Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Memory Work Monday (on Tuesday!)

A fellow poster on the Well-Trained Mind forums suggested we use Mondays to share what what/how we're doing memory work, a staple of classical education in the early years.  Since I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get this done for us, I'm excited about the idea of getting a peek at what others are doing.  Our memory work is a work in progress, and for the most part it has come about fairly organically in that I didn't sit down and plan it out this way.  The good thing about that is that it generally gets DONE; the bad thing is that it can be somewhat haphazard as far as what gets included.

We've been memorizing Bible verses since the boys were really young, and as we've moved further along our homeschooling journey, we've added things here and there.  Right now our memory work is a mix of things we're memorizing on our own and things that are curriculum-related.  Here's what we're working on currently (the starred items are things both boys are working on; the others are things only Connor is doing):


  • Bible verses: Ephesians 6:13-18*
  • Catechism question (from Truth and Grace Memory Book #1)*
  • The names of the 12 disciples (as a song)*
  • Hymn: O Worship the King*
  • Books of the Bible
  • Latin phrases (from Song School Latin)
  • Pronoun list (from First Language Lessons)
  • Syllable Division Rules (from All About Spelling)
  • History chant (related to, but not from, Story of the World)
Soon to be coming--a new poem for First Language Lessons and something related to plants for science (probably parts of a plant, possibly plant life cycle . . . ).


Although we're not really using the workbox system anymore, I still use the boxes to organize our school work/day, so one of our boxes is for memory work and a read-aloud.  I keep some things in the box, such as our popsicle stick game for the books of the Bible and our cards for the history chant:



Everything else we're currently memorizing is on our magnetic dry erase board:


It's not a perfect system, but I've discovered that getting started with SOMETHING and then tweaking is a much better plan than waiting to start until it's perfect.  The biggest tweaking-need: I'm still figuring out what to do for review of things previously memorized.  And that's where going and checking out everyone else's ideas comes in!

5 comments:

  1. I'd love to know what your "history chant" is :) I'm looking for some :)

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  2. I'm a very visual person. I think your white board idea is great--perhaps, if I had this up I'd think about reviewing throughout the day. Thanks for joining in Memory Monday--on Tuesday! ;)

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  3. I love your popsicle sticks! We're going through the Old Testament again next year and I have a hard time getting all the books in order, even with a song. We all have the NT down, but popsicle sticks might be just the thing to help with the OT! So thanks for the idea!

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  4. NayfiesMama--I'm taking the timeline cards from Hannah's Homeschool Helps and figuring out a rhythm to chant them to using the historical figure/event/idea and the date (either the date listed in her memorization sentences, the date on the card, or a date in the middle of the dates on the card, if that makes sense). We literally just started doing this the other day, so once it gets off the ground a bit I'll have to post a video of him reciting it. I can write it out in the meantime (which I need to do anyway). If you're interested, let me know and I can e-mail you a copy.

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  5. Cellista--You're welcome! I got the idea from a friend at church who used it with her kids. :)

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