Paddy's Narration

Paddy did his first "formal" narration today. Of course, we've been "talking about books" since he was old enough to talk, and a couple of times since we started Year 1 I've been asking him what he remembers about a story. (he usually says the last thing that happened in the story).

Today I told him to tell me back the story (A Bundle of STicks from Aesop's Fables) and that I would write it down for him. He talked to me too fast for me to write it down exactly but this is what I got down:

The father gave the sons a bundle of sticks, and they tried to break it, but they couldn't.

Then he gave the sticks to them one by one and they broke them easily.

He said, "My sons, if you agree with each other, the enemy won't be able to injure you --

if you're bad and don't agree with each other, then you won't be any stronger than those sticks."

Cute, huh? I really didn't want to mess up narration for this young one. I want to be able to rely on it as a learning tool, since I am commited to literature as a force for education but want to do everything I can to foster attentiveness in dealing with it. I always have had trouble with narration before. IT didn't seem natural to ME. But trying to narrate the books I read to myself (I've actually been trying to narrate Kieron's Year 4 material) made me both more respectful of the way it helps retention AND the difficulty of it. So from that base I have been able to persevere better in asking for narration. Kieron doesn't really like to do it but he is seeing the point in it and does well.

When I asked about starting narration on the Ambleside list with my six year old, several people suggested that we start off slowly with Aesop's Fables and other simple tales, and then build from there.

Aidan's narrations right now are still about events of daily life. I've been working with him on accurate observation. But when he's more ready to listen to stories I think the narration process will help him, too.

About Downloadables.

On my sidebar I noticed that Simply Charlotte Mason has a free download called Masterly Inactivity. I don't know if the offer is just for today, but I thought I would mention it!

Also, I wanted to mention that I know some people come to this site for downloads, I think from the Montessori Mom, site. I'm going to try to rearrange this page a bit to make it easier to find the forms.... hopefully soon! There are a lot of excellent free Montessori downloads over at the link there. Probably most of you know about them already, but just in case!

Narration Cards

I liked the Spelling Command Cards here and decided to try to make a set of Narration Command Cards (PDF) (or Idea Cards, maybe). I used some of the suggestions from Simply Charlotte Mason, dropped others that I knew my boys wouldn't do, and added some that I thought they might actually do. I can already think of a few more that I didn't include, but this will do as a start!

I know some people use a narration jar and this might be somewhat similar, but I'm going to make cards out of them.

Here's a nice Narration page at Squidoo. It's pretty, and has lots of ideas and resources.

CM/Classical Lesson Plans

A CM Series member linked to this PDF of the CHild Light newsletter
One of the articles, by Carroll Smith, discusses a Charlotte Mason type lesson plan which goes as follows:

1. Teacher introduces the new text
2. Student recreation of old text (imaginative review)
3. Reading of living book text
4. Narration of living book text
5. Grand conversation
6. Closing

The article goes on to discuss these steps in more detail, so if you are interested, check out the PDF. I first noticed that CM proposed more complicated lesson plans than simply: Read/Narrate when I was reading this section of Home Education. If you scroll down to the pictorial arts sections, you see some sample art lessons that include basically these same components. Also, this Parent's Review article called "A Rational Lesson" has similar components.

What interests me about this is that the process used is so similar to the Ignatian Method. Often when you read about the Ratio Studiorum (the Ignatian Method in practice, written in the 16th century) it sounds very formal and teacher-directed. I think this is true to some extent, but I also know that it is common understanding that the Ignatian Method depends upon the self-activity of the student. Also, that the Ignatian Method is based on Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises.


Here is a summary that I wrote of the Ignatian method, several years ago, using several different sources -- it is a bit different than CM's, but has a fair amount of overlap:

Recalling the past lesson -- forging a link between past work and present


Introducing new lesson, clearing away possible obstacles and preparing child's mind and imagination to work on the reading.


The Reading itself.


A brief review (narration)

Recitation (discussion, etc)

Extensions: writing a theme, a memory lesson, sometimes a "contest" (students would debate or take different sides of an issue), or erudition (researching a related topic to present to the class on the next day)

Anyway, being familiar with this format is helping me do a bit more preparation ahead of time.

Languages -- Charlotte Mason

English Grammar

English is rather a logical study dealing with sentences and the positions that words occupy in them than with words and what they are in their own right. Therefore it is better that a child should begin with a sentence and not with the parts of speech, that is, he should learn a little of what is called analysis before he learns to parse.

They must be familiar with verbs and perhaps the simplest way to approach this idea is to cause them to make sentences with two words, the thing they speak of and what they say about it..

French Language -- Narration

Children in Form IIB have easy French Lessons with pictures which they describe, but in IIA while still engaged on the Primary French Course children begin to use the method which is as full of promise in the teaching of languages as in English, that is, they are expected to narrate the sentence or paragraph which has been read to them. Young children find little difficulty in using French vocables, but at this stage the teacher should with the children's help translate the little passage which is to be narrated, them re-read it in French and require the children to narrate it. This they do after a time surprisingly well.

Latin

"Latin is taught at the House of Education by means of narration after each section has been thoroughly studied in grammer, syntax and style. The literature studied increases in difficulty as the pupil advances in grammar, etc. Nothing but good Latin is ever narrated, so the pupil acquires style as well as structure. The substance of the passage is usually reproduced with the phraseology and style of the original and both students and children learn what is really Latin and realise that it is a language and not a mere grammar."

