Please review this narration….

Blue Willow Chapters 1-almost the end of 4

In the beginning of Blue Willow, this family, the Larkins, just moved into this shack-like home.   It’s one room, no bath (cause this is in the 1930’s-40’s, somewhere after the Great Depression, it was still kind of “depressed”) and they figured the place was abandoned, so they went ahead and moved in.  They also figured they wouldn’t have to pay rent and got lucky. There was a family across the street, the Romeros, and they became friends quite quickly.  The Larkins had one child, Janey, a petite 10 yo girl. The Romeroes had 3 kids named Lupe, Robert, and the baby, Betty.  Janey’s dad worked for 2 dollars a day at a farm, which is why they moved to this place, because the Larkins had to move wherever there was work for Mr. Larkin (so they moved a lot).  The Romero family lived across this dirt, path, street thing, for an entire year, which for the Larkins, was pretty impressive.  Lupe and Janey quickly became friends and one day Lupe came over to ask Janey if she wanted to go to the fair with them because today kids get in free.   Mrs. Romero was taking the car because Mr. Romero had a friend take him to work, so they were free to do what they wanted with the car.  Mrs. Romero gave Jenny an entire nickel to spend at the fair.  This nickel was Janey’s first very own money.  Jenny was excited and they were off on a 25 mile journey to Fresno where the fair was held.  They spent the entire afternoon at the fair where they had a great time.  Jenny bought a pack of bubblegum with her 5 cents, which she then shared with all the Romeros that were there and her family.  The next day was not so satisfying. That morning her father came home quite too early and said a lay off was necessary and he wouldn’t have any work for 3 or 4 days.  (At this point, the Larkins have lived there for a week.)  A truck drove up to inspect the windmill which was a little way away from their house.  He was driving back and was nearly passed the Larkins house-shack thing, but then stopped, got out of his car (with the motor still running) and went to see if people were actually living there.  So, Mr. Larkin, since he was home, answered the door.  This man told him, since he lived here he would have to pay rent, $5 a month.   So the Larkins gave the landowner $5 of hard-earned dollars to the landowner. 

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Now I haven’t instructed my 12yo ds in paragraphing and such, we’re still working on basic narration.  I do need to decide on a “program” for essay writing (thinking Jump In, I just reviewed a sample from their website and I like what I see so far), but we’re still working on some basic skills.  I know I’ve shared narrations in the past and I guess I enjoy the feedback since I don’t have anyone in my circle of friends whom I could share this method with (at least not any his age/grade).  He still seems to “give” more when he narrates orally, so we’re sticking with that for a bit longer (he does have some assignments coming that are going to require more actual writing on his part along with our reg. lang. arts).

Anyway, I’m not reading this book with him so I don’t know what details he may have left out, plus, this is a narration from several short chapters when I usually have him narrate after each chapter.  He is enjoying this book and read more before I had a chance to ask for a narration.

I can’t express enough how much this site/forum has given me/us in our homeschooling journey.  I may have given up or pulled my hair out if I had not stumble upon this site/method when I did.  You are all such a blessing to me. Thanks in advance for your replies.