Urbanhomemaker
Ready to Try Narration? {
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2008-Apr-10
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Cindy Rushton is one of my most favorite homeschool authors because she makes things sound natural, doable, not burdensome. Not only that she is a fabulous communicator about everything from bible study, to homeschooling to making marriage wonderful. Cindy has organized the Ultimate Homeschool Expo for moms who want to listen and learn from over 50 speakers on about everything to do with homeschooling to home management from the convenience of your home. I hope you will read this excerpted article called Narration used by permission.Heard about narration, but wonder what it is and how to do it? Been intrigued, but what you have heard just sounds a bit too tough—like another thing to do in your busy day? Well, my dear friend, narration is as easy as A, B, C! It is as easy as talking! When you see how easy and natural narration can be, I think you will be hooked! Want to give it a chance? Here is how… Read a book to your children. Yes, why not grab a neat book today and cuddle up with your children for a nice time of reading aloud. There is something about reading aloud to anyone of any age that just nurtures and makes sweet memories. Learning becomes easy. If there is one thing that can bring life and closer relationships into the home, it is reading. In our home, we love biographies. We just love digging into the lives of great people! Right now, we are reading biographies produced by Youth with a Mission (YWAM Publishing). They are just THE BEST! Through the years, we have gone back in time with those that leave their legacy with us through the life-stories. Why not pull out a biography today? Of course, biographies are not the only great books for narrations. My son has always been a “fact” kid. He loved digging out information from non-fiction books, magazines, and research materials. He spent hours digging out information and then just poured out the information in his own “literary” style through oral narration (talking!). It was so natural! My only job as a teacher was to LISTEN! Can’t beat that! Grab a great book, cuddle up, and read! Let them retell the story to you. That brings me to the next point…listen to them retell what you read to them. Don’t make it stiff or “school-y.” Make it a relationship thing! Listen to them share what THEY are truly “getting” from the selection. Listen to what they deem as important. Goodness, all of those wonderful teachers manuals out there dig into questions that someone else deems as important. Many of those are written by adults who have lost the wonder of learning that is still locked up in our children. Their questions are not about the most interesting things in a book or material. In fact, many miss the whole point in many books or studies. They simply cannot see the great mind-food that is there! So, instead of feeling as though your children need to learn a certain amount of information, sit back and enjoy just listening to all that they are extracting from the material. It will change YOUR life! Just listening will help you to know that they are truly absorbing from their studies. You will never see education the same again! It will feed YOUR mind too! Want to Write It Down? Sure! But first… There is something in us from our school days that feels as though we need to have info recorded for education to happen. That is fine. Of course, before I tell you how, I want to caution about this. I simply LOVE paper trails. I love notebooks. I love to see LOTS of “proof” for what I do with our time. This is something I had to learn about myself as I began homeschooling. Without quite a bit of paper, I just do not always “see” what we have accomplished. If I cannot see it, I battle with feeling as though we are doing enough. Make sense? Well, you have to know this in order to understand that this is one of the reasons that we began notebooking and found notebooking to be such a blessing for our home. With notebooking, we could SEE what was really being accomplished. It helped me to relax and enjoy learning with my children. Now, with that said, all things that we do must be used as tools. We cannot let anything be set up above ministering to the hearts of our children. If we do, then it will burn them out…and most likely, it will cause us to burn out too. Ok…with that said, this is one of my greatest concerns with narrations. After years of using narration, copywork, dictation, writing books, and making lapbooks, I see the danger in feeling that everything MUST be written down. One of the best perks about narration is that it CAN be entirely oral. There are so many fruits with oral narration—teaching our children how to express their thoughts, how to present what they are learning, how to share with others what they find important, on and on. It is a wonderful preparation for public speaking. They need all of those skills throughout their education. But, there is even more to education. Even after they become great writers, keep in mind that they will always need to talk. Narration encourages us to develop a relationship with our children early—really listening to them. In the teen years, this is one of the most vital needs for our relationship with them. We need to keep them talking to us. So, as you move through the process of writing, don’t lose your children in the process. Move slow and steady. Keep them talking and sharing. Don’t sacrifice them on the “high places” of education. Ok…Now…Let’s Write It Down! You have read the book. Now, what? Either JUST listen or you can let them narrate the story while you take down the story with dictation on paper to keep in a notebook. I really want to stress that writing down narrations is a great way to train your young writers, but it can be very dangerous. Our children can share SO much more from very young ages when they share verbally. Don’t begin this step too early OR make it every day. Narration is one of those old-paths in education that has been around from the beginning of time. It is the method that God used to preserve His Word. It is the method He instructed parents to use to teach their children about Himself. It has been used all throughout history to teach, to learn, to share. Narration is in REAL LIFE...it happens naturally as you go along the way, talking with one another about life and what is being learned. What could be a more effective way to teach our children? A sure-fire method. A GREAT education. Sweet memories. Relationships. Plus! It is just that easy! So, why not dig in today??? Happy Homeschooling! Cindy About Cindy Rushton… Cindy Rushton is the hostess of the Ultimate Homeschool Expo, the very first online homeschool convention. She is recording Preview Chats for the Ultimate Homeschool Convention RIGHT NOW! Join her wonderful guests FREE for the next weeks as they count down to the Ultimate Homeschool Expo (April 28-May 3, 2008--BUT! NEVER ENDING because it is an ONLINE Convention!). Get your ticket NOW and receive her awesome A Quick Start for Notebooking Mini-Set FREE today! Check out all of the details here: { Post a Comment } { Last Page } { Page 6 of 140 } { Next Page } |
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