Old Exam Questions for 6th grade

I found these old exam questions, based on PUO-type exams, that I made for my 2 children who were then in 5th and 6th grade (they are now 17 and 19 years old).

I thought it was interesting to come across these just after I did exams with my present 6th grader, who was back then about 4 or 5 years old.

The other thing that was interesting is that my 19 year old saw the papers on my table and started reading them, then answering them as he went along. Some of the questions are obviously general cultural literacy. But it was surprising how he could still answer most of the history questions even after so many years. I think that is probably support for Charlotte Mason's literature-based method.

All the books mentioned were books read that first half of the year, so the kids were doing a lot of reading. Brendan still remembered almost all of the books and also could identify almost all of the quotes.

Aidan was less than 2 years old at this time and very care-intensive, G Tube fed and needing oxygen at intervals, and developmentally about 9 months old. This kind of exam took a lot of energy for me to put together back then, and I don't think I tried it again that year.


HISTORY

Choose one of these saints and tell something about his or her life work and character.

• St Dominic, St Anthony, St Edmund Campion, St Hyacinth, St Therese of Lisieux, St Joan of Arc, St Catherine of Siena, St Francis Xavier

Identify:

• Whose mother dreamed about a barking dog?
• Who travelled to Japan to be a missionary?
• Who lived during the reign of Elizabeth I?
• Who went to war to save France?

Choose one of these martyrs and tell what country and under whose rule they were killed.

• St Thomas a Becket, St Thomas More, St Edmund Campion, St Paul Miki, st Joan of Arc.

Three of these saints were contemporaries(lived at approximately the same time) while one lived later. Pick out the one who lived later.

• Dominic Guzman, Francis of Assisi, Edmund Campion, Hyacinth of Poland

Put MA by the ones who lived in the middle ages and RE by the one who lived in the Renaissance.

Put these Japanese events in order:

• civil war, period of isolation, St Francis Xavier comes to Japan

Write a sentence about three of the following.

• The Crusades, The Black Death, the Tartars, Oda Nobunaga, Richard the Lionhearted, Henry II of England, the Ring of Fire, The Saracens, the Albigensians

Choose one of the following religions or heresies and tell something about it.

• Shinto, Buddhism, Albigensianism, Islam

Identify the quotes:

1. "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"
2. If all the swords of England were pointed at my head, you threats could not move me."
3. "The questions of a fool do not anger a wise man, but the answers of a wise man may anger a fool."
4. "The quality of mercy is not strained, but droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven."
5. "A pound of flesh."
6. "In the raging fire of the world there is no peace."

Geography

• On a map of Asia, mark Japan, the Pacific Ocean, Korea, and China plus as many other areas as you can.
• On a map of Europe, mark as many countries as you can, also the Mediterranean and the English Channel.

Readings


Choose one of the following Shakespeare plays and tell something about the story.

• Merchant of Venice, MacBeth, Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Define:

• samurai, shogun, bushido, chivalry, crusade, heresy, tsunami, kamikaze, quixotic, martyr

Choose one saint's book for a review:

• St Hyacinth, Pope John Paul II, St Dominic, St Edmund Campion, St Francis Xavier, St Anthony of Padua, Heroes of God's Church, Hunters of Souls, If all the Swords in England

Choose one other book:

• Lord of the Rings, Archives of Anthropos, Winds of Light, Bugles and Bonnets, Seven Sleepers, We Were There with Richard the Lionhearted, Knight's Castle, Time Garden

SCIENCE

• Choose one kind of snake, one kind of other reptile or mammal, and one kind of insect or spider.
• Tell what you can about it -- what you have seen yourself, if you have seen one in life or in a picture, and what you know from reading.
• Draw a picture or diagram.

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Narration

The Thrifty Homeschooler has some posts going up about a Charlotte Mason education and frugality.

This is an interesting one about narration.

I experimented quite a bit with narration last year -- of course, we've done it through the years but I was always hesitant and ambivalent about "required narrations". I think last year helped me get past that block, or perhaps my present set of kids are more OK about narrating. But this year I'm thinking of just forming a habit of narrating one or two more steep and challenging books, rather than trying to do all of them.

One of my goals for Aidan is to start him on the process of narrating, and I imagine Paddy will be following right along -- he already spontaneously narrates his favorite read-alouds, which none of my other kids really did.

Schedule for Family School

Monday

• Old Testament
• Repetition (week's work)
• Dictation
• Poem
• Song

Play

• Geography
• Writing
• French
• Botany/Physical Geography
• Catechism
• Life Skills

Tuesday

• New Testament
• Natural History
• Composition
• Repetition (Bible)
• Picture Study
• Song

Play

• English History
• Mental Arithmetic
• Writing
• Latin
• Geology

Wednesday

• Natural History
• English
• History
• Dictation
• Repetition (Bible)
• Repetition (Euclid)

Play

• Latin
• Map Questions
• Geography
• French (ASL)
• Writing
• Handicrafts

Thursday

• Old Testament
• Grammar
• Reading
• Poem(Repetition)
• Song

Play

• Ireland
• WRiting
• History
• Mental Math
• ASL
• Physiology

Friday

• New Testament
• Plutarch's Lives
• Week's Work
• Euclid
• Geography
• REpetition (Bible)

Play

• Nature Lore
• Dictation
• Grammar
• Writing
• Greek