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Erin
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| Posted: March 17 2007 at 1:21am | IP Logged
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How do you manage to fit in time to capture/write everyone's narrations?
This year I have five schooling (with a toddler and a baby as well)and I really, really want to write down more of their narrations this year. The trouble is it all takes soo much time and I am exhausted typing after about two/three children. And they don't occupy themselves with anything else while they are waiting. So they are all lined up and getting impatient waiting and I am rushing the narrator to hurry up as brother is waiting. Does anyone else relate?
Dd13 types hers, but then again she is waiting for the computer to be free also. Ds11 isn't a strong speller nor typer and he would rather me do it, and as getting a narration from him is rather an effort I don't want to push it. The next ds is 9 so I would still write his anyway and of course the younger ones.
I would love ideas on how to manage this time without it being so chaotic and exhausting.
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Karen E.
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| Posted: March 18 2007 at 8:45am | IP Logged
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Erin, I wish I could be of more help -- I feel inadequate to advise a mother of seven, since only two of my kids are school-age right now.
Could you possibly do narrations with different kids on different days?
Any moms with more kids who have some creative ideas on this?
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Karen E.
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juliecinci
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| Posted: March 18 2007 at 9:08am | IP Logged
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Erin, can you stagger them? Don't have everyone narrate every day. Perhaps the 13 year old could help by jotting down one of the younger one's narrations as well.
You can also use an old fashioned tape recorder and let them narrate into it. And lastly, not all narrating needs to be recorded or noted. Some of it can simply be experienced as in the stream of life.
I think it can become tedious to have to type every idea out. On the other hand, when one of your kids says something brilliant or shows a high level of competence in a field, writing what they have to say can be both affirming and empowering.
So I'd say less is more in this category. :)
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Julie
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Karen E.
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| Posted: March 18 2007 at 9:22am | IP Logged
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A tape recorder! That's a great idea, Julie!
Yes, I can affirm that we do not write down *most* narrations here ... I file away in my scattered brain that the child just told me a wonderful story, and that's what I'm after in narration, anyway. But, yes, I can also affirm how positive it is for the child to exclaim, "That's great! I've got to write that down!"
Thanks for chiming in, Julie -- both here and over on the Bravewriter thread!
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alicegunther
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| Posted: March 18 2007 at 10:06am | IP Logged
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Whatever you do, don't write them down!
I've been re-reading (at Lissa's urging) Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education. What an eye-opener it is. CM never advised that narrations be written down (at least not until the children are old enough to produce written narrations themselves). Narrations are meant to exhibit comprehension of the material and help the child hone his memory and composition skills through the spoken word. The narration process and the knowledge acquired thereby is the goal in and of itself and no work product need be created. (Lissa has written quite a bit about this in the past few months, and I urge you to visit her blog, the Lilting House for more.)
Like you, I have seven children, and I've often joked that I would need a court stenographer to take down the narrations. For years, I would get them to narrate but little because I dreaded having to write or type every word (usually while losing the attention of all the others). Now that I am back to using CM's philosophy exactly as it was intended, my school age children (four of them) are giving me two narrations per day--each. That's right! This would have been completely impossible when I still labored under the yoke of recording narrations!
And you would not believe how easy and what a pleasure it is. I don't have to keep telling the children to slow down while I write, and so they are able to speak naturally and without interruption.
As for work product, that is exactly where it should be--in their heads! The process of narration helps the children remember facts and stories like nothing else in the world. I am so happy it has returned to grace our daily lives once more.
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juliecinci
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| Posted: March 18 2007 at 11:06am | IP Logged
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Alice great advice. That's how it is here too - in the flow of life we converse and they narrate what they are learning and know and want to share.
It is nice to have some of their ideas/stories/narrations recorded but if you were to look at how much I've jotted down for our kids over the years, it is only when something of real significance occurs, not every day on every subject. Talking and talking well is the real narrating lifestyle of our family.
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: March 18 2007 at 8:16pm | IP Logged
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Great advice ladies. Makes me feel MUCH better for not writing down narrations very often at all.
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: March 19 2007 at 6:10am | IP Logged
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Hmmm...I listen to lots of narrations far from pen, paper and computer, but I record quite a few, too.. It can be stressful, but so many things of value are both stressful and joyful. For me, this is one of them.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: March 19 2007 at 7:28am | IP Logged
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juliecinci wrote:
Alice great advice. That's how it is here too - in the flow of life we converse and they narrate what they are learning and know and want to share.
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I was just laughing as I read this because quite a lot of our narrations happen in the vehicle. Momma can't write those narrations down.
