Homeschool Happy :: Bringing Easter to Memory Work

The above video notwithstanding, we’ve struggled a bit with memory work this year.  Everyone was learning the passages at different rates; age differences, I think, account for most of it.  Whatever the cause, it was making our memory work less than joyful.  It was so unpleasant that we skipped it for most of the year.

Then I read this piece by Mystie (who was guest posting at His Mercy Is New, but she usually writes at Simply Convivial), and a tiny shift occurred in my thinking.  Instead of aiming for perfect recitation from everyone in the short term, what if I looked at our long term goals?  I want my children to put the words of Scripture and Shakespeare and poetry in their hearts.  I want them to be transformed by the words that live inside them.  That doesn’t happen overnight.  But that is something that repeated exposure over time makes space for.

So the plan for now is to return to our daily memory work: a verse for each letter of the alphabet written on the backs of our ICAD cards from last summer.  We’re staying with each short verse for a week and then moving on, cycling through the verses twice in a year.  Already there is a joy and lightness to our practice.  It’s practice after all–the daily round, hand to the plow.