DID you have your kids to learn these?

[boymama]

explorers and the US Presidents? if so, what age or grade? Did you "study" then or just memorize them? Thank you

[Chris in VA]

WE are going to, next year. There's a great presidents song on youtube--it's in two parts, I believe. We are going to do a month of explorers with Time Traveler's CD's. They are all also part of our history via SOTW. So, we'll study them, and then I want my dd to memorize the presidents as part of her memory work. She'll be in 4th grade, but I would have done it in 3rd to go with the history rotation, had she been homeschooled this year.

Edited April 20, 2009 by Chris in VA
more info

[Staci in MO]

I didn't the first time through, and I wish I would have. Memorizing lists in the grammar stage would have made the trip through history in the logic stage much easier. We're starting to rectify that now (getting ready to memorize the presidents). My youngest is going to memorize these things the first time through.

[Sara in WA]

My kids memorized the presidents through their school work with Classical Conversations. I am impressed and shocked that they know them all. We also have a president placemat (from WalMart or some other prestigious store) that they love to read. A song was the key to learning all 45 presidents in order. We do have some books from Borders bargain shelves and they peruse them. I'm asking them to find one president to do a "presidential page" for their notebooks so they can learn a littlel more.

 

- Sara

[Ali in OR]

We don't do a ton of memorization. Some lists don't seem necessary to me (pharaohs, explorers). Some seem a lot more useful (prepositions, presidents, books of the Bible). So we are working on memorizing presidents now toward the end of year 3 of the history cycle, grammar stage. We have the Yo Millard Fillmore book and are going through it about 5 presidents at a time. I think their gimmick is definitely working (building a mental picture to help remember the order). To answer your question more specifically, we studied some explorers but did not memorize them. We are memorizing the presidents now (after completing Am Rev and the beginning of our country) and will study each president as they come up (some in a lot more depth than others).

[FloridaLisa]

We studied the explorers; my kids didn't particularly memorize a list. Well, we actually used VP waaaay back and the memory tape (I did say waaaay back) and my kids memorized the VP timeline. I don't think they could recall it at present.

 

I also had them memorize the Presidents. We chanted it and found our own rhythm, because I couldn't see singing a song when they wanted to recall the order later in life. :tongue_smilie: We periodically review in the car or when it comes up in studies or by a memory worksheet I made up. I really think the Presidents will stick because we review it!

 

HTH,

Lisa

[Woodland_Mom]

We memorized all of the presidents using a song. My kids really enjoyed the song and it was pretty easy for them! This was part of our memory work from our Classical Conversations program. My kids have memorized some of the explorers through the timeline informaiton that they memorize, but we have not pulled all of the exploreres aside and memorized them as a separate list.