Memory Masters

I fell in love with the classical model of education when we began exploring schooling options for our children.  The sequence of learning according to a child's God given developmental pattern (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the integration of all subjects along a correlated and sequential timeline seemed superior to the traditional approach I had in school.  I've always admired the way our founding fathers, who were educated according to the classical model, thought and wrote, and I still wonder why our public education system abandoned the classical philosophy in the 1940s.

However, I began with more of skeptical view regarding a few aspects of the classical model that are especially emphasized in the Foundations program within our homeschool co-op.  I have always heard that kids are sponges, but the memory capability of children during the earliest years is far greater than I ever imagined.  Even so, I could not understand why classical students were memorizing advanced facts such as the laws of thermodynamics, ancient history, grammar rules, Latin verb endings, or the distributive law in the early grades before the child could understand such facts. I asked, "Why would a 5-year old need to know the laws of matter and the location of the highest mountain on each continent?" It all seemed like a total waste of time to me at first.  The mantra in my engineering coursework was "learn the process, but don't worry about memorizing formulas". We were always allowed to bring in a formula card for tests.  Even the professional engineers exam allowed formula cards.

What I am discovering, however, is that as kids progress in their education, those memorized facts prove invaluable.  I would spend so much time during those math and engineering exams trying to find the right equation for each problem that I barely had time to finish the exams, much less check my answers for accuracy.  In the workplace, time is money.  Granted, much of the computation is automated in the marketplace, but the mind still needs to process information efficiently without getting hung up on data that should have been memorized from the very beginning.

When our daughter learned to skip-count for her co-op class, it seemed silly, but when I taught her multiplication, she quickly mastered the concepts and could perform quick mental computations all because she knew how to skip count.  Her mastery in the multiplication tables gave her a much needed boost of confidence in her weakest subject.

Memorizing Bible passages is of extreme importance to our family.  When I am teaching our children proper behavior or when they are trying to make wise decisions for themselves, those passages of Scripture they have memorized flash through their heads showing them what is right and giving credibility to my instruction.

Each week our children usually learn five geography points.  My 7-year-old knows more European, Asian, and African waters, mountains, cities, and features than I do, and I have the advantage of having traveled to many of those regions of the world.

I've been told that memorizing Latin noun endings and conjugations will be very useful when our children begin formally studying Latin.  I have been teaching our kids simple Latin words to supplement the memory work, but they seem to enjoy learning the rote Latin grammar itself as long as we put the facts to music.

Our favorite subject for memory work is history.  The kids love singing and dancing to the history songs.  Music and hand motions have been key tools in helping our kids memorize facts.  We make up songs for almost anything we study now.

I'm finding that memorization is like glue for the brain.  When the kids memorize a fact they don't understand, the fact still remains in their head like a product with a UPC code inside a warehouse.   Before we started memory work with the children, visiting the natural science museum held little significance for the kids. They thought the dinosaurs were creepy, but they enjoyed riding the escalator, and that's about it.

Dinosaur room in 2007

Now when they visit the museum, they receive a lot of new information and some of it actually sticks. When I took my son to the museum after our first year of memory work, he saw a rock display featuring the different types of rock found in our state.  Since he had memorized some of the rock classifications, some of those rocks were filed into the rock bay of his mental warehouse.   When we observed different habitats in the museum, the biome names were familiar to him from his previous memory work, so some of the information about the animals living in each habitat stuck to the "biome" bay in his mind. 

Exploring habitats in 2010

During the hands-on alligator presentation, our son recognized the term "amphibian" and remembered that they reproduce by laying eggs.  Some of the information presented that day stuck to the "amphibian" glue in his little brain.  Those mental connections facilitate the acquisition of more knowledge and mental processing.  Since these mental connections are so important in learning, reading a large volume and a wide variety of classic, high quality literature is a key component of the classical model.

Petting a baby alligator in 2010

Today, each student in our homeschool co-op was given the opportunity to be tested in their memory work for the past 24 weeks.  To achieve the status of  "Memory Master" a student must recite all facts in all subjects without any mistakes.  The memory work this past year included:

1.  Geography:  Locate the 123 different points on a world map (rivers, oceans, cities, countries, continents, mountains, and features) that we studied this past year.

2. Bible:  Recite Ephesians, Chapter 6, in the King James Version. (This task would have been so much easier if they could have recited from a more modern translation!)

