Prayer Wheel.

So I've been talking religion curriculum with a friend lately and trying to revamp some things. While trying to get things in order for the new school year, I came across our handy, little prayer wheel and thought it would be something you might all find useful!

Last year, Marco made a neat prayer wheel at one of his sacramental prep classes. It had a few prayers on it and the assignment was to have him "spin the wheel" and recite whatever prayer the wheel showed. I thought it was such a fun way to practice that I decided to make one with all the prayers that the kids know (or should know!).

Of course, the prayers didn't work on one wheel so I adjusted it and made it into a double wheel. It's not fancy, the words aren't centered, and they even might be a little crooked....but it worked for us!! I printed them on card stock paper, inserted a fastener to what looked like the center, and then I made cut-outs for the prayers to show through.

Simple, easy, and a fun way to work on prayer recitation. Feel free to print out my version or you can even make your own. Replace prayers for the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, poems, or anything you need your kids to recite.

Yea...it's a bit crooked as you can see. But it's fun way to practice!

Memorization.

I know that memorization is an important factor in the whole classical homeschooling technique. Well, not even in the classical education sphere, but also for other educational styles such as Charlotte Mason. Unfortunately, I stopped requiring memorization of material for the kids last year. Meaning that we only did memorization during Marco's kindergarten year.

Perhaps I can defend taking this year off by saying that we were doing memorization. There have been math facts, new phonics rules, sights words, etc. But I do realize that nothing can replace the benefits of memorizing poetry or prayers. So with all that being said, I have finally chosen what we will be working on in terms of memorization.

I found the neatest website that helped me develop my own memorization system. It is based on Charlotte Mason's technique and I have a feeling that it will work wonderfully because it is neither time consuming nor cumbersome. The system is from Simply Charlotte Mason and it is a scripture memory system. However, you can pretty much use it for anything from scripture to poetry. It only requires a few supplies. Index cards, a box for the cards, and dividers.

I can detail the steps to organizing the system here, but I think that the website is done extremely well and is easy to follow.

What are we putting in our memorization system? Well, after much thought I decided that we needed to start off with two different systems. The first will be all religion. We have been reading from The New Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism, but now we would like the kids to begin memorizing the questions and answers found in the book. Not only will this memory system include the Baltimore Catechism, but it will also include prayers, and perhaps scripture. The more we memorize, the more we can add!!

Another good way to use the memory system is to use it for poetry. I have a few selections in mind, but haven't finished writing them all down. Since you only review things for a few minutes each day, I'm thinking of scheduling them into our day. Religion memorization in the morning and bedtime. Poetry before lunch and dinner. I'm not concerned with memorizing things quickly, so no rush and no pressure.

I'm posting pictures of our religion memorization box, so you can see how easy it is to make your own!!

A simple index card holder, properly labeled.

Dividers labeled according to the instructions.

Our index cards ready to be filed!