]

We use Classically Catholic Memory, but I’m thinking of adding some more poems and longer Scripture passages.  How do you all organize your memory work and review it?

[katilac]

On 6/20/2021 at 12:11 PM, LauraBeth475 said:

We use Classically Catholic Memory, but I’m thinking of adding some more poems and longer Scripture passages.  How do you all organize your memory work and review it?

We used a disc bound notebook (like Levenger, Happy Planner, Tul) divided into sections: daily, M/T, W/TH, F/, review.  

So, daily, twice a week, once a week, review. 

I mention the disc bound specifically become it was so much easier than a 3-ring binder to me, so we actually moved things when we should, lol. 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by katilac