Our Memory Work System

February. The month that I always begin evaluating our home school curriculum. What's working, what isn't, what are we missing, what do we want to do next year. Some years it's a bigger job than others.

Today, I'm posting one thing that works great for our family. The Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory System.

As the boys attended Sunday School, and as we began learning at home, they soon accumulated several verses that they knew. But as time progressed, they began to forget the first ones they had learned.

Enter the Charlotte Mason System. It provides an easy to follow review method that makes sure you know the verse well to begin with and then repeats it on an ongoing basis so that you don't forget. Very Cool! We use it as part of our supper devotions, so everyone takes part. It's amazing to see what even Shannon is able to memorize. And it only takes maybe 5 minutes!

Here's how it works.

Step One: Get an index card box and forty-one tabbed dividers that fit inside it. It doesn’t matter if the dividers have letters on them; you can flip them over and use the other side for labeling.

Step Two: Label the dividers as follows and place them in the box in this order:

• 1 divider — Daily
• 1 divider — Odd
• 1 divider — Even
• 7 dividers — Days of the Week (Sunday, Monday, etc.) (We just use 5, Mon-Fri)
  
• 31 dividers — Numbered 1-31

Step Three: Copy onto index cards any verses your family already knows. Beginning with the Odd tab, put one verse behind each of the dividers, starting with your most recently learned verse (but don't go crazy trying to get them in exact order...like you know I would...). Just do as many as you have, you don't have to fill the box, that'll come later.

Next write cards for verses you want to memorize. Put one verse card behind the Daily divider; this will be the passage you’ll work on memorizing first. Then stack the rest of the verses to be learned in front of the Daily divider to learn at a later time.

Step Four: Each day you will say together the verses behind four dividers:

• Daily
• Odd or Even
• Day of the Week
• Date of the Month

So if today is Tuesday, the 3rd, you will say the verses behind Daily, Odd (because 3 is an odd number), Tuesday, and 3. The next day (Wednesday, the 4th), you will say the verses behind Daily, Even, Wednesday, and 4. Keep in mind that only the verse behind Daily is a new one that you are memorizing; all the others are just review.

To learn the new verse I simply read it out loud in phrases. The rest of the family repeats. As we begin to learn it I make the phrases longer.

Step Five: When you have memorized the Daily verse, move it behind the Odd divider. Move the verse that was in the Odd slot back to the Even, the Even to Monday, Monday to Tuesday, and so on. Friday's card gets moved to the next available numbered divider. You can then put a new verse or passage to memorize behind the Daily divider and you’re ready to go again.

In this way, you will review a new verse every day, then graduate to every other day, once a week, and finally, once a month. Use the system every day of the month and you will review all the verses you know every month of the year!

When we first started we only had cards up to 15, so for the rest of the month I simply subtracted 15 from what ever the date was and used that number (on the 21rst we did the verse behind 6)

Eventually you will have advanced enough verse cards to have one placed behind each numbered divider. Then , start at 1 again and add another card to each.

If you're interested, I have most of the verses we've learned in a Word document that I could send you. Just print it out, tape to cards, and you're on your way!