Science & Memory Work

I’ve written before on how we use memory work in our little homeschool, but this year we’re definitely stepping it up a notch.

Our memory work usually contains poems, Latin chants, Catechism questions, and prayers. However, I decided to purchase Classically Catholic Memory (CCM) and we’ll be adding in some of their history & science memory work to serve as ‘pegs’ for all the information we’re studying.

This year, the “middle students” (dd#2 & dd#3) are going to be putting together lapbooks as part of their science activities. We’re studying Earth Science and I just couldn’t find a spine that I liked. We’d used Time’s Planet Earth before, but it lacks a conversational component. I knew I wouldn’t care for A Child’s Geography:  Explore His Earth, but I couldn’t help buying it to make sure. (Yep, definitely wasn’t my cup of tea.) I ended up pulling all sorts of things together – including quite a bit of the Science memory work from CCM. 

There are 17 different memory pieces to memorize in the first half of our school year just for our Earth Science studies. They range from simple (seven continents) to more complex (like listing the layers of the atmosphere by name). One is quite long:

“The tallest mountains on earth are all part of the Himalayas. The highest is Mount Everest on the border of Nepal and China, followed by K2 on the border between Pakistan and China. Mount McKinley in Alaska has the highest mountain peak in North America.”

That isn’t one from CCM. I added it because I thought it would be good for them to know.

Our topics will start out with an overview and some basic geography/map lessons (including blobbing!). The memory work for that includes a list of the Great Circles (Equator, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Arctic Circle, etc.). We will cover the continents, land-forms, and water forms (including memorizing a list of common ones).

Then, we’ll drop into the earth’s layers and hit plate tectonics and earthquakes, including memorizing the types of faults. That seems like it will lead right into mountains (types & the listing of the tallest) and volcanoes (types).

We will move to oceans (memorizing the common names of the oceans of the world) and that will lead into a study of the water cycle. We’ll touch briefly on wind, then swing right into a study of the earth’s atmosphere (memorizing the layers by name).

We’ll take a break to dig into rocks & minerals (types of rocks, samples of each type) and end with a weather study (types of clouds, things meteorologists measure).

Second semester is for Astronomy. We won’t have as much in terms of memory work as we’ll be using Apologia’s Astronomy book with Elemental Science’s Lapbooking Through the Solar System. I think the memorization list includes types of stars, names of the planets in order, and a few other tidbits (moon phases, maybe?).

Here’s hoping for a fun & brain-ful year!