Evaluating our School Year: Bible time

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Bible

WHAT WE DID:
Every day, the first thing we do during our morning time is to read from the Bible or a Bible story book.  I've written before about my two favorite Bible story books.  This year we read Hurlbut's- just a page or two each morning, not even always finishing the section.

Here are some of the things we do for Bible time narrations:
1. Stop after reading a paragraph or two and call on one of the kids (surprise!) to narrate it for me.
2. Ask questions at the end of the reading time:  "Adelia, tell me about ____________".  Isaac, can you describe ____________?"
3. Utilize our dry erase board for sketching out the story itself.  (I'll break up the story into parts and have each child take one part and draw it on the board.  Then we'll show daddy at lunchtime and
each child can re-narrate his/her part to him.)
4. Utilize our dry erase board for writing up the "characters" from the story and listing what we learned about them. Generally I have the pen, and I'll say, "Okay, what did we learn about __*insert name here*___   from this passage?" and the kids will call things out and I'll write them all down.

Towards the end of the year we also read the "Proverb of the Day".  [So, the first day of the month we read Proverbs chapter 1, the second day of the month we read Proverbs chapter 2, etc.]  One of my oldest would read the chapter aloud, and then I would generally ask all the kids if any parts/verses stood out to them and we'd talk about it.

All of our Bible time ends in some sort of conversation or discussion, and it is nearly always my favorite time of the day.  I love hearing my kids' observations on the Scripture we read.

CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR:
My older two have requested that we skip the Bible story books and read straight from the Bible. This is what we'll do for next year.  (I have kept the Bible story books in our rotation for the sake of the little girls, because so much of what we do is geared toward the older kids that I have to work to try to keep some things *younger* for them.) 

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

Our Simple Schedule: Part 4 (Geography, Science, and Written Narrations)

This is Part 4 (and the final post) in an impromptu series I'm doing in response to a readers question about our schedule.

Here is her question:  

I know this was a while back, but I really love the simplicity of that schedule you shared (the picture in the other post of your school schedule). I'm curious what resources you're using for things like math and dictation (are you using Spelling Wisdom or just choosing something each week, etc.). Anything in particular for Bible, memory, poetry, etc or just choosing as you go? What about geography and science? And, written narrations ... are you just letting Ella choose what she will write from? Thanks so much! You really know how to simplify and make it feel calm (or at least appear that way). :) 

Here is what we've covered so far:
Part 1: Math
Part 2: Dictation and Spelling
Part 3: Bible, memory work, and poetry

And in this post we'll cover geography, science and written narrations.  So.  Geography.  Mark is really much more into geography than I am, so I asked him to make our lesson plan last year.  He made a GREAT one, having the kids draw world maps, label oceans, continents, rivers, mountain ranges, etc.  They loved it.  Then he moved to local geography, then back to each continent for a closer look.

We started well and then faded into nothing.  TOTALLY my fault.  And really more of a management thing- he had the lesson plans on the computer, I never printed it out or had it with me, or I'd look and be confused about what I was supposed to do so we just ended up skipping it a lot of times.  :(  Which just means we'll be doing some repeats this year.  Fine by me.  I plan to be much more organized- everything printed out and ready to go and discussed with him beforehand.

Science.  We've spent years doing only nature study and we love that--  examining things growing and living around us, drawing, labeling, and reading about them.  This past year I thought we should maybe explore other science stuff so I ordered an Apologia book and we did that once per week, in addition to nature study.  I didn't really like the textbook approach, although we all liked the information we learned.  Generally I would look ahead, print out some coloring pages (specific to whatever animals we'd be reading about), and the kids would color while I read aloud.  I'm still undecided about what we'll do this year.  I just ordered this book--

-simply because it seems right up our nature-study-alley, and I thought it might give us some fresh inspiration.  We'll decide soon what science will look like next year, but I'm leaning more toward a nature study approach again.

Written narrations we do once a week- and again, much like dictation, I select a passage from one of our books: whatever we're reading at the time (history, read-aloud, one of the kids' own books, Shakespeare, etc).  I read it aloud ONCE while they listen, and then they summarize it for me in written form.  If there are places or names that are unfamiliar to them, I will put them up on the dry erase board for them.

I am ALWAYS surprised by how much they write.  I expect a paragraph, and they will easily give me a page to a page and a half.  I love reading these narrations.

A written narration requires a bit of time (about half-hour) and little to no interruptions, so honestly?  I skip this more than I'd like to admit, because it's just difficult to have such quiet around here!  But that's how we do it when we do it!

***

Next up:  School Planning 101

First day of school

We just wrapped up our first day of school.  We're easing into it this year, so we aren't doing every single subject this first week, but this is what today looked like:

We woke the kids up at 7:45.  (This is the first time we've done this.  Every other school year we've let them all sleep until they wake and then we begin school-- which just meant that some days we were starting breakfast really late.)   This way we can maximize our morning time, which is when we do most of our work.

