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AmandaV
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This blog post by Caroline on preparing the lesson gave me food for thought and prompted me to revisit When Children Love to learn. (She recently attended Ambleside Schools training and has been sharing her reflections. Thanks, Caroline!)
ASI: A method for planning Lessons
I've been reading it, off and on, for a year, and keep rereading this section on the Prepared Lesson. And wondering, how to do this in the busy homeschool? I know it is possible. But I am curious about others' approaches to this.
Do you pre-read and then introduce each lesson/reading in such a way? And then afterward, do you ask them a leading question? Or more a "tell me" question. I've been trying to think of good leading questions for our assignments but sometimes I feel to "teachery" and like I'm directing the narration too much. I keep looking at the suggestions on page 139 of WCLTL to get ideas.
I'm curious, also, if anyone would be interested in creating a shared file/list/thread with suggested guided questions for various book suggestions such as used on Mater Amabilis or commonly used living books/texts?
Such as:
MA 1A year 2
50 Days by Camel
Chapter 1
Describe how the author ended up going to the Sahara. (etc.)
or
A First Book of American History by Eggleston
Chapter 1
...
and so on for certain artists, history books, nature topics...
Do you do this ahead of time? Do you "wing it"? I'm realizing I probably need to pre-read a great deal more to better prepare the lesson, introduce the mapwork, any vocabulary , as well as be ready to guide the narration.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and experience. Thanks in advance!
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Amanda
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JennGM
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I have been pondering this, also, Amanda. It's my biggest, weakest area in preparing lessons. And now with this, I'm feeling even more overwhelmed.
No great thing to contribute right now, awfully busy, but watching and hoping for a discussion.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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stellamaris
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Amanda, I just was on the last line of a LONG reply to this when I got distracted and hit DELETE....AARRRGGGHHH!!!! 
Planning has been great, but a big effort. I love to have everything organized and it creates a much more relaxed and peaceful atmosphere, but I still don't know how you might successfully do it with the ages of your little ones.
I have to go tuck everyone in, since they have just been rattling around (very late for them) while I have been posting...not too successfully! However, I will say the planning is getting easier as I go along; yes, I do sometimes wing it, but not often; and just having the idea of the structure of a decent lesson in my mind has been a huge help. Coming up with the questions is tough, but really with the ages of your children, the questions are just going to be pretty basic. I wouldn't try to make them too deep until your children are older.
Also, love your idea of sharing plans. I am keeping my plans so I might be able to do this. Right now, we are using Dorothy Mill's The Middle Ages for history and reading The Door in the Wall in literature. It would be nice if someone else could benefit from those plans. 
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Caroline
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JuliaT
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I have been putting more effort into planning and preparing lessons this year and I have seen a marked difference in what my children have retained. They are remembering much more now than when I winged it. I am only really doing this for history this year as it is taking up alot of time but I am hoping to be able to do this with other subjects once I get into the groove of things.
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AmandaV
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JennGM wrote:
I have been pondering this, also, Amanda. It's my biggest, weakest area in preparing lessons. And now with this, I'm feeling even more overwhelmed.
No great thing to contribute right now, awfully busy, but watching and hoping for a discussion. |
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Oh, Jenn! I'm sorry this makes you overwhelmed. That was not my intention at all! You know, I am weak in all but the big picture planning. I'm an idea person, but not as good at whittling down to the details, and plugging things in. Its hard for me to get from year to term to weekly schedule.. so getting the books/lessons more planned would definitely be a challenge. But at the same time, maybe getting that done at the beginning of a term, or year, or just a week at a time would make things go more smoothly.. I'm still thinking, but happy to hear there is interest in discussion.
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AmandaV
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JuliaT wrote:
| I have been putting more effort into planning and preparing lessons this year and I have seen a marked difference in what my children have retained. They are remembering much more now than when I winged it. I am only really doing this for history this year as it is taking up alot of time but I am hoping to be able to do this with other subjects once I get into the groove of things. |
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Thank you Julia, this is helpful. :)
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Amanda
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AmandaV
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stellamaris wrote:
Amanda, I just was on the last line of a LONG reply to this when I got distracted and hit DELETE....AARRRGGGHHH!!!!
Planning has been great, but a big effort. I love to have everything organized and it creates a much more relaxed and peaceful atmosphere, but I still don't know how you might successfully do it with the ages of your little ones.
