History narrations

One of my goals for this school year-- well, for every school year- was to be more diligent in history narrations.  It has really been a good thing for all of us, and and here are a few things I like about it:

1. It requires that I know what they're reading, so that I can know if they are narrating well.  And I have found that I love reading along with them as they're learning these things.

2. It requires me to stop and truly pay attention.  No mmhmm-ing while I'm busy doing something else.  I have to really tune in to what they're saying.

3. My kids- especially my boys- LOVE it.  They get to have my undivided attention and talk and talk and talk.... ;)  (In fact when I first handed out their history lesson plans, Isaac read weeks ahead, which is a lot of reading.  I finally told him that he needed to stop, because I really didn't have time to listen to him narrate for that many hours.  ;)

I think doing history narrations has its challenges, too, the main one being that it requires quite a bit of that listening time on my part.  If all three of my kids are doing history on the same day (and they are, twice per week), and they are all reading from a few different books, that equates to a lot of narrating. 

One of the ways I addressed this is that I've assigned drawn narrations for one of their books (The Story of the Greeks).  The chapters/stories are fairly short and easy to narrate with a single picture, so I printed off some of these free printable pages.  Now instead of telling me all about this book with their words, they get to do it through drawing, which they love.  :)  Win-win.  :)

Some of Isaac's drawings

History and Journaling, all in one post.

Hello friends,

Happy Friday to you.  :)  On Friday mornings my beloved mom takes the kids for a couple of hours so that I can have some time to myself.  (What I look forward to on Fridays is the quiet.)

Often I'll just stay home, clean the kitchen, make myself some coffee, and sit with my Bible and journal.  Sometimes I run errands.  Today I went to the bank, then dropped a bag of clothes off at the consignment store, and then drove out to Old Navy to make a return.  Then came home to clean the kitchen.  :)  I printed out some schoolish things I've been meaning to,  and now I have some time here to write.  :)  (Oh!  And I finally snapped some pictures of my journal so that I can show you a bit of it....)

First: History.  This year Ella and Isaac are both doing Ambleside Year 6.  I've recently decided to read what they're reading, so that I can track their narrations better and learn for myself, too.  We're currently reading Augustus Caesar's World, The Story of the Greeks, and Genesis: Finding our Roots.  I find it really hard to read history without taking notes of some sort, so in a blank journal I've been taking notes and doing some drawn narrations as I go.... really simply, like this:

And here are some snapshots of my journal.  I haven't been cutting out many (any?) things out of magazines like I used to, (mainly because Barnes & Noble stopped carrying my favorite magazine)  but I'm having fun nonetheless:

first page of my current journal

on a day when I took the kids down to Boulevard for nature study & cocoa

I even documented our bout of influenza!  ;)

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Our history plans (A TruthQuest History review)

A couple of you have asked what we're doing for history this next year.  I'll give you the short answer first, and then the long-winded answer second.  ;)

Here's the short answer: We're doing TruthQuest History.  (If that's all you wanted, just move along now because I'm about to get wordy.)  ;)

Here's the long answer, and I love telling this story because God really directed our family in this subject.  Towards the end of last year I sort of hit a wall on our Ambleside readings.  Generally I truly like the Ambleside selections, but what became difficult was the lengthy readings about topics I didn't think we needed to be reading so much about.  Certain battles and historical figures are fascinating and we are genuinely interested in delving into their story for pages and pages.  Others?  Not so much.  I wanted to read a small blurp and move on already.  So I stopped reading and began pondering it aloud with Mark-- Is it just a difficult season?  Do I just press on, even though even I'm  bored?  If we don't do this, what DO we do? 

And I began praying, asking God to guide us and help me figure out where to go from my "stuck spot."

One night as I was falling asleep the words "Truth Quest" got stuck in my brain, and I had a hunch it was related to my prayers about our history.  (You know how you get a song stuck in your head and you can't turn it off?  It was like that.  I didn't know what "Truth Quest" even was but I knew I wouldn't forget it because those words were lodged that firmly in my brain.)  I determined to look up those words the very next morning- thinking maybe it was a book or a blog or something that would give me a clue as to what we should do.  So I Googled the words "Truth Quest", and initially only saw something about a children's VBS program and was about to click away when I saw-- further down the page-- "TruthQuest History", and clicked on that link only to find out that TruthQuest is a literature-based history study.

I spent some time over the next few days researching the site (which I had never before been to and had never heard of to my knowledge) and reading all the reviews and testimonials and continuing to pray and talk to Mark.  A few days later we decided to give it a trial run- to order one of the TruthQuest guides and use it for our remaining ten weeks of school, and see how we liked it.

We loved it.

It is such a good fit for our family in so many ways.  For those of you unfamiliar with TQ, as I was: the guides are arranged chronologically through history.  There are summaries about the topics and then lists of books relating to each topic.   One of the things I like so much about it is that it suits us so naturally: I already love book lists, we already spend a lot of time hunting for good books at our library, or at the local thrift store.  And we get to cover history by reading literature-- which is how we like to learn!   It has also drawn Mark into our history study in a way that he wasn't before.  He helps choose the topics we'll cover, he helps hunt for the books, and he chooses which books he'd like to read aloud to the kids.  It also gives us the flexibility to spend as much or as little time as we'd like on each topic, which I appreciate.

The author, Michelle Miller, loves God and views history through that lens.  In the summaries, she invites us to look at how God has initiated to mankind through the ages, and how we have chosen to respond.  I have been a part of the TQ Yahoo discussion group-- which is a group of moms utilizing this curriculum and swapping good book recommendations and ideas.  I have been so, SO impressed with the quality of women on the loop, specifically Michelle Miller herself-- who frequently pops in to add to the discussion-- and the moderator, Kimberly, who is full of wisdom and kindness. 

I am so thankful that God led us to these guides, and we are excited to tackle more history through literature this coming year!