Breakfast was at 8:30, and Mark had asked the kids to do three things by the time they came to breakfast:
-make your beds
-get dressed
-have a 10-minute devotional time

We hope our kids will have a habit of spending time with Jesus before they leave our home, so we're providing a morning time for them to have devotions this year.

For the little girls (5 and 4):
I set out a basket in the living room containing children's Bibles along with some paper and colored pencils, and we showed them their "spots" on the couches last night and talked about sitting quietly and looking through the Bibles or coloring during that time.

For the older kids (11, 8 and 8):
They each took their Bibles and found a spot to read or pray.  Toward the end of that time I heard Ella singing some hymns from our bedroom (where she'd settled herself) and it so delighted me to hear that early on in our day.  :)  Isaac told me later he'd read the first chapter of Genesis, the first chapter of Matthew, and three Psalms.  Fabulous!  Isaias read the words to some hymns and then prayed.

I nestled in on the couch next to Audra with my Bible during that time, but ended up hearing all about every.single.picture she was looking at, which was perfectly fine with me.  :)  It was a sweet time.

I made pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins for breakfast-, and we also had bacon and hot cocoa (with whipped cream).  I set the table last night and had made some paper place mats for each of the kids, so they were excited to see those and they all ended up hanging their place mats on their walls after breakfast.  :)

Ella's place mat, now on her wall.

During breakfast we read from Hurlbut's and did narrations.  This is the way I've been doing narrations: I've assigned each child a colored bead and then I shake them in my hand and draw one.  For example, Ella's color is pink, so if I draw the pink bead, she begins narrations until I tell her to stop.  Then I draw another bead, and work my way through all five.  Sometimes I switch it up and have them draw a picture or make a little booklet of the Bible story we've read that day, or act it out- but those types of narrations take longer, so most of the time we just do a verbal narration using the beads for "turns".

I keep this by our table for easy narrations.  (Toothpick in a ball of playdough to hold the beads when we're not using them.)

We played some classical music while we did after-breakfast chores, and then the plan was that I would do storytime with the little girls on the couch while the older three finished up their chores.  But Ella, Isaac and Isaias all zipped through their chores so that they could be there, too, so we all gathered on the couch and read picture books from our latest trip to the library.

Then the older three headed to the table to do some math.  They're all doing Rod & Staff this year.  Mark and I decided to limit math time to 20 minutes.  This is to keep their lessons short and to keep their attention focused.  (I'm hoping this will limit the dawdling and doodling and staring off into space during math time.  So this year it's: "Here is your work.  You have 20 minutes to complete this lesson." - and it's their responsibility to be attentive and complete it in the time allotted.

While the older kids did math, I sat with the little girls in the living room and did 20 minutes of school with them.  We put stickers on a big letter A and Adelia and I practiced forming A's.  First we traced a sandpaper letter A and then formed A's on a rice tray, and then she wrote a couple.) 

Adelia is definitely behind Audra in these types of things, though she's a full year older.  Audra has been writing her name (and all sorts of other things) for well over a year but Adelia struggles to make one legible letter- and gives up easily and with frustration.  Generally she's quite too busy to sit still and work on anything for longer than 2 seconds, so that's part of it.  But I can tell it bothers her and I know she lacks confidence, so we're working on her letters, one by one- and with lots of encouragement.

some of our memory work pages

Then we all began memory work.  Instead of the memory work box we've done for several years, each of the kids now have their own memory work binder.  Each binder has a "review" tab, containing all of the things we've memorized over the years, as well as the new stuff we're memorizing.  The binders were a big hit.  The kids were amazed to see all they've memorized, and it's nice for the older three to be able to read along with me as we do so, and Adelia and Audra just felt pretty special that they had binders just like the big kids.  :)

memory work: catechism

Are you familiar with the Clarkson's Our 24 Family Ways?  Mark and I used that as a springboard to make our own family ways.  We used many of theirs but tweaked it a bit- adding some different verses, omitting a few and adding some of our own.  So we're introducing these week by week and discussing them.  We'll memorize verses to go with them for our new memory work this year.

We then worked on a little history- introduced the ancients and did a little reading about the Egyptians, and the kids all chose books from our history book bin on Egypt and looked at them for awhile, and then we were done for the day.

It was just after 11 when we finished so we played games: UNO, Apples to Apples, and a few of the kids started a game of Risk.

Next week we'll add in copywork, dictation, written narrations, science, picture study, poetry, some Shakespeare, notebooking, and geography. (And maybe a few other things that I'm forgetting at the moment.)

It was a wonderfully peaceful day, and I am thankful. Oh, and BONUS: I got all the ingredients for beef stew in the crockpot by 1:00, so we'll have yummy stew later tonight for dinner. 