I have to go tuck everyone in, since they have just been rattling around (very late for them) while I have been posting...not too successfully! However, I will say the planning is getting easier as I go along; yes, I do sometimes wing it, but not often; and just having the idea of the structure of a decent lesson in my mind has been a huge help. Coming up with the questions is tough, but really with the ages of your children, the questions are just going to be pretty basic. I wouldn't try to make them too deep until your children are older.
Also, love your idea of sharing plans. I am keeping my plans so I might be able to do this. Right now, we are using Dorothy Mill's The Middle Ages for history and reading The Door in the Wall in literature. It would be nice if someone else could benefit from those plans. |
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Caroline, so sorry you lost your post! I look forward to hearing more. I know the questions don't have to be too much, but I want to say more than "Tell me about what you read" and then everything I think of seems too limiting.
Looking forward to more discussion :)
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Amanda
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JennGM
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No, Amanda, you and this discussion hasn't caused me stress! I just realize our hugest weakness in our home education and it needs revamping immediately, but it's a lot of work!
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Jennifer G. Miller
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AmandaV
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JennGM wrote:
| No, Amanda, you and this discussion hasn't caused me stress! I just realize our hugest weakness in our home education and it needs revamping immediately, but it's a lot of work! |
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Oh, good! Yes, I agree. We need to revamp as well and it is a lot of work!!
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Amanda
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AmandaV
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Here's a blog post by an ASI mother that fits in with this discussion: Preparation
Here's a part of it:
Quote:
Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.
-Proverbs 24:27
I read this proverb this morning, and was reminded how important it is to be prepared. There is such a difference in my school days between when I am prepared and when I am just “winging it”. I was struck by the phrases “Prepare your work” and “get everything ready”.
One of the main differences that I have seen in my homeschooling since working with Ambleside is that I do much more lesson planning. Before Ambleside, I would just open up our texts and, together with the children, work through them. I didn’t read through the material beforehand and have a daily, let alone weekly, lesson plan. My thinking was to just keep moving forward and everything will turn out fine. But, what I realized is that the children had gaps or holes in their learning and understanding of the material.
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That's what I keep finding when I find nuggets of this discussion elsewhere. That the children will understand more if properly prepared. I think I fled from the "dog and pony show" type lesson that sometimes was encouraged in a ps setting (not always, but in some subjects for sure) that I've taken parts of CM but really in a more "relaxed" unschooly way, and not properly placing the texts in context before beginning. I wonder if this is where some guides would come in handy for the busy mother?
A mother on SCM forum asks something similar (the second half of the discussion, really):
Other ways of using books
And on CM Help by Lindafay:
Let's talk about Lesson Planning
Now the first part sounds like what I've been thinking, don't over prepare and make every connection, but then in the second part she briefly outlines what she DOES do, almost in passing, because its much less than she was doing as a teacher -- but more than I'd been doing to begin a lesson:
Quote:
Does this mean I never make plans other than having my kids read the books? No. I go over potentially difficult vocabulary (when I think of it), I often find interesting maps, sometimes Internet links, and occasionally an activity, but this is not the same as 'the carefully prepared lesson plan.' We discuss some of the characters and dilemmas in our read-alouds. However, for the most part, my children just enjoy the literature
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I think, depending on our personalities and habits, maybe some of us need to relax, and some of us need to revamp and rev up a bit!
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Amanda
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Elena
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I'm not a big planner. I buy the books at the beginning of the year and then we just work through them. I think if I had to check off lists, or actually produce a lesson plan I'd go nuts. But that's just me! 
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Elena
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pumpkinmom
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I only have two kids to plan for and still it is too much at times. As mentioned above, just go at it slowly. Do a little more each year and then we will be there before they leave the house. I usually go with the subjects that seemed lacking from the year before and spend more time in the planning. History and religion were are biggest fails or let downs from last year, so I worked hard on those this year and we are still tweaking with those subjects. Last year it was math and spelling, but we got that under control, so it comes easy with little planning this year.
Just take it subject by subject as needed. I have preread a lot more books this year, but I still don't read them all.
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I so thoroughly enjoyed Caroline's post on the prepared lesson. Actually, I'm enjoying all her reflections on her Ambleside training, and I'm so grateful she's sharing them with us.
The prepared lesson can seem quite intimidating and as if something like this might be difficult to duplicate in the home setting with mom nurturing the learning of multiple ages, but I would like to propose that it is indeed possible, and can be quite natural and enjoyable.