3. Science: Recite all facts for each week's lesson (3-9 facts per week) covering the following topics:

• Ecology (types of biomes, types of consumers, food chain, natural cycles, forms of pollution, how animals react to environmental change)
• Astronomy (types of stars, parts of the sun, names of the planets, phases of the moon, solar bodies, space missions)
• Physical Science (states of matter, acid vs. base, forms of energy, Newton's laws of motion, laws of thermodynamics, characteristics of light, heat flow, and electricity)

4.  History:  Recite the 24 history sentences for cycle 2 including key names, dates, locations, and events.

5.  Timeline:

• Name 160 events on the world history timeline beginning with creation and include key dates and names of people, locations, and events.

• Name all of the US presidents in chronological order.

6.  Math:

• Skip count the 1's through the 15's for 12 intervals.
• Name the squares up to 15x15.
• Name the cubes up to 10x10x10.
• State the following conversion formulas: meters to kilometers, inches to feet, feet to miles, centimeters to inches.
• Give the formulas for calculating the area of rectangles, squares, triangles and circles.
• What is the formula for calculating the circumference of a circle?
• Describe the associative, commutative, and identity laws for addition and multiplication.
• Write the distributive law.
• Pi = 3.14

7.  Latin:  Conjugate "to love" in Latin for the following:

• 1st, 2nd, 3rd person
• Singular and plural
• Present, Imperfect, future, present perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect tenses

8.  English Grammar

• List the 8 parts of speech.
• Pronouns:  Define "pronoun" and list the pronoun order. Name all of the nominative, objective, possessive, reflective, interrogative, demonstrative, possessive adjectives, and indefinite pronouns
• Define "adverb" and list the adverbs.
• Name the 4 kinds of sentences.
• List examples of double negatives.
• Define "noun" and name the 5 usages of a noun. 
• Define "gerund", "appositive", "conjunction", "adjective", and "interjection".
• List the coordinating conjunctions.

I was completely overwhelmed when I first saw the memory work schedule for our co-op.  At my stage in life, memorization requires more work than it does for K-5th graders.  Had I honed my memorization skills through the classical method during those years of my life, perhaps memorization would be much easier for me now, but people my age will never have the memorization potential of kids in K-5th grade. 

Surprisingly, most kids enjoy memorization work, especially when they can communicate the facts through song and dance.  Had I diligently worked with our daughter each week on this memory work, she quite possibly could have achieved "Memory Master" as could most any young child.  However, since one of my primary goals in homeschooling is to help our children fall in love with learning without them experiencing the great stress and pressure I put on myself in school, I never pushed her to memorize the work each week.  That, and I was too lazy to diligently go through all the material with her every week!

Very rarely do first graders ever attempt Memory Master.  That challenge is more for the older students.  However, our daughter's tutor suggested that each student in her class attempt mastery at one subject and possibly up to 4 subjects.  Geography and timeline are the most arduous subjects (for me anyway), yet our daughter mastered those subjects really well.  She can recite Ephesians 6 in modern Bible translations and can almost quote it in the KJV, but some of the old English occasionally stumps her.   She knows most of the grammar.  She eventually decided to attempt math, timeline, history, and Latin.  I rarely worked with her on these subjects throughout the year.  I did review facts with her this past week and tried to cram a few math facts into her head the night before the evaluation even though I know that is the worst way to learn. 

She did not miss a single word or date in history or Latin.  She made one mistake out of the 160 timeline cards that must have been due to being nervous because she never missed that one at home.  She even pronounced difficult names like Ulrich Zwingli, Champlain, and Cabot correctly.  She named all the presidents easily thanks to a great presidents song.  She got most of her math right but missed the 4 facts I tried to cram into her head yesterday.  That's what I get for waiting until the night before the evaluation to review math with her.   I think she did wonderfully as did ALL the other students.  Best of all, she loves memorizing and is honing that skill.  Co-op continues to be one of her favorite activities each week.

Our 4-year old almost attempted mastery of history, but I was afraid it would be too much pressure for him.  He loves singing the songs as much as his sister.  A child's mind is so fascinating to me.  Learning all these facts is wonderful, especially as they point to our infinitely wise Creator, but watching our kids place God's word into their hearts and minds each week is the greatest joy of all.

Psalm 119:11
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

When we returned home this afternoon, the kids played outside in the gorgeous weather, and then our daughter took a nap for the first time in years. She slept for four hours straight.  

Meanwhile, our son successfully finished his reading program for the year with the exact same grade to the tenth of a percent as his sister when she learned to read.  Then he followed his sister's example again by taking a nap which is very rare for him.  All that thinking today wore those sweet kids out!

When they awoke, we took them out for dinner to celebrate at the restaurant of their choice. Congratulations, my precious children!