Not super tasty-looking when it's all uncooked, but give it 5 hours and it will look good!

Ella ran out to the garden to get me some of her carrots for our stew, and she came in exclaiming that this carrot was "fair-worthy" so I took a picture.  :)

Narration from a four-year-old

We're not schooling through the summer, but we do continue narrating after we've read something.  I begin with one child, let them talk for a minute or two, and then call on another child to pick up where they left off.  We're reading about Abram.  Yesterday, I began with this passage from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible:

He journeyed far up the great river Euphrates to the mountain region, until he came to a place called Haran, in a country called Mesopotamia.  The word Mesopotamia means "Between the rivers"; and this country was between the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

I read several other paragraphs, and then it was time for narration.  I wrote a few of the words on the dry erase board: Euphrates, Haran, Mesopotamia- to help the kids recall the trickier words.

I asked Audra (4) to start.  This is what she said:

"Well.  There was this big bird...."

I must have looked puzzled because she stopped, mid-narration.  I was thinking that generally she listens so well and is actually able to retell what we read fairly accurately, but figured she must be being silly-- and yet, the look on her face was so earnest (not a silly look at all), so I was puzzled.  Finally I said, "Well, honey.  There wasn't a bird in this story."

My astute eight-year-old (Isaias) didn't miss a beat and said:  "I know what she's talking about, mommy.  She's talking about Haran.  You know: the bird?  A heron?"  

AHA!

"Oh, honey.  Now mommy understands.  Good job!  It is the same sounding word, but the Haran in this story is a place, not a bird."

Satisfied, she continued her narration:

"...and there was a river with tigers there!"

(Tigers = Tigris) :)



I love four-year-olds.

Planning for next year

I had an hour in a coffee shop all by myself the other day and I used it to begin a list in my journal in regards to school for next year.  Before the list-making, I prayed that God would lead us, that He would order our steps and make my time effective; that I wouldn't plan or invest time in what we won't end up doing.  I prayed that He would give me wisdom to discern what we can do, what will work for us, and what is important.  I prayed that He would reveal His desires for our school year to me and that He would show me where we can grow and how we can manage our time better.

Then I began jotting things down, focusing on what we missed this past year (or did too little of or things I just want to do more of) and what I see as growth areas for us.

Here is the list I made, with any notes in italics with further explanations:

-picture study  We made it through exactly ONE artist this year, to my chagrin.  This is due to poor planning on my part.
-classical music/composer study
-nature study/science  I'm ordering some Apologia for next year.
-narration  We do a lot of informal narrations, and Ella and I worked on written narrations once a week, but I want to continue to grow in this with all the kids.  It's one of my goals to read up on this in our off-season and get re-inspired.  *Any and all narration tips welcome.  :)
-read-alouds (more reading with little girls); and be more purposeful in choosing books.  I've found this year that a lot of the books in our book bin are our history-related picture books, which aren't of particular interest to the girls.  We own many wonderful books and I just need to put them out.
-more directive time w/ our history read-alouds: discussion, projects
-memory work and retention  Especially retention.  I'm contemplating this system or something like this.
-prep ahead of time: any coloring pages for the kids to color during our reading time
-devotions- work on developing habits for the older kids to be reading the Bible on their own
-handiwork diligence (for Ella)- to see a project through to completion
-Shakespeare
-piano practice- (for Ella)- move to earlier in the day
-Ella- girlhood stuff  I've been perusing this book and trying to figure out how to work some of that into Ella's schooling next year.
-compile a list of classics with Mark that we'd like the kids to read before they leave our home
-read inspiring books myself: good literature/classics and homeschooling encouragement.  Right now I'm reading both A Thomas Jefferson Education and A Charlotte Mason Companion (both excellent!) and have been reminded again how important it is for me to read books that encourage and inspire me in the education of my children.
-compile assigned reading lists for Isaias
-schedule less read-alouds for me to get through with the kids- Now that we're nearing the end of our school year I'm realizing that I have way too many history read-alouds to get through.  Better to schedule less and then add on as we go.

So that's the list.  This list will surely be added onto and then eventually will morph into another list, than another... and eventually it will become a TO DO list that I'll start checking off.  Mark and I already had a long conversation about the above list, me sharing with him what I see as our growth areas and asking him to think and pray about these things with me [and help me find solutions!]

* * *

Regarding one of those list items, read inspiring books myself:  I would love to hear some of your favorites.  Many of you who read here are also homeschooling mothers.  Are there books that you keep going back to for homeschooling inspiration or encouragement?  Also, what books do you recommend for young moms who are either newly considering homeschooling or beginning their homeschooling journey?  Let's get a good list going in the comments.  I know there are readers who would appreciate this!

Narration ideas

So often when my kids do narrations I forget that it can be so much more than simply a verbal retelling of what we've read.

