(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, welcome and happy new year. Happy January. It is cold at my house right now. I am actually looking forward to some snow and maybe you guys are too, wherever you are, wherever you're listening to this podcast.

Snowy days are great times to hunker down and be inside with your family and have some great conversations and some hot chocolate and some read along. And, hey, maybe even play some memory games. I've noticed on our Facebook page over the last couple of weeks that there have been lots of families who have started thinking about Memory Master.

As our foundation's year draws to a close, a lot of families are thinking, hey, maybe my child really could be a Memory Master or what are some ways for us to practice all this memory work we've spent all these hours pursuing and filing away this year? So I grabbed my good friend, Kelly Wilt, and we want to talk to you today about Memory Master tips, tricks, and fun.

Kelly, you are just the girl for this. - Oh, Lisa, you know I can talk about Memory Master anytime. And for anyone who's listening at home, maybe your family has made a new year's resolution to really emphasize practicing memory work at home together, making it fun with the goal of Memory Master this cycle.

And I will say, it is not too late for you to do that. - Absolutely not. - So this is a well-timed podcast and hopefully it will encourage some friends who are contemplating whether or not this is doable for 2025. - That's really good. But you know what? One thing that you said at the beginning, I really kind of want to emphasize, even if your family is brand new to CC and you just kind of dipped your toe into it this year and you're just kind of taking a let's sit back and see how it goes.

And Memory Master is not something that tricked your trigger, tripped your trigger, and you don't really want to do that. This is still a great podcast for you because we're going to be talking about how you and your family can practice memory work together and the benefits that you will get may have nothing to do with becoming a Memory Master in community.

- It's so true. There is so much more to the Memory Master process and becoming a Memory Master than solely committing facts to memory and reciting them. - Yeah, and it's not about a competition. Okay, in fact, let's just, if somebody, Kelly, if somebody came up to you and asked you just off the cuff to explain Memory Master, what would you say?

What is it that you think is the most important aspect to convey to somebody who's curious? - That's a really good question, Lisa, because as homeschooling families, a lot of times we love to talk about the things that we're doing and the things that we're involved in. And if you're speaking to someone who doesn't have intimate knowledge of classical conversations, they might wonder, what is a Memory Master?

Why is it a big deal? So a Memory Master, the title Memory Master is an honor that's given to our foundation students who mastered all of the memory work subjects for the current cycle of that academic year. And of course, that includes all the memory work for history and geography and English grammar and Latin and math and science.

And of course, our beloved timeline. - Yes. - They're able to recite all of that to their parents and then to another adult and then to their foundations tutor and finally to their director. And I think one of the things that is difficult for people outside of CC to comprehend is the vast amount of information that our foundation students master over the course of a cycle.

And for some families coming into CC, that can feel a little intimidating at first. I remember here, when I first heard about classical conversations, and I mean, I was so green. I didn't know what a cycle was. I didn't know what a Memory Master was. I didn't know what a strand was.

And so when you're talking about for a cycle, that's the material for one community year. So the time that your family has spent with this community this year, that's a cycle. So all of that memory work. And when I looked at how many pieces it was, my girls were little.

They were like second grade and fifth grade. And I thought, that seems like a little bit of craziness that you're talking to me right there. Now, I quickly, I will, disclaimer, I quickly discovered that it was only craziness for mama and that those little brains, those little plastic brains absorbed that stuff really well.

But you're right. It can seem intimidating when you say it out loud. So how many pieces of memory work are we talking, friend? - Oh, Lisa, I wish I could give you an exact number. I do know that our geographic locations alone, number 120, individual locations. - And that's one subject strand.

That's just geography. - Exactly. But you know what? You were so right. Little brains can do great big things. And it's natural. - We teach them lots of songs and finger plays. There are lots of good memory tricks that we use that allow our children to fold all of that material into their little brains.

Man. - So true. So true because they're curious about this memory work. And when we present it to them in a way that is playful, it attaches to their memory and it becomes a part of who they are. And it's a wonderful thing to be walking down the aisle in the grocery store and suddenly your children burst into the president's song.

