Memory Work

Last night I finally finished up the memory work for this year for the elementary kids in Rivendell!  We're going to be focusing a lot on U.S. history.  Before the trip I finished everything but the mapwork, so I finally got the mapwork all divided up and typed up last night.  Since we're focusing on the U.S., a lot of the mapwork involves landforms and rivers of the U.S., as well as the states and capitals.  There's also some review of Europe, since we spent so much time on that last year, and some time for South America and Africa as well.

For the Bible part, we're memorizing Isaiah 53 first, and then Revelation 5.  I love how these 2 passages flow together--the suffering servant/lamb, and then you see the lamb glorified in Revelation!  I memorized Rev. 5 back in 4th grade, although in the KJV, which is so very poetic.  It will hard to get my brain to memorize it in NIV!

For the timeline part, we're once again reviewing the 32 point timeline with dates that we started with 2 years ago.  This time we're taking 4-6 points a week, since the kids do know it pretty well, especially the older ones.  It will be a good review.  Then we're reviewing the kings and queens of England by house, which we memorized last year.  I know those aren't cemented in yet!  And then we'll work on memorizing the presidents.  I memorized those also back in 4th grade by learning them in groups of 3, so that's how we'll do it here, except we'll do 6 a week.  I also have a story-like thing I made up for Classical Conversations to help the kids remember, so we'll use that too.

For science facts, we're back to life science ones.  I changed some of them from 2 years ago, and I think the ones I left are ones that it is important to cover again.

For the poems part, we're not doing so many actual poems this year, but rather some other selections dealing with U.S. history that are important to know.  We're starting off with the Preamble to the Constitution, then a few stanzas of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."  Then we'll learn 3 stanzas of "The Star-Spangled Banner" (#'s 1, 2, and 4--that qualifies as a poem, right?!).  After Christmas break we'll work on a simplified version of the Bill of Rights, and then "The Charge of the Light Brigade".  That one is not U.S. history, but we cover it in TOG, and it's such a fun poem, especially for boys!  Then we end with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

So that seems like a lot, but it is completely doable, especially since some of it is review from previous years.  For recitation last year I had to make copies of the poems from the first year because the kids often wanted to recite those instead of ones we were doing currently!  I love that these things are sticking in the their memories; hopefully filling their minds with good selections will bear good fruit later on, as well as helping them learn to memorize new things quickly and effectively, which is such an important skill for college and beyond!