Category Archives: Classical Education/Well Trained Mind

Memorization & Scripture Mastery (and Writing!)

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Instead of doing the poems included in their grammar text (First Language Lessons I decided to have the kids memorize scripture mastery cards (C) or a primary song (Mo, because she learns really well with music.) For the songs we just let her go through the children’s songbook and pick one she likes. We’re just doing first verses for some songs, all of the verses for other songs. On Monday after her grammar lesson we’ll read the words of the song, sing it through (I might attempt to play it on the piano!) and listen to it on the church music website. Then I write it out (in cursive) and over the week she copies the lyrics out. Depending on song length it may take more than a week, I don’t ask her to copy more than one sentence at a time but she’ll often do 2 or 3 lines at a time.

For the scripture mastery I ordered the four card sets online from LDScatalog.com (free shipping!) and they are $.50/set. I also got the scripture mastery bookmark that has all 100 scripture mastery over the four books. Good for reference/prompts. I pulled out the ones that I thought were a manageable length for C and hole punched them and hung them on a key ring. There are about 35, though I left out a few that were short but didn’t really make sense out of context. We also read the notes on the other side of the card about historical setting, doctrinal teaching, missionary & personal application.

I let C pick one to work on and I try to have him look it up in the scriptures themselves (cement scripture reference with actual location in book) and then I write it out in cursive and have him copy over the course of the week. Again, I don’t ask him to do more than a line or two at a time because I am looking at his cursive effort. The writing helps cement his memorization but this is mostly handwriting practice.

I hadn’t thought about doing the primary scripture of the month, mostly because I know they do memorize that during primary and it’s usually very short. I think that would be a good length for K/1st but I wanted the lengthier songs/scripture mastery for the older kids. I also wanted to make sure they were memorizing things that are beautiful, but also useful. It’s fun for both kids to be at church and hear one of their songs chosen or their scripture being read. And same thing with the primary songs – Mo memorizes songs really quickly so with just the Sunday teaching she’s getting those down and I wanted to do something extra to challenge her during the week. When she’s a bit older I may switch her to memorizing the scripture mastery as well. As they get older I’ll add the longer cards into the rotation. I figure it will make their seminary years easier, too.

Update: As I’m watching the IEW program I realize we’ll also be using these memorization materials for the writing program, in which they’ll practice outlining key words & summarize the scripture/song in their own words.

Writing Programs

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Now that C is nine and has cursive down and is improving on his typing we wanted to begin a formal writing program. We’re looking at two options – The Excellence in Writing program and The Complete Writer Writing with Ease. The latter is from The Well Trained Mind author and she also endorses the first program though she’s currently working on a middle school level set of her own that would be competition for it.

So Writing with Ease is for 1st through 4th grade and the book I ordered (and linked to above, though I got it from Amazon for $17) and it’s the instructor text. They offer student workbooks but reviews say they’re really not necessary. We use that same author’s grammar program First Language Lessons which we like, but that’s grammar, dictation & narration. We wanted something for more structured writing (essays, poetry, creative writing, etc.) And for $17 for a four year program we can’t beat that!

The Institute for Excellence in Writing program is also a teacher’s guide, it’s a DVD set and teacher syllabus (the teacher binder is $33, the DVD set is $169 but can be borrowed so long as you buy your own syllabus. A local friend is loaning it to me to watch.) In theory it teaches you how to use their writing program for all ages and you can purchase more DVDs that actually teach the lessons or you can create your own lessons (which I plan to do.)

I want to see both options so we can determine which works best for our kids. I was hesitant about buying both but it’s $50 for me to get the teacher guide for both programs together and that way I can decide from kid to kid which I think would be best for their learning style. (I was able to get both for $31 combined thanks to a used copy & a sale.)

So we’re doing First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind for grammar, narration, dictation & some memorization.

Spell to Write & Read for spelling, though it does include some writing exercises & some grammar lessons as enrichment.

Cursive First for handwriting, which they practice with their spelling words, dictation work, and soon their writing program.

Teaching the Classics/Thomas Jefferson Education questions for literature.

Institute for Excellence in Writing and/or Writing with Ease for their writing. We’re waiting for both of those to arrive.

My tentative plan is that we’ll do two writing lessons a week and one grammar lesson for C, since his grammar is much more intensive now (First Language Lessons Level 4.) For Mo we’ll do her two grammar lessons (Level 2) and one to two writing lessons a week, depending on how involved they are. Then all together we do one literature reading and they both do spelling lists & enrichment activities with those. That sounds like a lot but it actually doesn’t take up that much time or coordination.

M: grammar, new memorization
T: new spelling words, writing lesson
W: grammar, spelling enrichment
Th: writing lesson, literature
F: spelling test

And all of them incorporate the cursive/handwriting.

(Update, I’m returning Writing with Ease because I think it’s redundant if you do First Language Lessons and because I think the IEW writing program is better and covers all ages, not just 1st through 4th.)

