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MamaFence
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged
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This is somewhat related to my math post...but much more general. I started the year with grand plans to memorize things with my girls (5 and 7), like poetry and scripture. We haven't.  We rarely do copywork (which I assume would help with memory?), because it is a battle I haven't learned how to turn into a learning experience. They each have good penmanship, so I don't worry much about the nitty gritty of copywork for that practice anyway.
Background aside, I am beginning to think that memorizing things could be more important. Thoughts? I don't know how I would even begin to incorporate memory work, without it being a struggle and a dreaded part of our day.
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kristinannie
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I highly recommend listening to this MP3. I haven't listened to this version, but I saw the talk live at the IHM conference last year. This really convinced me about the importance of memorization so I have made it is a priority.
I wasn't getting memorization done at all as part of our school day. I had read about the morning basket. I actually just saw this update when I was searching for the link!  Honestly, since my kids are so young, we do it more like a circle time. I will read 1 or 2 read alouds for the bigger kids and at least one read aloud for the toddler. We will sing songs, do some basic calisthenics to get the wiggles out, do memorization, do calendar, talk about the weather, etc. This is a great time to read fairy tales for us or to read a nature study book or a science book. My kids love snuggling up on the couch. The toddler mostly plays with toys nearby, but he loves being included. He even knows a lot of the words of our memorization items! He likes this attention first thing in the morning and it tides him over for awhile while I work with the bigger kids. It can be all you do for school in a day which is what happened today for us! We did an hour of morning basket and called it a day. Later we will probably play some math and phonics games.
As far as how I do memorization, I really like the Simply Charlotte Mason scripture memory system. We focus mostly on words Jesus said. We also do poetry. My kids really like the selections from IEW's poetry system. I just bought the book and not the CD's. I also pick poems out of poetry anthologies. My kids love doing this and we spend about 5 minutes a day on this. We didn't do it for a couple of weeks because we were sick and out of town a lot. I pulled out the box and they still remembered every.single.one of them. I couldn't believe it!
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MamaFence
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 12:01pm | IP Logged
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Thank you! I saw that update on the morning basket, too. This week I am going to try to make something similar happen in our home.
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Becky Parker
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It's a bit expensive, but Classically Catholic Memory saved our memory work this year. We started at the beginning of the year and we are still going strong.
As for copywork, pegging it to a morning snack really helped for us. The kids sit down and get their copywork books out. As a matter of fact, when they don't I say something like "okay, I'll wait to get food out until I see the copywork getting done". Works like a charm! This is how I do math too. No breakfast until math books are open and kids are working. I do let them eat breakfast while they work on math, but I wait to give them a snack until they are done with copywork.
One other important point, I set the timer for copywork.
They only work a certain amount of time, based on their age / ability. My sons work for 5 min and my dd for 10. We go for perfection not completion.
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 12:13pm | IP Logged
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Wanting to add one more thing. We start our day with morning prayer. From there we go right to memory work and then anything else we want to accomplish in the morning. If we don't do memory work first thing, while all the kids are seated in the sunroom we don't do it. So memory work pegged to morning prayer time, math pegged to breakfast, and copywork pegged to snack time! (Pegging is my middle name!  )
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Becky
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MamaFence
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 12:18pm | IP Logged
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I have been looking at Classically Catholic Memory! It looks great. Thanks for sharing that is working for your family.
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jawgee
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I am looking at Classically Catholic Memory, too, but for this year we memorize one passage of Scripture every week. Every weekend I look at the readings for the following Sunday's mass (in my Magnificat), and I choose one passage for us to memorize.
We work on it very briefly during our Morning Basket time. Sometimes I have my 10YO try and help his brother and me memorize it (my memory is terrible!). Other times we learn it together as a family. It's fun at mass on Sunday when my 6YO leans over and gives me a thumbs-up sign. That means he's been listening for it and he's heard it. (Listening at mass is not so easy for a 6YO boy. LOL).
Aside from that, the only other memory work we do is poetry from Intermediate Language Lessons, which isn't often. My 10YO has memorized probably five things from there since fall, but we move through the book very slowly.
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Mackfam
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We don't use anything special for memory work - we just work on it consistently, a little at a time.
** It needs to be a habit, so put it somewhere in your day that you'll be consistent about it.
** You don't have to spend 30+ minutes on memory work - the key to memory work is the consistent habit of working on it.
** We spend 5 minutes working on one individual piece of memory work - so for example 5 min. daily to work on a poem.
** The short amount of time keeps it approachable and digestible for the kids. They know you're NOT going to spend 45 minutes hammering in Crossing the Bar. Just 5 minutes!
Here's how a poetry day might look here:
ME: Let's work on our poem. Mark, you first.
MARK: (stands up) O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman :: O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has......
ME: The ship has weathered....
MARK: The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won.....
ME: Okay. Let's work on the next couple of lines. I'll say the line, and then you repeat. The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.....