Or they see those connections from their memory work in the world all around them. And how rewarding is that? Once those conversations start, what a blessing. - Yeah, I love it. That is really cool. So it is about memorizing facts that our children have been presented with all throughout the community year together in a bunch of different subjects.

So that's what Memory Master is. So why is it? 'Cause I can tell that you love Memory Master. And I know, I've always known that you were a Memory Master lover. Why is it a great endeavor even if some of our listeners are kind of pulling back saying, you know, our family's not competitive or we don't want to be competitive with our learning.

Why is Memory Master still a great thing to be involved in? - Yeah, you know, I think one thing to be mindful of as a parent is to understand that becoming a Memory Master is not an on-off switch, that it really is a journey. And it's a delightful journey because we take it one step at a time and we look at our children as individuals.

And Lisa, you know, when you said the word competitive it made me think about all of the C words that we have associated with classical conversations. So, you know, as we're preparing for Memory Master there are some C words that I would encourage parents to pursue and to cultivate in their children.

And there are some C words that I would tell them to avoid. - Okay, okay, okay. Let's hear that 'cause that might help some of our on-the-fence parents see what this could be for them. So what are the Cs that we should strive for or that we should embrace?

- Okay, so the first C word that I think you should strive for, if you decide in 2025 to commit to practicing memory work is to be consistent. And so, you know, and that truly is something that we want our children to be as well. You know, as they're working through, you know, their studies, we want them to be able to do hard things with consistency and to do them well.

So as parents, we have to be consistent in practicing the memory work with our children. And I know, you know, we have snow potentially coming. Tonight, I will tell you, I have adult children still living in our home. We will put our pajamas on inside out and flush ice cubes as a tradition.

(both laughing) But snow days, those types of things are unique opportunities for you to be consistent in a wonderful way with your family. So the first C word that I would say to strive for is to be consistent. You know, just do it, just consistently. The second C word that I would say you need to strive for in practicing memory work is to be creative.

I mean, you know, we are dealing with children here and children, just like we adults, don't want to simply sit in a chair and do everything in a monotone voice, unless that's part of fun. - Right, right, right. Unless you're doing the robot version of memory work, yes. - That's right, which does happen.

- It does. - You know, we want to look for unique ways to plant those seeds of memory in our children's minds. And sometimes we can do that by being goofy. We can do that by moving our bodies, by helping our children associate things with other things that they've already memorized or mastered.

There are so many ways that we can be creative to find the currency that our children need in order to commit these things to memory. And, you know, for my own children, I know I had two, at one point, two boys who have now grown up into young men, who, you know, what would make it stick was different for each of them.

- Oh, absolutely, yeah. - But there was one commonality that drew them together, and that was their love of the Nerf gun. - I was gonna say, it's gotta be a sword or a Nerf gun. Yeah, I can picture it. - Absolutely, so if I could find a way to involve a Nerf gun in the review of memory work, then it was going to stick.

So parents, you know, that's the wonderful thing about our children. We can find those things that speak to them. You know, maybe you have a ballet-loving daughter who wants to turn pirouettes as she skip counts. - Oh my, that'd be awesome. - Or you have a young man who is all about dinosaurs, and you ask him to put the dinosaurs on the geography map and label, where's the Stegosaurus?

Or, you know, where's the Brachiosaurus? - Yes. - Think outside the box and be creative with your children. And the third one, I think, could possibly be the most important C, and that is to be celebratory. So Lisa, you've already alluded to this a little bit. You know, when you look at, when you come into Classical Conversations within the Foundations program, you may look at this amount of information as being a little overwhelming your first year, and that is totally understandable, particularly if you do have a younger student who's participating, and you know, you wanna get your feet underneath you and really develop a fuller understanding of what is Foundations, why is this important?

Why do we want to do this as a family? But you know what? Even if you look at your child and you know, this may not be the year to be a memory master, your child can still be a subject star. - That's a good idea, yeah. - Maybe there's one subject, or two or three, depending on how, you know, what your child takes an interest in.