Memorization Work

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Instead of memorizing the poems in the First Language Lessons books we’ve been using scripture mastery cards for C and primary songs for M. I decided I needed to be more consistent about it. On Mondays we’ll pick the scripture mastery and song for the week and each of the kids will write some of the scripture/song as part of their handwriting practice for the week. I’ll also write out the words and hang it on the fridge so we all get the reminder to work on memorizing those and to have something we can refer back to for later review.

I think all of us are suffering from memory loss these days because there’s so little we have to memorize – we can always look it up quickly online or on our laptop or in the iPhone, right? 🙂 But I think memorization is good for our brains and necessary for some things in life so I hope we can make this a relatively fun way to develop this skill.

Listening to our voice.

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Reading through this:

During one of our trips, we visited a family which lived a very simple life in a very modest home, and homeschooled their five small children. The parents were quite soft spoken and gentle in manner, always speaking to the children in a calm, quiet way. From the very beginning of our visit, it became obvious that the children “attended” to the voices of their parents. The parents had first time obedience from even the youngest, and this obedience was obtained with a quiet voice and manner. In all my life, I have never witnessed anything like it. On one occasion, the one year old began to climb up on the kerosene heater. I saw the father give an almost imperceptible shake of the head and heard him say in a whisper, “Isaac, huh, uh.” Immediately the child shifted into reverse and backed away from the heater. The child attended to and obeyed the very whisper of his father. It moves me to tears to recall that scene and the affection which the children and parents had for each other. Oh, that I had trained my children so well when they were young. God wants first time obedience from us, and we should form the same habit in our children. When we resort to speaking in a loud voice when we want something of our children, or when we form the habit of repeating our requests, we train our children to ignore us when we speak. If we could only begin at the very beginning to train our children to attend to our voice — to listen for it no matter what they are doing, and to immediately obey, how well we will prepare them to listen to their heavenly father as well.

Teaching the Classics

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Teaching the Classics is a literature program I just picked up. I had viewed some of the DVD and decided to get the syllabus. I really like it, it lays things out beautifully and has a ton of great information. I don’t think I can even begin to summarize it! 🙂

I like that it’s Socratic method – ask questions and encourage the children to think and make connections. I like that it can be used with really any book, and starts using children’s stories to help lay it out more clearly. It covers the key points of any story and you can make it very simple for little ones or very complex for teens. I like that it has the story chart so you can help the kids lay out visually the plot, theme, characters, etc… And it walks you through some sample ones so you can get the hang of how it works.

It was $25 plus $5 shipping but it was the same shipping for one or two copies so a friend and I ordered together. I think this blends well with A Thomas Jefferson Education and it’s classical approach so it would fit perfectly with Charlotte Mason methods of live books and The Well Trained Mind.

This is a reading program, to supplement our grammar program (First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind) and it will involve some narration as well. We’ll also be adding handwriting (Cursive First) and spelling & composition (Spell to Write & Read.) I’m anticipating they will all blend together well with some overlap but this should cover much of our language arts for the next several years at least…

More later to explain that as C is now a very proficient reader, we’re adding much more in depth lessons.

Memorization Work Ideas

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We really like First Languages Lessons for the Well Trained Mind but I’m not so impressed with the memorization work. Some of it is great but some of it is just poems or nursery rhymes that aren’t impressive. I would rather the kids memorize things that they will really need or at least that’s beautiful!

For Christopher (now in book 3) we’re having him memorize scripture mastery cards – you can get them online for $.25 a set (four sets total.) We pulled out the scripture verses that were smallest to start with, but ones that I felt had meaning we could explain to him. Example – last week he memorized John 14:15 – “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” This week it is Doctrine & Covenants 82:10 – “I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say ye have no promise.” So we’re starting small! But I like that instead of just poems (and we are still memorizing some of those) he’s learning scripture that will come in handy.

For Moira I was pondering what would be best for her. And inspiration struck! I pulled down our Children’s Songbook and started at the beginning. She knows the first song, of course – “I am a child of God.” The second song is the one they are learning in primary (that is making her cry because it’s minor key) – “I lived in Heaven.” So we went with #3:

I know my Father lives,
And loves me, too.
The Spirit whispers this to me,
And tells me it is true.

Perfect! It’s easier for her to remember because it’s lyrics vs. a scripture (the rhyme helps.) Plus we have the primary songs in my iTunes so I can play the song for her and she memorizes to music so quickly. (And Christopher is learning them, too.) I love that it’s something they’ll be glad to know since they’ll be singing these in primary. I like that they are memorizing teachings of the Gospel. It’s perfect!

Oh, source – the scripture mastery cards, children’s songbook and primary cd you can buy at LDS catalog and it’s free shipping. You can also access the church’s music player through the church website if you want the primary songs for free! I don’t know if you can download them

So whenever there is a new poem for the kids to memorize in either book we’ll use the scripture mastery or primary song instead, unless it’s a poem we like.

Discussion

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If you have read or plan to read any of the Charlotte Mason works, Well Trained Mind, or the Thomas Jefferson Education, would you let me know? I always appreciate the chance to hear other’s thoughts on these works, it helps me to learn from you and get your perspective. You can leave a comment here or email me – all comments, even on old posts, are emailed to me.

Thank you!!