Memorization Through Music
Memorizing Facts through Music
Students will gain an immense amount of knowledge by learning facts through music. Here are examples of some of the knowledge our curriculum helps children remember through songs and ditties:
- History: Preamble to the Constitution, Christopher Columbus sets sail, US presidents, Joan of Arc, King John signs the Magna Carta, etc
- Science: bones in the body, parts of a plant, periodic table, name the planets, parts of an atom, etc
- Geography: US states and capitals, world countries and other geographical locations, etc
- Math: skipcounting, multipling/dividing fractions, formulas, measurement equivalents, etc
- Other: months of the year, days of the week, capitalization, parts of speech, etc
Learning the Timeline of our world and US history
Learning the historical timeline is more than just memorizing dates. Young minds need a frame of reference to help them organize the complexity of our history. Memorizing dates doesn’t have much use unless we intentionally examine the importance of those numbers. Studying the timeline helps students understand the chronology of what happened throughout history and shows the relationship and connection between events.
For example, not only did the American Revolution happen before The French Revolution, but it also inspired the French Revolution. The French came to our aid to fight the British and were key allies in helping the colonies win the war. Their participation in the colonies’ fight against the British set the stage for an effective uprising that the French had witnessed firsthand.
History Cycle of 4 Periods
Telos’s curriculum breaks history into 4 time periods that cycle 3 times from grade 1 - 12. During the year, learners will study the same time period, so if you have multiple children in different grades, you can discuss the same historical era as a family. Our community will first study Ancient Times, the following year students will study the Middle Ages, followed by The Early Modern Times, then The Modern Era. We will then return to Ancient Times. Students in older grades learn each period in more depth than their younger classmates, and as students age, they strengthen their knowledge of each time period as they expand the breadth and depth of the historical details they learn. Telos’s curriculum covers these 4 periods during the fall, and the spring students will switch to learning American history.
Students will memorize approximately 35 historical timeline events for each historical period they are learning about, totaling 150 facts for the entire history timeline. This gives students “pegs” to hang their history knowledge upon. We learn these events through songs, drawing pictures of timeline events to create a master timeline, reading and creating stories, and acting out scenes from each major milestone in the timeline.