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Alcat
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 11:17am | IP Logged
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I'm doing my quarterly planning and want to do more narration. Last quarter we focused on copywork, now we will progress with having my dc to copy their own narrations.
My problem is getting the time to do this. With the flow of my school day managing a 5th, 3/2nd and 1st graders plus the preschool princess with her toddler sister all while nusing a baby  I might just lose my mind 
My focus is on getting us writing more. My 5th grader is still narrating to me and copying his narrations. Would it be unreasonable to have him write his own narrations for his religion, history, and science (like a paragraph of the important points) after he reads a chapter? He will probably fight me on this but... I feel like its time for him to start doing more of his own writing. For non English subjects I probably wouldn't require corrections of these narrations... is that OK?
I saw some beautiful main lesson book examples and I would love to emulate that idea... but if I have to write for three people so they can copy; that really limits what we will narrate, as I just don't have the time.
How do you work narration time in your house? Do you have specific times your dc are to come and narrate to you? When do you require written narrations and for what subjects?
thanks,
Alison
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LLMom
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 12:34pm | IP Logged
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Alison,
It is hard to find time to narrate in a large family! I have found it works best to do oral narrations alternating subjects (one will narrate the history reading, one the literature book we are reading, one the science book, etc.) and I do have my dc, 5th grade and up write a narration a week. I tell them not to be concerned about the spelling and punctuation because I find that it slows them (or freezes them completly) to worry about that stuff.
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 6:54pm | IP Logged
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Alcat wrote:
My 5th grader is still narrating to me and copying his narrations. Would it be unreasonable to have him write his own narrations for his religion, history, and science (like a paragraph of the important points) after he reads a chapter?
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 Ummm...When my oldest ds was 10, he could have *never* composed and written narrations in three subjects. He isn't behind at all in writing as a 15 yr old, for waiting until he was 12 to write in more than one subject. At this age, I'd continue doing what you are doing, having him copy his own words. His creativity and voice are probably far ahead of his motor skills. If you wait a little longer, motor skills will catch up and his narrations will reflect that advanced "voice" in his writing. With my kids, starting them writing too early causes them great frustration because the words they can actually write don't reflect what they want to say.
I do start my 10 yr olds on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, though, so that 11 1/2-12 yr olds can begin keyboarding their own narrations.
You could use those gorgeous main lesson books with all of them, though, by keyboarding for them, printing it out after reading it back to them, letting them choose font colors, etc, and having them glue the resulting work into the book. This is what we do. I have 4 old enough to narrate. Keyboarding is what has saved me from losing my mind (many thanks to Elizabeth for suggesting this  ). When I read a fable or bible story or something similar, we talk about it a little, and then I bring the youngest to the computer first and type what she says. Then I work my way up to the oldest child (my littlest has a hard time remembering if I don't let her go first). We only do this about once a week, in a good month. In a bad month it happens only once the entire month. That still adds up to a lot of narrations in a notebook by the end of the year that look pretty.  I don't require copying it in their own hand until 9 with a child who has advanced motor skills or 10 for a child with average motor skills. Laura Berquist gives children in this age range several days to do the copying and that helped my kids not to get too discouraged and start dictating shorter narrations in order to avoid having too much to copy.
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stellamaris
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 7:17pm | IP Logged
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I'm wondering if your older children could do some narrations into a tape recorder and then you could transcribe it later? Would they have a hard time narrating if it wasn't directly to you? This might be an option when you are completely tied up with your younger children. We used a tape recorder years ago in this fashion and it worked acceptably (not as exciting as telling Mom directly! ). If you have a child who tends to go on and on with narration (you know, the one who practically narrates back the entire story unabridged), the tape recorder tends to make them a little more succinct and to-the-point (I guess it's less of an admiring audience).
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Alcat
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| Posted: April 14 2009 at 7:15am | IP Logged
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After typing that post I realized that I had digressed into mommy fantasy land my oldest writing 3 narrations on his own  silly mommy!. Thanks for pulling me back to the real world Books.
I am working on him writing on his own more- which he will do when inspired Brave Writer style- those exercises are fun for him. We have been using the Laura B. method of narration and copy for a few years now and it really works. He just needs to practice those motor skills so that he can begin two write faster.
I have been wanting to find a typing program. Is the Mavis Bacon Program for the computer?
But, ya, I really need to get to everyone's narrations not just the oldest. That also means getting the reading done for the younger two I like the idea of discussion then working your way up for narration.
I wish they could narrate to a tape recorder, but we don't have one.
Narration is so good for them, but is a logistics nightmare as I add in more children.
Alison
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Martha
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| Posted: April 14 2009 at 11:09am | IP Logged
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I think a 5th grader coudl write ONE narration on his own, but 3 wouldn't happen. either he'd have a meltdown or compensate by giving 3 very crummy narrations. I'd rather have one really god one.
I have found the Hillside language lessons to be very helpful to me in this area. I don't have the time or energy to pull out what and when I want them to do a narration, but they can follow the lessons just fine. So they get their narrations, copywork, and dictation done without me having to stress over when or how much or on what topic.
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: scheduling narrations in a large(ish) fam