MARK: repeats.
ME: While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring....
MARK: repeats.
ME: Now, see how far you can get on your own. I'll prompt you if you get stuck. O Captain....
MARK: O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the.....
ME: ....the people all exulting.
MARK: ....the people all exulting.
ME: Ok - we're done with poetry work for today.
And that's it. That whole lesson might take 5 minutes. We approach all memory work in exactly the same way - review what has been learned, stretch out in learning a new line/whatever, I prompt when they get stuck, child repeats, and we're done. 
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AmandaV
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| Posted: March 20 2012 at 10:29am | IP Logged
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kristinannie wrote:
I highly recommend listening to this MP3. I haven't listened to this version, but I saw the talk live at the IHM conference last year. This really convinced me about the importance of memorization so I have made it is a priority.
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I started to listen to this throughout the day, Kristinannie, but haven't finished. Thanks for posting. He seems to say that we can't rely on just reading for children to learn how to write well, which struck me. But I think CM would agree in a sense because just reading without the narrations and discussions is not enough. And later those become written. This is a little off topic, I know. But could you tell me at what point in the talk he mentions memorization? And maybe give a little summary of the points he hits? Maybe another thread...? But this intrigued me. I've not really looked into IEW at all at this point.
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AmandaV
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| Posted: March 20 2012 at 10:37am | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
We don't use anything special for memory work - we just work on it consistently, a little at a time.
** It needs to be a habit, so put it somewhere in your day that you'll be consistent about it.
** You don't have to spend 30+ minutes on memory work - the key to memory work is the consistent habit of working on it.
** We spend 5 minutes working on one individual piece of memory work - so for example 5 min. daily to work on a poem.
** The short amount of time keeps it approachable and digestible for the kids. They know you're NOT going to spend 45 minutes hammering in Crossing the Bar. Just 5 minutes!
Here's how a poetry day might look here: |
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Thanks for sharing that example, Jen. Very helpful. It looks so simple when you share how it works for you, Jen. Would you do multiple memory pieces in one day, and if so, are they together in the day or separate? So, if you are working on a poem, daily for 5 min, would you work on a Bible passage or Prayer or Catechism questions in the same period or space them out? I'm not sure you memorize catechism, though...
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keac
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We haven't used this yet, but its on my resource list to purchase for next year: Living Memory by Andrew Campbell.
I also picked this up at a thrift store and its a good resource: Graded Selections for Memorizing by John Peaslee. Its available here for free at Google Books. Because this was a common practice of the 1800's, it seems there would be many free books out there at Gutenberg or Google Books.
For us it had to be intentional---on the day's To Do list---but short and sweet was key. Our first attempt was Longfellow's Psalm of Life. I was so surprised when after a few weeks of just listening to it one time through, once or twice a week, they were memorizing! No effort! A good resource for poetry that I'll mention is Classic Poetry Aloud, which is excellent, though I don't think he is still updating as often as he once was. But we love it, even though we can't recite A Psalm of Life without affecting a British accent!
Hope that's helpful!
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kristinannie
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| Posted: March 20 2012 at 11:17am | IP Logged
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AmandaV wrote:
kristinannie wrote:
I highly recommend listening to this MP3. I haven't listened to this version, but I saw the talk live at the IHM conference last year. This really convinced me about the importance of memorization so I have made it is a priority.
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I started to listen to this throughout the day, Kristinannie, but haven't finished. Thanks for posting. He seems to say that we can't rely on just reading for children to learn how to write well, which struck me. But I think CM would agree in a sense because just reading without the narrations and discussions is not enough. And later those become written. This is a little off topic, I know. But could you tell me at what point in the talk he mentions memorization? And maybe give a little summary of the points he hits? Maybe another thread...? But this intrigued me. I've not really looked into IEW at all at this point. |
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I don't plan to use IEW for anything (except their poetry book), but I love Andrew Pudewa's talks, especially this one. He talks about the language that most kids hear most of the time from the TV or peers. This isn't the way to learn to speak or write beautifully. He stresses that a child reading by themselves isn't what forms great writers because a lot of kids don't savor every word. They basically read books like they watch TV just getting the basic plot and skimming even when they don't realize it. Later, I realized that I do that!
Reading aloud and memorization are the keys in his opinion. Reading aloud allows the children to hear new vocabulary and hear the words put together beautifully. They can be exposed to literature that they are unable as of yet to read on their own. He stresses reading aloud to kids well past the time that they can read on their own and even into adulthood. This is very CM of him! Also, he talks about memorization. This is when kids can speak the beautiful words and commit them to memory. Later these kids can use the same patterns of words and phrases in their writing because it is all accessible to them. He gives some good examples in his talk (at least the one I saw live). I would say the part on memorization is the second half of the talk. I would just download onto an MP3 player and listen to it while cleaning. I hope I got the main points. I saw this talk almost a year ago and I haven't listened to this particular one. HTH.