Maybe there are some subjects that you know they can commit to memory. Maybe they sing the timeline song in the bathtub and you can hear them through the door. You know, maybe they really enjoy the history sentences, and that is the thing that has captured their imagination. Celebrate where you are and keep striving, keep moving forward to your family goal.

And so celebrate whether or not your child is a subject star, or if your child is a memory master, or anything in between, because memory master itself is a fantastic goal for your foundation student. Now, I also said, there are some C's we need to avoid. - Before you tell us the avoiding things, I want to say what I really love about what you've already told us, is that none of this requires us to be competitive.

None of this requires us to be me against you, or us against them. What I love about all the things that you've told us is that it is a way to draw your family closer together. - Yes. - It's something that you can do with all of your kids, and you and your spouse, everybody can do this together.

It's a great way to spend time together, talking about things and playing together, having great conversations and common experiences. So that, right there to me, that's worth it. If there's anything that can draw your family into having fun together, we should pursue it. So thank you for that. - Absolutely.

- Now, tell us the C's we want to avoid so we don't put our foot in it. - Okay, well, the first C that you definitely need to avoid is almost the mirror opposite our first C to strive for. We said we wanted to be consistent, so we're gonna avoid being complacent.

And, oh, I'm telling you as a homeschooler, I've homeschooled my children altogether for more than 20 years now, which is an incredible thing, but I'm telling you, there is something about the month of January into February that can sometimes be the slump for us, and we wanna avoid that.

As we're working on Memory Master, avoid complacency at all costs. So you're gonna have to look at this process and practicing for Memory Master in new and different ways, and you're gonna have to sit in, I hesitate to say sit in the chair, but you're gonna have to commit to that way with your family and be consistent with what you do.

The second C to avoid is the opposite of our second C we want to strive for. You know, we said we wanna be creative, so the opposite of that would be to avoid being constrictive. And so, you know, when we talk about being creative, we're thinking outside the box.

You know, being constrictive, don't feel as if you always have to review memory work the same way, you know, look for different ways, because perhaps the first way that you try to commit it to memory doesn't stick. And, you know, after several rounds of that, and you've been consistent, and you've repeated, and it's just not there, it might be time to consider something different.

So don't constrict yourself to mastering the memory work the way that you began if it's not working for your family, because you have the flexibility to change that, like we said, according to the currency that allows it to be mastered by your child at home. And then-- - I love it, 'cause you can become Mary Poppins.

Snap, the job's a game, come on. Let's just don't be so constrictive. Yeah, and you know, for type A moms and dads, it might be really hard. Maybe one of the ways you're trying to avoid complacency is by being constrictive and doing it. We're going to do it at this time for this amount of time, every day in this way, but that might kill the joy, and snap, it will not be a game, and it will not be fun.

I love that. Okay, got it. So what's the third one? I love that. Well, and we said that our third C that we're striving for is celebratory. And Lisa, you've already alluded to a quote that is so meaningful to me, and it's a C.S. Lewis quote that says, "Comparison is the thief of joy." And you know, when we're celebrating, we're joyful, we're exuberant.

We are so excited about what we're able to accomplish together as families. And as a mom, sometimes it can be easy to look at one child and say, "Well, why can't you do this like your brother? "Why can't you do this like your sister?" Or even outside the family, you know, "Why aren't you doing this like your friend so-and-so?

"You know, they're doing a great job." There's nothing that kills the joy of a foundation student more than being compared to another one. Especially when you get the short end of that comparison. - Exactly, exactly. So we want to maintain a joyful spirit by not comparing where we are to others.

And that also is a characteristic that we wanna cultivate in our children. We want them to see themselves where they are and to continue on the path that's been laid before them, not try to hop off their path onto someone else's path where they may be at a different place.

And we've all been given different giftings from the world. And so, you know, comparing one child to another is like comparing a fish that can swim to a fish that can ride a bicycle. You know, it doesn't work out so well for the fish who's trying to pedal with his fins, but the fish that's in the water does a great job.

