I have hid thy promise in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Psalm 119:11

Some mothers tell me that their children can’t memorize.  Yes, they can!  If your child can tell you that he wants a cookie, he can memorize!  He learned all of these words: “Mama”, “I”, “want”, “a”, and “cookie”, by hearing these words repeated and memorizing them.  However, the modern education system has largely eliminated memorization from the curriculum, and many adults were never taught a good method for it.  If you find all of this daunting, I’d like to invite you into our homeschool for a few minutes, to listen in on how I teach this material…

New Lessons Day

For example, here’s how I would drill the Bible Lesson in Cycle 1, Week 1:

Mother:  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say? 

Mother:  [I immediately answer myself] My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9. 

Mother:  [continuing on without a pause] Now you try to say it with me.  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say? 

Mother & children:  [Answer immediately; they try to say the answer with me.] My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9.  [Note: They don’t sound good at this point!  It doesn’t matter.  Just do it; their brains work this way.]

Mother:  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say?  [At this point, I usually remember I should be keeping count, and discretely do something with my 3^rd finger, to help me remember that we’re on our 3^rd time through.]

Mother & children:  My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9. 

Mother:  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say?  [4 fingers.]

Mother & children:  My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9. 

Mother:  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say?  [5 fingers.]

Mother & children:  My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9. 

Mother:  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say?  [6 fingers.]

Mother & children:  My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9. 

Mother:  What does Proverbs 1:8-9 say?  [7 fingers.]

Mother & children:  My son, hear thy father’s instruction, and forsake not thy mother’s teaching.  For they shall be a comely ornament unto thine head, and as chains for thy neck.  Proverbs 1:8-9. 

If they have focused and tried to work with you, you’re in great shape.  If it doesn’t sound wonderful, yet, don’t worry about it, just move on; they will continue to learn it as you review over the rest of the week.  Next subject!

I “drill” each subject this way, quickly, one after another; we typically spend 3-4 minutes on each subject.

Extra Ideas for New Lessons Day

I find that New Lessons Day goes a lot better when I review the lessons ahead of time, just as if I were being paid to teach other people’s children.  I set aside 30 minutes to an hour, the night before, to practice teaching all of the new material, and write it out on the children’s easel whiteboard.  This is all optional, of course, but that is how I do it!

After I write each lesson out, I practice asking the prompt and giving the response (and make sure I wrote it correctly!).  If I have trouble with any of them, I work it out then, instead of when the children are staring at me in the morning!  (Note: I only write out the title of the English selection, not the whole poem; and I just read from the book, when we get to that.  I do the same for History, on long-quotation weeks.)

I like to write times on the white board, in small print, next to each subject in 4-minute increments.  Our homeschool begins at 10:00, so next to the Bible Lesson, I write 10:04, to help me try to be done drilling the Bible Lesson by 10:04.  The next subject would be 10:08, then 10:12, etc.  Some lessons are shorter and some are longer, but that guideline helps me keep moving quickly.  If I get bogged down, the children will lose focus.

For the Bible Pasage and Timeline, I make up handmotions for the children; so I like to come up with those during my prep session.  I find thinking up handmotions to be difficult, and we lose a lot of our momentum if I’m trying to figure that out on the fly during homeschool.  I find it helpful to pencil key words into the margin, to help me remember the handmotions.

For the Foreign Language lesson, I also practice sounding out the material, listen to the audio helps, etc., during my prep session, because I find it so difficult.  It’s still difficult the next day, but putting some time into it, the night before, really helps!  The Foreign Language lessons are usually repeated for a second week; the second week is much easier.

After I’m done writing my whiteboard (which is on an easel), I turn it around backwards, in a corner, where the toddlers won’t notice all of that beautiful writing.  Yes, after all of that work, and strict warnings to the children, there have been multiple mornings when a preschooler erased the whole thing before homeschool.  But “out of sight, out of mind” seems to work for my little ones!

During homeschool, when we’re learning our new material, I erase each subject as we learn it.  The children love to watch each subject get erased.  For some lessons, I may use the eraser as a device for helping us memorize, by erasing a few more words from a lesson, each time through.  Even though the pre-readers can’t read any of it anyway, Mama finds it very helpful, and they enjoy it.

When I am drilling the new lessons with the children, I try to memorize the material with them.  I don’t learn it perfectly, and I usually forget it by the next day, but I still try my best on New Lessons Day.  When I model that level of focus and effort, I’m able to lead the children better, and they do better.

As I mentioned in the Instructions, I have the children stand up for some subjects, and sit down for others; I use hand motions for longer lessons.  Sometimes, I have them jump up and down, or march in place, or use silly voices, to spice things up while they’re saying the same thing, over and over again.  But, to be sure, I make sure they’re actually saying their lessons in the midst of all the fun!  If not, I cut out the silliness and make them say it one-room-schoolhouse-style, yet with cheerful voices and countenances.

The first time you do this, it will be not unlike teaching your children to run a mile, once a week, but for their minds.  That first time, long before the seventh subject, you should expect to see their eyes glaze over as their brains approach shut-down!  Encourage them to persevere to the end.  Keep your drilling peppy!  Just keep moving!!  During that first week, you will have oodles of time for reviewing these lessons; don’t worry if it seems like too much for them during that first session; by the end of the week’s review, they will actually start to know it.   Just act confident, be encouraging, and stick to the plan.

Just as if you were making them run a mile every week, after a few weeks, this 30 minutes of focused learning will become something they expect, and (with your encouragement and a cheery drilling method!) their minds will get used to it!  This is not too much to expect from Grammar School-age children; it’s just more than our modern society expects from them.  Once they get the rhythm and the routine of this method of learning, they will thrive in it.  It’s completely organic for their minds; you will be amazed at what they can memorize, and how naturally they do it!