Mega Memory Month Update...

Maybe before the end of the month, I'll actually post one of these on Monday. :)

We jumped in on this challenge a bit late, so I didn't really have time to put together a *plan*. Once I decided what we were going to memorize (Psalm 1 and "My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stevenson), it was time to hit the ground running.

I printed out copies of the Psalm and the poem for each of us, and gave everyone a portfolio folder, which is serving double duty for Mega Memory Month and our study on Holiness and Reverence. Ordinarily we would have dressed them up a bit, but in our hurry to get started this time, we just left them "as is".

Also, as I mentioned last week, I recorded both the Psalm and the poem on our handy-dandy compact cassette recorder. The kids are still fascinated with it, and I find one or another of them listening to it at all manner of odd times. :) The combination of the cassette player and the printed copies has helped my struggling readers learn to read the bigger, more unfamiliar words.

We didn't have a lot of time last week to work on actual memorization. We read through both selections several times, worked on comprehension and vocabulary words, and then I had planned to really hit the *memory work* hard this week.

So...I was pleasantly surprised when we began to work on the Psalm on Monday morning to discover that they had a pretty good head start on memorization. Just through the work we had done on reading and meaning, and the "playing around" that they had done with their print-outs and the cassette player, they had already begun to memorize.

This week we have been learning signs to go along with the Psalm. We've learned that this not only helps us remember the words, but it also helps us focus better when we are working on it...especially for the more active, wiggly people among us. :)

Turns out that we have already been using a modified version of the "stacking method" to work on this as well. I really appreciated the links Ann K. posted this week in her MMM update...especially this one, by a man who is memorizing the book of James with his sons. They are using the "stacking method", and he posts several good links on the subject. This one in particular is excellent.

We haven't spent as much time with the poem so far. We are planning to start hitting it hard tomorrow. We probably won't get it learned completely by the end of October, but hopefully we'll have a good start. As Ann said in her post, we may not get completely finished with it all by month-end, but we have made *much* more progress than we would have otherwise with the accountability of this challenge prodding us on. Thanks to Ann and the other participants for the inspiration and encouragement!