I've been doing prepared lessons with my children for several years now. They do vary just a bit depending on the child's age and attention span, but I think if I list the things I do you'll see the general principles outlined by Ms. Mason.
There are two foundational keys for mom/teacher:
1) Build the habit to be an attentive focused LISTENER during narrations. At one point when I really wanted to work on this habit in myself I allowed myself to take little notes during a narration, but I didn't do this long because I find that it breaks the very special relationship between persons that is nurtured during narrations. Still...it was a help for me for a short bit. I would jot down words or points I might want to pursue.
2) Learn to skim ahead. I was already a good skimmer, but I soon learned that this skill could be honed further to help me with the prepared lesson in a home with multiple children and limited time. An excellent book with a worthwhile chapter on skimming is Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. While skimming I may jot down a few notes:The First Little Talk
** Geography/setting
** (Brief) Cultural background of the author...the story
** Any vocabulary I suspect might be unknown...but only 2 or 3 tops. I write these on the board.
** I give myself a minute to recall the last narration from this reading.
--------------Differences in CM's First Talk approach and my "I'm homeschooling high school to preschool approach"--------------
** My little talk may sometimes only take place before the first reading EXCEPT I never leave out the summary of the previous narration as a starting point.
** Sometimes I briefly lump setting/culture points into our post-narration lesson if necessary.
** I sometimes introduce a particular virtue or character trait I'm noticing as a trend in a story before the narration.
Second Little Talk (AFTER the narration)
** From my skimming I have jotted down 1 - 2 provocative questions I might want to ask about the reading assigned. The older the child, the more provocative or thoughtful the question.
** Here's an example of how I might start this little talk: "I notice that Matt (Sign of the Beaver) has really been left on his own and must rely on himself with the exception of the help of Attean and his family. How do you think Matt's character changed over those months? What did he learn about himself? Do you think he would have learned those lessons if he hadn't been left on his own?
** These questions come very naturally as I skim and jot notes. I don't overthink these questions. The younger the child, the simpler and fewer the question(s).
** I sometimes ENTIRELY ditch my prepared question in favor of pursuing a thought a child mentions in their narration. This allows our narrations and lessons to evolve and progress naturally and again really requires me to be that attentive listener.
** It's usually at this point that together we identify any rabbit trails a child may want to pursue based on the day's reading. I have one student that really thrives on pursuing rabbit trails, and others that don't as often. We DO NOT identify a rabbit trail that often, nor is it forced or on a schedule. It's usually identified naturally in the course of a conversation and I DO NOT PREPARE LESSONS for a rabbit trail. I do provide resources and tools for the interested student and plenty of margin in the day for the student to pursue his/her rabbit trail.
--------------Differences in CM's Second Talk approach and my "I'm homeschooling high school to preschool approach"--------------
** I ALWAYS begin every narration with a brief summary of the previous narration, but I do not always include the second talk as part of every book and every narration in our day. I usually choose one particular book each term that I may want to really dig into and I may pursue only this book with the prepared lesson, allowing the other books on our schedule to simply be narrated. At first, this may seem like something mom/teacher must be very deliberate and focused about, and it might be that way while building these habits, but honestly, in our home these prepared lessons can happen very naturally and seem almost organic. I spend on average 5 - 15 min. preparing for a lesson, and find I can fit this in very easily because I don't "prepare" for every book/narration.
Identifying where I veer off CM's path in the prepared lesson in areas based on the reality of homeschooling with littles:
** Identify ONE book per term to work through the prepared lesson. This may not always be the "meatiest" book on the schedule because in the prepared lesson I'm usually looking to foster a notice of character and virtue so I choose books accordingly.
** Sometimes our "little talks" before and after the narration can be VERY abbreviated or on some days non-existent.
** My goal is to complete the prepared lesson for a particular book once or twice a week and I consider that a success, especially if you consider that repeating itself consistently week after week throughout the term.
** On days that I do not walk through a complete prepared lesson we:** Before a narration I review a summary of where we were in the reading from the last narration.