So we want to be really careful that we're being celebratory of each of our children, where they are and for what they're attempting to accomplish. - That's really good, that's just really good. And I think you have shown us a lot of ways that there are real bonuses for Memory Master, whether or not your child achieves mastery in every subject, there are good habits being developed, there are good family relationships being strengthened.

Any other bonuses of working on Memory Master that you can think of, Kelly? - Oh, I think just setting for our children an example that they can do hard things and that if they are consistent and they're thinking creatively and they're celebrating those steps along the way, that they can accomplish greater goals by doing that, I think is such a wonderful skill for any student to have, particularly before they move into challenge A and B and beyond, because they're going to encounter those growing edge opportunities in challenge.

And if they already have built the mental muscle to accomplish these goals of being a subject star or a Memory Master, then the mental lifting and the dedication that's required to do something consistently and do it well will seem familiar and will seem much lighter to their minds and to their hearts.

- Yeah, you know, I'm embarrassed to say that I never really thought about the fact that our Memory Masters from foundations already have had modeled for them or they've already learned or they've already practiced ways to take a big job and break it into smaller chunks. And so you're right, that is a beautiful skill.

They have already discovered that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. The best way to memorize a bunch of stuff is to divide it into sections and work a little bit at a time. That's the way you build a debate and that's the way you write an essay and that's the way you translate a chapter of the Bible.

You start with a word or a sentence and work out. So that's really good, that is a great skill. That's a great skill. - Okay, so help us out here. We are now all ready. We are in, we see that it's a good thing for our family. It's great to stretch our memory muscles even as old parents can get in on the fun and that's a great thing.

So what are some of the fun ways that we can work on memorizing and mastering all those memories? And I know review games are great and our tutors, foundations tutors do an amazing job of modeling those kinds of games on community day but what else is there? I mean, besides throwing the cards in the middle of the floor and saying, I'm gonna start the stopwatch and you say help out.

What can we do? What are some more fun things we can do to review? - Oh, this is one of my favorite things to talk about. I'm so glad you asked this question. So I would say primarily before we discuss fun ideas, I would say this. Parents, you are the first foundation student in your family.

So you need, and that is a hot take, but you need commit yourself to mastering as much as you can. And I know you may be listening and you may say, Kelly, that is a pipe dream. And I am telling you, you can do it. And lots of foundations parents do this on a yearly basis.

They will actually ask the director for permission to prove. - That is so fun, I need to see this happening. - It is, and you know what? I applaud those parents because not only are they setting an example for their children, that they too can do hard things. - Right.

- But they are also committing that information to their memories so that those lovely organic conversations can happen while you're quote unquote in the wild with your family living life. And having experiences together. So parents, I'm telling you, you can do it. Some fun ways to work on memorizing and mastering all of this information can be found in your very own home.

So I know a lot of times, you know, we look online and we think, oh, I have to print all these things, or I have to make this game with the spinner and I have to do all this stuff. Yeah, and so there's some crafty moms that are like, or non crafty moms that are like, yeah, I'm not doing anything cute.

What else you got? - Yes, yes, exactly. And I love going online and seeing how incredibly creative our foundation parents are because they found that that currency works for their particular child and they just want to share the yummy goodness that they have created with everyone else. But I will say this, you don't have to print and laminate a lot of things in order to be successful in reviewing memory work at home.

So I will give you a few just inexpensive examples of things that you already have at home. So here's one of them, you know, I've already mentioned the Nerf gun and families, more than likely, if you have a son, you have a Nerf gun. - Yeah, that's true. - And I know there are a lot of Nerf gun loving girls out there as well.

- Friends, I have to tell you this, I have a Nerf gun beside my desk. And so does my husband because when our girls were home, we had, one of the things that we did together for fun was surprise each other. And so they would come around the corner while I was working or while I was doing something and shoot me with the Nerf gun.

And so I now have one on the shelf right beside my desk and I could just grab it and you would never even know I was reaching for it. - I love that, okay. So Lisa, if you commit yourself to being a memory master, here's a trick for you.

- I have my gun, okay. - I love it. So one of the things that I would do is I would take a dry erase marker and I would pull up the blinds and expose the glass in the window. And I would draw a circle and divide it into pie sections with my marker and write one of the subjects of memory work in each of the pie slices.