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Erin
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| Posted: March 20 2007 at 6:16am | IP Logged
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Karen and Julie,
Thanks for those ideas, tape recording and staggering are great ideas. I need to think more about implementing those ideas.
Alice,
You have given me much to ponder, I have mulled over your words all day. I have come to the conclusion that I do often not 'listen' well and need to engage more in dialogue and natural conversation about what they read, learn and ponder.
Elizabeth,
Thank you so much for writing your post. I was relating what you wrote to dh this morning about the stress of recording/writing narrations and your analogy to when your toddler pre-schoolers couldn't cut their meat. Both skills need to be taught, and it is stressful at times but the result... Seriously that wasn't all that I took away from you post  I felt encouraged by what I am trying to achieve, I felt that you were saying great results can come from recording narrations. I want my children to write, and to hear that all your dc are writing....
To elaborate to you dear friends, narration is the ONLY writing that is required from my dc. Other than their dictation they are not writing. Except for ds11 who writes poems all the time.
When we study a subject, ie. Greeks unless I ask for a narration they have no written work to show for it. I would love to have notebooks like your son's Theresa, but one step at a time. I realize that it doesn't mean that they don't retain the information if it isn't written down but still, I do want them working towards being writers.
Thank you for all your thoughts and wisdom.
A question Elizabeth, when you do capture narrations do you stagger them like suggested above or try to fit a few or more on one day? Is this done during lesson time or later during free time?
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alicegunther
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| Posted: March 20 2007 at 8:11am | IP Logged
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Erin wrote:
Alice,
You have given me much to ponder, I have mulled over your words all day. I have come to the conclusion that I do often not 'listen' well and need to engage more in dialogue and natural conversation about what they read, learn and ponder.
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Thank you, Erin.
I am so glad to have been able to read Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education, because her advice makes so much sense. It is freeing for the mother, yet rigorous for the children. It is anything but laid back, and yet it is restful somehow!
CM would not expect much written work from children under nine or ten years of age. They would be required to do copywork and dictation, giving frequent oral narrations. Her students were famous for their memories and later composition skills, and they were known to remember, after only one reading, the details of books and passages even years and years later.
It is amazing how the process of narration itself cements information forever in the mind of a child. I have seen it here, particularly since we have returned to frequent narration as a part of our everyday routine. Once my girls have narrated something, they own it somehow, and seem to understand it with new depth and permanence. It works wonders, and the material remains even without being put on paper. I see it coming out in conversations and connections made in other contexts. They truly know and love what they have read and narrated. (This is what I mean about the work product being in their heads.)
Here is how our mornings have been looking, in very general terms:
The first hour is spent reading aloud great works. At the moment, we are reading "Manalive" by GK Chesterton, "School of the Woods" by William Long, "Twenty Tales of Irish Saints" by Alice Curtayne, "Fatima from the Beginning" by Father John de Marchi, "Jesus, Son of David," by Mother Mary Eleanor, and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Needless to say, we only get to about two or three of these in the first hour of the day, and at the end, I select two or three children to narrate. The four girls never know when they are going to be asked to narrate, so they listen as attentively as possible.
The next hour is spent on what CM would call "mental gymnastics," mostly Math and Spelling and Copywork.
Then it is back to great books, but this time the children read on their own. My older girls (13 and 11) are reading Great Lives: Explorers, Augustus Caesar's World, Emily of New Moon, and David Copperfield. They complete their assigned reading and do a written narration of one source. Again, they do not necessarily get to all the sources, but at least one or two per day. (The latter two books are also often read in the evenings when they are looking for something to do.)
My younger girls (nine and seven) are reading Mr. Popper's Penguin's, 50 Great Stories Retold, and The Bird Book by Thornton Burgess. [Again I must credit Lissa's jottings blog for some of these curriculum ideas and for inspiring me to return to this approach.] At the end of the hour, they narrate at least one thing they've read, but they do not know which narration I will need, so they read as if they will have to narrate all.
While everyone is doing independent reading, I am usually reading to the 5 and almost 2 year old. My seven year old is not yet advanced enough to tackle the Bird Book (above), so she often sits in our our picture book reading as well.
Then we are ready for lunch, but afterward, I repeat the first hour of reading aloud, continuing with any materials we did not read in the morning.
Anyway, I type all this not to bore you with the details of our day, but to show how easily narration is fit into it and how much is to be gained through the narration process itself. There is also something so amazing about fitting in more great literature and history works each day, and I am already seeing the fruit in the intelligence of their conversations and insightful connections.
I would urge anyone to experiment with a week of beginning the day with an hour of reading aloud from great works and requiring oral narrations (calling the children to narrate at random if you have more than one). It is just wonderful.
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Topic: Managing to fit in everyone's narrations