** Child narrates.
** There is some back and forth discussion in our narration with questions that I may ask. For elementary children, I keep this to a minimum - usually only 1 or 2 questions at most. I have noticed that the longer we've been working through the prepared lesson the more the process has become a habit! And I really wanted to highlight this because I'm not sure I noticed it until writing this post and really trying to think through the areas I'm more deliberate and planned with my lessons...and times I deviate from how Ms. Mason's day/lessons might look. In recalling our days I notice that whether I intend a lesson to be "prepared" or not, they now all take that same basic prepared lesson format, and that's simply out of habit. It has served us well and it seems a natural fit in our days now - less structured and simply an extension. The little kids have benefited because they see the example and it's just natural that we begin their lessons in the same way. I also recalled several instances that my students offer insight or questions on their own as part of their narrations and then our discussions pursue those thoughts. These discussions blur the line between the "second little talk" and the narration, but it's there and I think in a natural setting, one in which you've fostered relationships, narrations, and even discussion, you might think that this "second little talk" seems disruptive and something extra, but I submit that many of you are probably already doing it!!
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I wanted to mention a tool that I sometimes use with my students in place of the prepared lesson - the Socratic Discussion. You can do this with any age, but I usually pursue it with middle school+. If you look over this you'll see many of the ideas from the CM prepared lesson. Here's how this works in our home:
** I identify ONE book per term that we will pursue with narrations and the Socratic discussion.
** Before the book is begun, I introduce the book and the author, trying to provide cultural context of the author, his/her viewpoint in writing the book, the geography and setting of the book.
** The child reads their assigned reading, narrating as normal and sometimes the prepared lesson is pursued.
** I post my little Socratic Discussion sheet (2012-10-11_083754_Socratic_Discussion.pdf) somewhere handy and after each narration we work through as much of it as we can. The sheet cannot be complete until the book has been completed, so this little sheet is just a tool that helps me stay on track and guides us through the socratic discussion process.
I know the Socratic discussion is not entirely on topic with the prepared lesson, but it honestly has so many parallels to the prepared lesson that I wanted to mention how it works in our home.
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That's it for my thoughts on how this works in our home based on Ms. Mason's example. I hope they've furthered Caroline's wonderful insight and have been helpful!
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Jen Mackintosh
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AmandaV
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Jen, as usual, this is so helpful. I'm so glad you added your wisdom. Thank you for noting where you deviate from CM's specifications, even in small ways. What you described seems doable. I think if I start with our History and Bible reading, and go from there, I too can develop the habit of preparing more thoroughly for lessons. It seems that if the same book is used for multiple children, that, after preparing the first time, one could re-use the questions and notes. Have you been able to do this? I know that sometimes we might change resources between children, of course. I'll be looking back over your response later and hope to come back with more specific questions/discussion.
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AmandaV wrote:
| It seems that if the same book is used for multiple children, that, after preparing the first time, one could re-use the questions and notes. Have you been able to do this? |
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Well...yes and no. Having been through a book once allows me familiarity with the content, and preparation time is very brief for me with a book I've already covered with another child.
Usually my notes are really sketchy and short. I don't save them. I just scribble a few things on a yellow pad when I make notes...so it's nothing formatted really. I like to keep my notes very minimal because (1) the more detailed, organized and written they are the more I rely on them rather than my habit of attentive listening and engaging the reader and (2) our lessons seem more disconnected and disjointed for me as I try to go back and forth.
That could just be my experience and how I relate though.
Sometimes I may not even jot down notes at all, but rather just set out a couple of resources as I prepare. I try to keep resources I use frequently at arms length for me - so in preparing for the "first little talk" I may quickly jot down a vocabulary word on the board, circle a region with my dry erase marker on our wall map, quickly go through my other geography resources for old maps of a region, print an outline map for a student's BOC, (etc) and make a mental note of our previous narration. There may be something cultural I can demonstrate in some way - through a quick web search I may find a site with great images of people and their lifestyle in a region. When we were studying the catacombs I found some awesome websites with images that really helped make the catacombs come alive in our reading.
So...my notes are pretty light in terms of content and really just there as markers for me. I don't save them or re-use them because the (very) little bit of time I do in preparing keeps me actively engaged in both the book and with the reader and allows a lesson to unfold organically and very naturally.
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Jen Mackintosh
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kristacecilia
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This has been very helpful, ladies. Thank you!
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Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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AmandaV
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Mackfam wrote:
Well...yes and no. Having been through a book once allows me familiarity with the content, and preparation time is very brief for me with a book I've already covered with another child.
Usually my notes are really sketchy and short. I don't save them. I just scribble a few things on a yellow pad when I make notes...so it's nothing formatted really. I like to keep my notes very minimal because (1) the more detailed, organized and written they are the more I rely on them rather than my habit of attentive listening and engaging the reader and (2) our lessons seem more disconnected and disjointed for me as I try to go back and forth.
.....