And I would have the boys stand back and I would be primed and ready with my foundation's curriculum. And they would take their Nerf gun and they would draw aim and shoot it at that circle. And whatever subject the dart landed in, I would pull a question or something to review with them from that subject.

And it was just enough to be fun. You know, it was something different to do together. Now we would also utilize those Nerf guns because I loved having maps of our foundation's geography memory work on the wall for my guys and for my daughter. And so, you know, we would pull those source four files that are so wonderfully available to our families and print them up.

And we would also fire the Nerf guns at the map and they would name for me the location where the dart landed. And that was so much fun for them to do. And you know, you can take just about anything in your home and make it into a game if you're creative.

Another thing that if you have a deck of cards and a hat or a pot, what you can do is have your child stand in front of that and throw a card at the hat or at the pot. If the card lands in the hat, then you ask them a memory work question.

If the card lands on the floor, then they get a pass until they get one in the hat. So they're shooting for the hat. Now don't let them get away with throwing cards all over the room. - Yes, I can see that devolving, but you know, it might be worth it.

- That's right. You may need to switch your strategy there based on what your child is able to do. Doing things like that, rolling dice, you know, and saying, okay, if you roll a one, I'm gonna ask you a question from week one. If you roll a two, week two, and utilizing those small types of things that are probably lurking in your home is a great way to make it fun.

And you know, the thing I love about this is all these things are already in your home. Also look for opportunities that are free. I know it's brisk outside here in North Carolina where I live right now, but going on a walk and just reviewing memory work and saying, okay, at the stop sign, we're gonna recite our skip counting.

You know, around the corner when we get to our neighbor's house, we're gonna recite our history sentence. Doing that and going on walks keeps you active, but it also commits the information to memory because then you can say, do you remember what we said when we were in front of the stop sign?

- Kind of like a memory palace, yeah. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. And in the winter months, sometimes we just need to get up and get moving as we can. Now for listeners who are perhaps living in areas where there may be snowfall, that may look a little different for you.

That may look like, you know, a brisk march throughout the house instead. - Or up and down the stairs if you have any steps in your house. - Exactly, exactly. And one of the things that I love is hearing each year tips and tricks from our National Memory Master families who participate in the National Memory Master competition.

And one thing that goes without fail, every year I will have a family that will talk about the timeline cards and memorizing the timeline and how they do that in unique ways. - I love it. - So like what you just described before, you know, putting the cards on the floor and saying, okay, you've got 30 seconds.

You know, do what you can. A lot of our families will place the timeline cards either going up a staircase or down a hallway and that student will walk down the hall or go up the stairs and they will tap each card and recite the timeline event. And so it gets the child moving, you know, but they're also remembering the order, the sequence, which is so important for timeline particularly for those cards.

So you can do that anywhere. You can put them around your kitchen. You can put them in your dining room. You know, just make sure you, if you put them in your kitchen and adhere them to the wall so they don't fall into a pot of spaghetti sauce. - Yes.

- Or something like that. - It's not important to a parent, yeah. - That's right, that's right. But utilize what you have and really challenge yourself to think about the tools that you have in your home and using them in different ways. Have your daughter, if she loves baby dolls, have her be the tutor and, you know, recite her memory work for her baby dolls.

Or, you know, there are different things like that that you can do that are fun, particularly if the parent pretends they're one of the dolls and they also are reciting the memory work. - Yes, I can remember reciting memory work and we would do different voices. We would do different accents.

Like the British accent. - I love it. - You know, we would have, we would try for a Jamaica accent or we would try for an Italian accent or a down in the country accent. You know, all kinds of stuff. And it just made, it made it fun, okay?

It gave us something to laugh about. - Yes. You know, memory work sometimes, you know, when people first hear what we do and they don't understand our why, they don't understand the goals of memory master. They can sometimes think that, oh, how boring, how sad. They're just sitting in a chair and reciting things they've memorized.

