Aaaand We're Back! And We're Memorizing Stuff.

Well, hey there! I'm really glad you're here. And that you've put up with our absence. I'll let Melissa explain a little about what she's been up to when she posts next. If you'd like to know more about where I've been, head on over to this post on my personal blog.

And now, the good stuff! Our homeschool routine was pared down to the basics during November and December. On most days, our routine was: read-aloud, handwriting, and a math worksheet. That's the bare minimum for us. 

I did squeeze in a couple of other things when I felt up to it, and this is one of them. I'd read part of The Core, by Leigh Bortins, and although I didn't love everything she had to say, I really liked what she said about memorization. The Boy is six years old, and he's at the perfect stage to memorize piles of stuff--planets, U.S. presidents, state capitals, that kind of thing. (Just an example. We haven't memorized any of that stuff yet.) When he's older and ready to learn at a deeper level, he'll have the basic facts memorized and ready to use.

Buuuut...I didn't know where to start, and I wasn't very motivated to put a lot of energy into anything homeschool-related. So I was racking my own memory, trying to come up with something we could start with that would be easy to memorize. Preferably something with a catchy tune. 

I finally came up with The Books in the Book of Mormon. (Click through to hear the song.) The Boy picked it up pretty quickly, so I made these cards to test whether he could put them in order on his own:

...which he did easily. So now I'm stuck on what to memorize next. Should I stick with the scriptures, and have him learn the songs for the books of the Old Testament and New Testament? Or should we move on to something completely different? Choices, choices.

(By the way, I'm not in any way saying that you must teach your grammar-stage child The Books in the Book of Mormon. I'll bet if you think about it, though, you know a catchy song that helped you memorize something when you were a kid. Start with that.)