So...my notes are pretty light in terms of content and really just there as markers for me. I don't save them or re-use them because the (very) little bit of time I do in preparing keeps me actively engaged in both the book and with the reader and allows a lesson to unfold organically and very naturally. |
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I can see why you might not want to reuse your notes. Thanks, that is helpful. I think at first I'll keep my notes in a way that I can keep them, such as in a notebook for that purpose. Then if I want, I can keep for future reference. With so many little ones and the grades so close, I think maybe I need to overcompensate a bit, especially as my tendency of late has been to plan what books but not to prepare them in this way. I need to figure out if I can do this weekly or just need to prepare 4-5 weeks of a book at a time, as the weeks get so busy, nights included, that its hard to get back to planning during the week. Lots to chew on! :)
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Amanda
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MNMommy
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This is a timely conversation for me. I am valiantly trying to stay ahead of my kids' reading, but it's difficult. There are only so many hours in a day, and most of them I feel like I'm running around like a crazy person.
When do you preread for your lessons? If I preread too far in advance I lose track of the reading. If I wait, I may not find time to get the reading completed.
I think I would prefer to have two of each book - one for me to mark up and one for the kids. That gets expensive and takes up too much room.
What is the perfect answer?
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MNMommy wrote:
This is a timely conversation for me. I am valiantly trying to stay ahead of my kids' reading, but it's difficult. There are only so many hours in a day, and most of them I feel like I'm running around like a crazy person.
When do you preread for your lessons? If I preread too far in advance I lose track of the reading. If I wait, I may not find time to get the reading completed.
I think I would prefer to have two of each book - one for me to mark up and one for the kids. That gets expensive and takes up too much room.
What is the perfect answer? |
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I don't know what the perfect answer is, Jennifer.  It's likely different for each of us!
There are three different times I pre-read/skim a book for a prepared lesson:
:: Evening before, after the kids are in bed.
:: Early morning, while I'm tidying the learning room and preparing for the day.
:: Snatch 15 minutes during the day while the kids are working independently on something.
Just be creative! You can usually find a few minutes to read and prep, even if you need to employ an educational DVD sometimes to help give you a little focused time.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Becky Parker
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Joined: May 23 2005
Location: Michigan
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2582
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| Posted: Nov 08 2012 at 6:48am | IP Logged
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I am really enjoying this thread. The timing is perfect. For me, when life starts to feel a little "burned out" the call to "take arms" is a real boost! This thread, and this Bravewriter blog post are my "call to arms" lately!
For me, it's about preparation verses planning. I have done the planning part. I planned more than I should have planned I'm realizing, but I was so excited about some of the resources my kids are using this year that I was happily planning for most of last spring. Now, I have to re-sync my plans because I didn't expect to travel as much as we did this fall. But that's do-able. It's the preparation that I feel is lacking.
An example would be my dd's narration the other night. As usual, she pulled a stool up to the kitchen counter to narrate the book she is currently reading for history, Son of Charlemagne. Being sensitive, she was disturbed by the part where they called the boy "hunchback". I have not read this book, so I was able to listen to her narration and talk to her about this part that bothered her, but I didn't feel really prepared. On the other hand, when I have read the book she is reading, I am able to ask leading questions and really discuss points to lead her to, what I would think, is a more effective narration. I love Jen's Socratic Questioning point and I'm hoping to try that.
And then there is the blog post about follow through. So much of my planning leads to assigning - "Read chapter on Levers in The New Way Things Work ". Later, when I sit down with ds to go over what he accomplished during his independent time, he tells me he read the chapter and I check it off. Instead of just that check, I should have some sort of follow through. "Okay, let's get out the K'Nex and build a lever..." or whatever. Once again, it's the time factor.
So, (as I sit here using all kinds of time to type this  ), I think I need to get more prepared, and prepare more follow through. I'm going to spend some time in prayer about this before I jump in though. As you all know time is precious. I need to figure out a way to use it more wisely and seeking wisdom and guidance from the HOly Spirit will surely help.
After a few discussions with friends regarding our local highschool, and after my oldest ds's experience there, I know I really want my kids to be homeschooled through highschool. But I also know that that is going to take a deeper level of preparation than I have been doing. In 1st grade, I do everything with my child. I don't feel like I need to pre-read his reader. But for my older kids, while they can go off and be more independent with the actual work, I am seeing that there is a larger requirement for prep time.
Thanks again for the great blog post Caroline and for bringing it here, Amanda!
__________________
Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: prepared lessons