Oh, and what I'm going to tell you is, friends, we, that is not how we commit things to memory. You know, we move our bodies and we connect the motion of our bodies to our mind. - Especially kids. - Yes, exactly. So take opportunities to let your children move, to do, think of things in fun, new, creative ways because then you'll never get tired of it.

You'll always be thinking together of something fun and new to do together as a family to have fun. So this is just some of the ways that I can think of off the top of my head. But, you know, I would be curious to see, you know, if families think of fun, unique ways that they want to practice the memory work.

I mean, please write our National Memory Master Team. The email address is nmm@classicalconversations.com because we would love to hear the way that you are practicing memory work at home. - That would be so, that'd be really fun to have a big across the United States or even there may be listeners around the world that want to tell us some of their memorizing tips.

We'll take it from everybody. I wonder, Kelly, is there any, and I think I know the answer to this, but is there any, you know, is there any guideline about, well, in order to successfully create, to complete memory master, your child needs to memorize this many math facts and this many geography facts and this many history sentences every 10 days in order to get, is there anything strident like that?

Is there a, is there a, some kind of schedule that people should be following or do we just do this for the love of knowledge and fellowship? - Lisa, this is a tricky question because there are some people who are going to say, absolutely, there's a schedule and you review week one when you get to week seven and you review week two when you get to week eight.

And you know what? I would say the best answer I could give is that as parents, we have a tremendous liberty to do what works for our children. - Yay, the liberty answer. - You know, if working on a schedule, if you are a busy, busy mama and that guideline in your head of, okay, when we get to the second six weeks, we're gonna learn the new work, but we're gonna also review from that week in the first six weeks, you know, whatever guideline helps you to be consistent and creative and celebratory, go for it.

- Yes, if you can have a schedule that doesn't feel constrictive, you know, and that doesn't, and it helps you to avoid complacency, then I think that's a great thing. And if you can have a schedule that you put up and you follow in a way that your children are excited about it.

For instance, if you make a giant racetrack that goes all the way across your kitchen and your dining area, and you just move, your children move their race car as they practice material, that's a schedule, but that's fun to them. And so I love what you said. I think that that's the key, the liberty.

You know the nature of your own children and parents, you know your own nature. What do you need to keep you helping your children to stay consistent so that they're not disappointed that their goal passed without them noticing it because of inconsistency or lack of plan. - Absolutely. - I think that's kind of fun.

- Absolutely, I completely agree. - Completely agree. And I would say this, you know, the level of, I guess the amount of "scheduling" that you need to do may change as your child progresses through foundations. - Well true, and it might change with what your child gets eager to do.

I mean, a five-year-old is gonna have a different kind of interest in all of this than a fifth grader. - Yes, absolutely. And the wonderful thing is some of our subject matter is repeated for each cycle. So once your child masters math facts, not only skip counting, but the facts themselves, the multiplication facts, and they've memorized the timeline, those are two subjects that repeat from cycle to cycle.

So it will just be a review. Yeah, exactly. It will just be a review for them, whereas they'll be taking in new information for some of the other subjects for that particular cycle. So it's a great thing because it teaches them that, you know, we're always learning new information.

- And we're practicing our old information. Yeah, I love that, I love that. Okay, last question here. I remember when my girls, when we got involved with CC, and they were, you know, they were a little older than some kids are. Like I said, they were second grade and fifth grade.

And when they went for Memory Master the first time, I can remember having girlfriends who said, "Oh, we would go somewhere." And they would say, "Let your kids show that thing that they do, "that memorizing thing." And it was just like they were a circus act or something. It was sort of like my friend's favorite parlor trick to trot my kids out and show all these things that they could memorize.

But Memory Master and Memorize, even Memory Master or Subject Memory Master is really more than just a parlor trick. 'Cause I remember thinking, I don't really want them to see that, I don't want them to think that learning is just a trick or something to be admired. There needs to be something that they're getting out of this.

And of course, I realized that they were, that there were things and they did learn things. And we've touched on it a little bit, but Kelly tells what skills are being built as we pursue Memory Master and what long-term benefits are our families accruing? - Oh, that's a fantastic question because why are we doing this?

