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AiG in practice
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Hi Ladies,
I know some of you use AiG elementary science and I am hoping to find out how you use it. I really like the information, but a lot of it is new to me. So I am trying to gauge what really needs to be the take away…is it whatever they narrate? Do you use the quizzes/worksheets? It is hard for me not to assess what they know by using the quizzes. @misceegee can you please chime in? We are doing Heaven and Earth this year. Kids are 7th, 6th, 3rd.
We are using it for all the kids but my high schooler (so 5th, 4th, 2nd, 1st, with two preschoolers and a toddler tagging along). What I do is read the lesson aloud, let them narrate, and then we use it as a jumping off point for exploring the topic in library books. I gather library books for 6 weeks at a time so, for example, when we reached the lesson on seeds in World of Plants we then spent several days enjoying books like A Fruit is a Coat for Seeds, A Seed is Sleepy, and so on. I don’t do quizzes. Sometimes I invite the kids to notebook something they’ve learned (drawing a picture then narrating and I write their words on the back of the picture or they write if they are old enough).
What do you use as the starter question for narration? We are doing World of Plants now and I’m at at a loss for how to word a narration question, or what to expect for a narration on, say, cells (for a 4th grader).
I am going to have my dd do a narration that I will copy down for her from each section as a replacement for the quizzes. Dh is not willing to go without some form of having her demonstrate what she’s learned. Last year we used heaven and earth and I had to write my own quizzes as they were way too difficult for her and he wouldn’t hear of not having tests.
Sometimes I have them copy the orange words for copywork. Sometimes we discuss it based on the red questions or they write the answers to those questions for the practice of answering the question while integrating the question in the answer.
I occasionally use the quizzes to assess where I can improve. I just had the thought of using the quizzes to form narration points. Instead of me looking at the quiz at the end of the section, look at it lesson one and use that to hit the main points.
Okay, I’m going to tell you a few different things and I’m NOT going to give you links because if I do this post is likely to end up caught in the spam trap. So you’ll have to do a bit of clicking to actually get to these.
First, SCM has a free narration bookmark that has prompt ideas on it. You’ll find it in the Bookstore under Free Resources, called Narration Bookmark.
Second, they have a great page with alternative narration ideas that include but also go beyond just speaking or writing. To find it use the search bar at the very bottom of the page (next to the You Tube symbol) and search Narration Ideas. There will be two posts showing up, both are the same thing.
Third, and probably most important in the end, is to read the entire blog series on Narration Q&A. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 posts and covers so many narration related questions. You can find that by hovering over Learn & Discuss at the top of the page, click on Learning Library. Then click on Article Series. The 24th series is Narration Q&A. Click on that. (You’ll also see another series near the top of the page, 5 Steps to Successful Narration, that is worth a peek.)
🙂 There you have it! Those are the things that have grounded me in what possibilities there are in narration. I go back to those and reread when I feel like we could improve our narration efforts in some way.
We used the animals book last year. Some of the worksheets were really good. Many of them had my DC drawing animals or labeling diagrams. I thought it was really helpful for them, and they love drawing anyway. We used the discussion questions at the end of each lesson. Some days we just did narration. We also did a few of the extra projects. Some days we’d follow up with a youtube video. We used the tests/quizzes as an oral review. I’d look at the questions and ask them what they remembered about bird feathers or the parts of an insect. Sometimes we went through the true/false questions.
We didn’t do every quiz or worksheet. I looked at them ahead of time and only printed them out if I felt that they weren’t just busywork. As far as quizzes, I’m sure just some narration and end-of-term questions would be plenty…I’d probably just do that if we use AIG again (which we probably will).
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