Fourth Grade

I remember 4th grade as being a really fun year. It was our last year in Okinawa, where I went to an off-base school called Okinawa Christian School. My teacher for 4th grade was named Mrs. Freeman. She was really young--fresh out of college, I would say, and she was married to a young airman. I think she had some classical teaching in her past because one thing she really emphasized memorization. And I clearly remember much of what she had us memorize-- such as presidents, states and capitols, hymns, The Star-Spangled Banner (all 4 verses, LOL), and lots of Scripture. We didn't just memorize verses scattered here and there; we memorized big chunks, like Psalm 1, 1 Cor. 13, Ephesians 6:10-20, and Revelation 5:6-14. It's all still there, albeit a bit rusty, in King James English!

This year for the boys, I have decided to really stress memorization. We always did some before, but I wasn't as faithful in continually going back over what we memorized, so things like the poems from First Language Lessons are not really stuck in their brains. So far we have already memorized the Preamble to the Constitution, and we are definitely going to do the presidents and states and capitols. We've started on 1 Cor. 13 as well--we've done 4 verses so far. Latin involves a fair amount of memorization anyhow, but we are more faithfully reviewing our prayers. I also think we will start memorizing a poem a month--I think that is about all I can handle right now.

Since we are not doing AWANA this year, we really have to be faithful with our Scripture memory work. I always felt like it was so much more rewarding to memorize a big chunk of verses than just random scattered verses. AWANA is really good for the important scattered verses, so now we'll just work on some continuity and context. We are working on some single verses just for our family life, such as Eph. 4:32

"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

I'm sure you all can imagine why we would need to have this verse memorized! Maybe we'll go back and memorize the verses around it too, which are also very helpful for dealing with our words!

So Mrs. Freeman, wherever you are, I just wanted to say thanks for putting all that important stuff in my brain and helping it to stick! You were a great teacher, even though I did think you gave too much homework!