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Moonwalking Memory


I just finished reading a book called ‘Moonwalking with Einstein’ by Joshua Foer for my other pet project, www.readerroundtable.com.  The book is about how Foer, a journalist, set out to understand and report on the US and World Memory Competitions and ended up winning the US Memory Championship and setting a US record in speed cards.  In it he states that memory is the “seat of our values and source of our character” (p. 269) It also stipulates, in defense of rote memorization in schools, that you must have memorized facts to apply them and that in applying them you learn.  I.e . you can’t learn without memorizing.  So I thought we should work on our memories this week. 

(By the way, my one and only Reader Roundtable plug – if you want to talk about how children learn and the benefits of rote memorization in schools and/or any other aspect of the value of memorizing, log in and join our Roundtable book club discussion on Nov 16th at 9pm EST on the website’s forums (www.readerroundtable.com/forums).  I think this book in particular will offer an opportunity for a good discussion even if you haven’t read the book – though I always advocate that you read the book first if you can.)

We started with a My Little Pony memory game that Briana got for her birthday.  She loves a challenge so after playing once with only 1 of the 3 colors available, she insists that we play with all 3 sets at once, and she’s pretty good at it.  She remembers how to set up the game and play now, and I’m so happy that we’ve moved into a phase of life where we can play real games with real rules with her.

Abigail joins in as well, though she needs to work on her attention to detail.  “Purple card.  Purple card.  I have a match!”, she regularly shouts although one card has a pony with a paintbrush on a purple background and the other is a rainbow on a purple background.  At least she is trying. 

Both girls are working on turn taking and not cheating (turning over multiple cards on their turn or leaving the cards face up waiting for their next turn if they think they are close).  I am incredibly competitive so I get angry at the cheating and I play to win – always.  Hmmm…I guess that’s what I’m working on.


Our version of Memory is made much harder by the fact that the tiles keep moving around, since the kids don’t necessarily put the tiles back where they found them.  It is further made difficult by musical chairs element added by Briana.  If she misses a couple of turns in a row she blames it on the fact that she “can’t remember as well from this seat” so we all move around to one that will bring more luck.  I try telling her that this isn’t a game of luck, but of patience and memory skills, so she should rely on her skill, but then she just says the new seat gives her better skills so I move again anyway.

I addition to playing memory, I try to get the kids to teach me songs that they have memorized from school.  They both have quite a catalogue of memorized songs, many of which I’d never heard.  Some of which I now can’t get out of my head, like “I have a friend named Abby and she is very nice.  Jump jump Abby.  Jump jump Abby.  Jump jump Abby.  And she is very nice.” Sung to the tune of the Bingo song, which they also knew.

For the final event, I borrow from the Memory Championships and try to get the kids to memorize a poem.  I figure that if the point of memory, from the book at least, is to bank images and facts that many people know to share our culture, I decide that the kids can learn the beginning of The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, as it is my mom’s favorite poem and I thought she’d appreciate that since she gets jealous that I always talk about my dad on the blog (though she may not appreciate that I ratted her out in doing so J ). 

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more."

I figure that the beginning is pretty G-rated and honestly it was all of the poem that I remember, other than “Quoth the raven, “Nevermore”.”  Plus I thought that when they read that poem in school, probably 10 years from now or more for my kids, they would have a vague recollection of having heard it before in case they were made to memorize part of it for school like I was.

Sadly the kids won’t sit long enough to hear and record it today.  I had some short kid poems picked out to try as well, but today we were apparently going to play My Little Pony memory until bedtime.

We also work on some simple prayers, which the kids have been learning at home and in Sunday School.  Bree prefers to make up her prayers, and I like hearing her at dinner say “Dear God, thank you for my sister, and my mommy, and my daddy, and chicken but not for green beans” much more than “God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food.  By his hand we must be fed.  Give us Lord our daily bread. Amen.” which I said every day growing up.  Abby usually says “I pray. Amen.” Or she repeats whatever Bree says, if anything.

It wasn’t exactly an afternoon of Mind Mapping, but one day I’ll teach them that too as a good way to take notes so that you remember them better.  I don’t really see them vying for the Memory Championship title one day, but as products of a mathlete (me) and a spelling bee champ (my husband) who knows…

<3 Pedigreed Housewife

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