Yesterday when I was cleaning out some stuff I came across these notes* I once jotted down of narration ideas, so I'm putting them here on the blog in case I need to find them again someday, and in case this list might help some of you!

You can have your child...

...Draw a picture
...Set up a scene with toys, and verbally act it out
...Put on a paper doll production
...Do a skit/play
...Draw/sketch the story on the dry-erase board or chalkboard, explaining what happened
...Create 3-5 questions and then have one of their siblings answer (or you!)

The times where I have varied it up are the most memorable times-- and the ones the kids still talk about. A few things we have done for creative narrations...

-After we've read something from the Bible or our history book, I've said, "Okay. Now act it out!" And off they go... choosing parts, playing it out, asking for their "lines".

-I have had them recreate a scene/story with LEGOS or Playmobiles.

-I've had them draw pictures.

When I found that list again yesterday, I was encouraged to get creative with our narrations for next year. And since I'm madly working on my "Master Schedule" for next year, I may even *schedule* what creative method I'll ask them to do for each narration.

Are there other things you've done in your home for narrations that I can add to my list?


*I can't remember where I read/gleaned these ideas from. I'm not even sure these are all from the same source. But if you have seen this list elsewhere, please do let me know so that I can credit the source!

School after breakfast: Narrations

The whole idea behind narration is that a child will more fully absorb what they have read or heard read to them if they narrate it, or tell it back.

Children do this quite naturally. For example, when Mark comes home from work, Ella immediately begins giving him a rundown of what's been happening. Isaac will come alongside of him and explain what he's been building or creating. Someone is always filling him in on what we've read during storytime. The retelling of events happens throughout our day.

The way we've done narrations is just an extension of this. Mark is able to join us for lunch each day, and so a couple of times a week I will ask one of the kids to tell daddy about what we read in either our history book or what we read from the Bible. I then furiously type as they tell.

Here are a few examples over the last several months:

So when the angel Gabriel came to Mary they talked to each other for awhile and then he said you’re going to have a baby and then she was happy and then she went to her friends house at Elizabeths and then they talked for awhile and stuff. Then when John growed up he was a baptism and then that’s the end.
{Isaac, age 5}

The following two entries show Isaac, then Ella, narrating the same passage:

So there was this king who was in Judah and he did mean things and he set up idols and people worshipped them and stuff and the Assyrian army came and captured him and then they went back and then when he was in prison he prayed to the Lord and then the Lord got him out and then he came back to people but they were still worshipping idols and he tore the idols down! And it was just an amazing story. {Isaac, age 5}

There was a man named Hezekiah and when he died he had a son named Manasseh and Manasseh became king when he was 12 years old and Manasseh was a very very evil king and he worshipped idols and made idols and he worshipped the idols in God’s palace that Solomon built. Then one day when he was doing these evil evil things and making people worship idols, the Assyrian army attacked him and took him away. When he was in the jail and being treated by brutal treating, he prayed to God and God made him free and he went back and God even let him sit on I think Solomon's throne and he shouted “Break all the idols!” and he tore down all the idols and he told people to worship the only God and instead of just saying “I would really really like it if you obeyed my God, instead he said: You can ONLY obey the one God.” And so they did. But some of the people still didn’t do that. And it was a very amazing story because it showed about God’s forgiveness. And he started to obey in his father Hezekiah’s ways. And that’s the end. {Ella, age 7}

And here's one of Isaias' narrations, at age 4:

Um, so... they helped Jesus on the boat and they started sailing on the water and pretty soon a big storm came and they were frightened and then they woke up and Jesus said “Master” and then pretty soon he said peace, and let the waves be still and they were still. And then they said to each other, how could the waves obey this man? And then pretty soon they kept sailing.

My only rule with narrations is that I don't interrupt a child to correct him/her. Even if Ella interrupts her own narration to say, "Mommy, I don't remember his name. Can you tell me his name?" I ask her to tell what she DOES remember, and continue with her narration. When a child is done speaking, I generally point out their errors~ (or sometimes I don't have to: one of the other kids will usually do it for me!) Sometimes I will mention, "Oh, I'm surprised you didn't tell about this part", and offer a few details of something they missed. Other than that, they are free to sift and sort the information they heard and retell it as they remember it.

This is an area I'd really like to see us grow in. Ideally, I'd like to have these 'formal' narrations occur daily around here, but in this season this is what we're able to do, and I'm fine with that.

Next year I will have Ella begin writing narrations. She does this now by way of a book report for each book she reads, but we haven't done it for our school subjects yet.



I think this officially ends the school series! I'll post Ella's 2009 book list soon and may briefly talk about Isaias' Super Star Speech at some point, but that's it for the official subjects/areas we cover. Thank you for putting up with this long and rambling series on what we do for school. :) It's been fun for me to write!