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AmandaV
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Thanks, I listened throughout various tasks today. It was a great talk. The reading aloud part was so thought provoking! Makes me think. The section on memorization was very helpful and interesting, especially how much he has been inspired by Suzuki. I didn't really know much about Suzuki.
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DominaCaeli
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I'm thinking about setting this up for next year. My two 5yos have lots of prayers, songs, and poems memorized just from reading and being read to, but I want a more systematic way of maintaining that memory. Right now, we do have an approach that works pretty well:
-- Prayers: Each month we say a new prayer during our evening devotions together. By the end of the month (well, actually, just a week into it, usually! ) the children have it memorized. It then becomes part of our morning prayers. Each day we say a set of prayers based on the traditional devotion for that day (Tuesdays we say the prayers to the angels, Wednesday the prayers to St. Joseph, etc.). When the evening prayer has been learned, it gets added to the list for the appropriate day. (For example, after they learned the St. Michael prayer, it was added to our morning prayers for Tuesday.) This has worked very well and puts the prayers in their context--the kids understand they are learning them so that they can pray them. But the more prayers they learn, the longer their morning prayers get! So I'm thinking about starting a rotation of these prayers as well.
-- Poetry: Each month, I choose a poem relevant to the season/month and print out a copy for each child. During our Morning Basket, one of the children reads the poem aloud. By the end of the month, they have memorized it without trying. They then illustrate it and it goes in their poetry folder. They occasionally look through these and it refreshes their memory of the poems naturally. I also read a few poems aloud every day. These have naturally entered their memory as well, just from hearing them often. They still request them, so I still read them often, and that keeps their memory fresh.
We have kept things informal up to this point but will probably put a little more effort into it in the next couple years. That's why I'm looking at the Simply Charlotte Mason setup. Anyone use it? I have heard alternatively that it is super-easy and super-burdensome. We have had great success so far at being very low-key about it all, but I do want to more systematically record what we have learned and what we need to practice as the kids get older.
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Mackfam
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AmandaV wrote:
| Would you do multiple memory pieces in one day, and if so, are they together in the day or separate? |
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Working on prayers (Latin or English) is all together, and so is poetry time - both are done in the morning. Latin vocabulary memory work is done later in the day. We do memorize catechism questions here. This is usually done individually now, though at one time we all worked on it together - same deal: 5 minutes, review, work on one or two Q&A. So, yes to working on multiple memory pieces during each day. And, some of our memory work is common work, and some is done separately.
I'd say over the years we really just adjust to fit growing children and changing needs and abilities so that sometimes, we're working on almost all of our memory work together, and sometimes the children are doing their own memory work. I don't ever pack memory work on top of memory work on top of memory work though; that would become too tedious. So, even if we are working on several things (memorizing) and we're all working together, all of those things live in our Morning Basket of work (which is the best place for me to peg common studies). We might do 5 minutes of memory work on something, and then shift gears and read something from Natural History, then 5 more minutes of another memory work, and then the children might work on their nature sketch.
Hope that makes sense.
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CrunchyMom
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keac wrote:
A good resource for poetry that I'll mention is Classic Poetry Aloud, which is excellent, though I don't think he is still updating as often as he once was. But we love it, even though we can't recite A Psalm of Life without affecting a British accent!
Hope that's helpful!
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What a wonderful resource!
I borrowed Peduwa's Poetry curriculum, but it seemed a lot of money to pay for him reading poetry on a cd and a chart I wasn't likely to follow (I do keep meaning to set up a system like the SCM scripture memory system because it is the same concept as Pudewa's but more intuitive to me.) Anyway, I did like the idea of HAVING the poetry recorded!
It seems a perfect compliment to a poet study
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AmandaV
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Mackfam wrote:
AmandaV wrote:
| Would you do multiple memory pieces in one day, and if so, are they together in the day or separate? |
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I'd say over the years we really just adjust to fit growing children and changing needs and abilities so that sometimes, we're working on almost all of our memory work together, and sometimes the children are doing their own memory work. I don't ever pack memory work on top of memory work on top of memory work though; that would become too tedious. So, even if we are working on several things (memorizing) and we're all working together, all of those things live in our Morning Basket of work (which is the best place for me to peg common studies). We might do 5 minutes of memory work on something, and then shift gears and read something from Natural History, then 5 more minutes of another memory work, and then the children might work on their nature sketch.
Hope that makes sense. |
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Thank you! This helps!
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Amanda
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DominaCaeli
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Thanks for this! I have some good readings of some of our favorite poems bookmarked on YouTube, but this looks much more orderly.
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Celeste
Joyous Lessons
Mommy to six: three boys (8, 4, newborn) and four girls (7, 5, 2, and 1)
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MamaFence
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AH, after reading all your replies, memorization seems so much easier than I was imagining! Thank you!!
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Gina, mother to 4
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Memory Work