We're not doing this because we want our children to be on a late night talk show doing human tricks. Although I will say our eldest majored in pre-law and in one of his government classes, the professor asked, "Does anyone here know the presidents?" Well, he raised his hand and recited the presidents in his college class, so it does not go away.

And the wonderful thing is based on the path that he's chosen for his life, he began to attach knowledge to the administrations of each president. So it was really helpful for him. But to answer this question, what are the skills and what are the long-term benefits? Our brains are incredible gifts from God.

He's given us the ability to look at the world around us and to perceive and to commit to a library of the mind, the things that we experience in this world, and to be able to see relationships between all those pieces of information and make judgments based on what we have perceived in this world and what we know to be true, capital T, because he is truth, capital T.

And so I think when I think about Memory Master, some of the long-term benefits that it brings, first of all, it provides a fantastic foundation of learning, a great framework for our students to move forward in their education with. And so they're memorizing basic information about these individual subject areas that as they, like I said with our son, as they move forward with their educations and they begin to read more, and they begin to discuss more, and they begin to contemplate, they're gonna be attaching different pieces of information to that framework.

And even more so, they're going to be reasoning and making judgments based on the framework that they've built, that library of the mind that they have constructed. And as parents, what a gift from God that we are the first librarians, the first curators of that library of the mind.

And what a wonderful thing to commit to memory, these foundations facts that will help to provide that foundational framework for our children as they move forward. It's definitely not a parlor trick, but it is pretty amazing to think that they're gonna be moving through the reading of novels with a framework of historical timeline to know where to place those individual works, that they're gonna be moving into deeper mathematical studies, having mastered multiplication facts and formulas and laws, that they're going to be writing essays, having a knowledge of the parts of speech and definitions of each of those parts of speech and so on and so on.

There is a wonderful preparation that comes through memory, because when our children are young, that is exactly what they delight in. They delight in the memory and the repetition and the mastery of these facts that will eventually become puzzle pieces that they put together in their minds, and then present forward to the world with a goal of knowing God and being able to make Him known.

And that is our ultimate goal, right? That they're memorizing these things, that they are building a framework in their mind for God's world around them. So that when they come forth and they speak about Him in the world, that there already is such a vast information of who He is and how they see Him.

Now that is definitely something worth mastering. - Yes, oh, that's great. And that is a very heartening message for us as parents. That gives us the why we should do this. That's a great, that's a rally cry. Thank you, Kelly, for that. And thank you for these good ideas, these tips, tricks, and ways to have fun with Memory Master that you have offered us today.

Families, I hope that you have been encouraged. I would say that this is a fun endeavor for your family and keep it a fun endeavor for your family. If it becomes drudgery or tear-inducing, something's gone awry. And so keep it a fun family activity. And if you are interested in seeing what a Memory Master can become, Kelly alluded to the National Memory Master Competition.

And in a month or so, we will have another show specifically about preparing for National Memory Master. But if you're just curious and you would like to see the Memory Master Competition, it is part of the National Commencement Weekend that is put on by Classical Conversations Foundation. You can mark your calendar now for the 2025 National Commencement.

Will be May 16th and 17th of this year in sunny Southern Pines. It is a great time for CC families from around the nation to celebrate together with fellow homeschoolers who are on this homeschooling journey. There's a welcome night for grads and their families. There's a Q&A time. You can get time with Lee and with Robert, and you can see the National Memory Master Championship.

So if you are interested or if you have a student graduating in 2025, begin now to plan to join us in North Carolina for that weekend. Again, those dates are May 16th and 17th of 2025. Registration is open now. You can learn more about this at classicalconversationsfoundation.org. And we will look forward to seeing your family there, I hope.

Kelly, again, thank you for sharing your wisdom and your enthusiasm with us today. - Absolutely, Lisa. And if you're listening, whether your child is a subject star or a memory master this year, be consistent, creative, and celebrate all of the good things that you and your family are doing together.

And I hope your 2025 is the best year yet in foundations. - Thank you, Kelly. Okay, guys, see you next week. Bye-bye. (upbeat music) you