Exams

Christie, you already mentioned the two thoughts that I had come to mind immediately…the BOC and some sort of notebooking remembrance of what was read.  I am in the process of trying out notebooking pages that I’m making to go along with chapters from Child’s History of the World.  I am alternating making a copywork passage from a reading that is sort of a reminder of the main point of the reading or of a character quality of a person we read about with a page with a picture of what/who we read about that she can write about or narrate orally while I record her words. My dd doesn’t care to draw much right now so I am using google images to search for a simple and appropriate picture to go along with the topic read to be on the page somewhere.

I know I’ve read on Jimmie’s blog (http://www.jimmiescollage.com) about  how much her daughter enjoys lapbooking or making mini books on topics as they study different things, and this thought just came to mind as a suggestion if your daughter would like do complete something like lapbooking.  She had a post specifically about this as a form of narration.  I can’t find it on her new site at the moment, but I googled it and found it on her old site which is still up:  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Jimmie/494785/

I will be interested to hear what others suggest as we are going to start CM style exams next year.  I’d also be interested to hear what you decide to try and if it helps after your next term..

-Kim

Christie,

I’m wondering if it could be as simple as rephrasing the exam question. 

For example, my sister once gave her son the question: “Imagine you are with …(protaganist from “The Land that I Lost”, describe a day together.”  His answer was “But I would not be with him.” 

She then simply said, “Tell me all you know about Vietnam.” and got a beautiful narration rich in detail.

Later she overheard her son telling his father that he could not imagine being a white boy in Vietnam at 13, stating he probably wouldn’t leave his hut due to all the dangers present that he had not been raised around.

We’re in exam week here as well.  I asked my seven-year-old to tell me his favorite part from “The Borrowers.”  His narrations had been lively through this book so I was expecting the same at exam time.  One sentence, Christie. Here’s what he said:

“The part that I liked best was when Mrs. May smelled the hot pot.”

I shut my mouth and then had him roll the narration cube.  He then gave me quite a narration as he compared his life with Pod – one of the Borrowers.  I then had to really consider internally just what I want and expect from him.   I saw that truthfully I wanted a glorious two-page narration that would stun the superintendent when she looked at his portfolio.  I kid you not.  Yuck. 

When I was in a better place I asked my son what it was about smelling the hot pot that he liked so much.  He told me that when Mrs. May smelled the hot pot he realized that everything was going to be okay and he felt so good to finally know that the Borrowers were alive and well.

In the Kunhardt’s new book, Lincoln, Life-Size, I was really struck by this account of the Gettysburg Address:

On the day after delivering his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln received a letter from Edward Everett, the main speaker of the day.  “I should be glad,” Everett wrote, “if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Dr. Everett spoke forty pages.

Best,

Richele