Questions about Module 2 history and TruthQuest history

I can help with one and four, but not the rest.  =)

Yes, you could easily combine the lessons, generally I think that the Bible ones are short and easy to combine – I am less concerned that they will miss something out of it, since Bible study is repeated life-long, and ancient history is not. 

We have a notebook for History, Geography and Science, since they are so intertwined. There are dividers for those subjects inside. I keep the written/pictures narrations for everything we do in this subject in here.

Some days I just have them draw a picture of the story using as many details as they can remember, then write a “title”.  Other days we write our narrations, then illustrate it. Somedays they narrate to me aloud.  I want them to be able to do it from all the angles.  Sometimes we just narrate the idea that we live there, so tell me what would be happening to you right now.  It makes my olders think about it more personally. 

For example, we are doing Mod 1.  We just read about how they lived in tents in the desert,  I have them pretend that they are there, and using details we read, tell me what they would be doing and how.  They like that.  I just know they were listening.  heehee  For a review or exam on this, I would probably prompt with something like: When we pretended we lived in the tents during Abraham’s time in the OT, tell me what you had to do to have food, clothes, animals, water, tents, etc.  I don’t know how strictly CM that prompt is, but it will show me what they remembered, while giving them something to start with.  =)

They can use the markers, crayons, colored pencils in their narrations (drawing part), but have to use a pen or pencil and nice handwriting in the written part. 

Our oral lessons are usually 10-15 minutes of reading and then about 10-20 minutes of writing and illustrating.  I do help with some writing.  This doen’t include any additional personal reading, although sometimes I have them do it for that assigment too.

I do not have them write or draw every lesson.  We do that about twice a week.

Enjoy the notebooking as a fun way to enrich your narrations, but don’t accidently make it into a workbook texty thing, since that defeats the whole CM thing.  =)  
 

I can’t give you a concrete “this is what I always do” because a lot of my choice of narration for the day depends on everyone’s mood, attitude, attention levels, and cooperating littles.  I think that if you are doing an actual story – it kind of lends itself to a drawing.  If it is about a person and their character or choices or something like that, a written/drawn is good.  Really it depends on the lessons.  Also, I haven’t plugged it into my lessons as anything more than “narration” because no matter which method we use, they are still narrating.  If I had to put it in plans, I would just jot it down on my printed schedule for the day, and add it in before I clicked worked on or finished in the organizer.  (I am using the organizer and still figuring out my abilities with it).  If you kept track of the days you choose for this for a couple of weeks, then you would have a bit of how and when it works best for your family.  You could look ahead at the lessons and plan accordingly.  =)

There are tons of notebooking pages out there, but I am finding the good generic ones (with places to write and draw) are becoming our favorite because we can use them for both history and science.  I just have a file folder with a few different designs already printed and have them choose from it, which allows them to choose the style they want that day.

Just reread your post – if you want to schedule it as a “permanent” date, use the day of the week that the history lesson appears in the Mod. 2 schedule.  Then choose one lesson from the Bible each week, depending on the lesson.  I tried to say that we were doing geography on Tues and History on Thurs, but that is not how it worked out in mod 1,  So my next thing was to stay loose enough to follow the lessons in the mod, and just remember each week as you were hitting the history one to notebook it.  Your idea to do the Greek thing would probably work great, since it is once a week. 

Also, I have them occasionally watch documentaries on history or animals and notebook those.  The rule is that they have to remember at least as many details about it as they are in levels of school.  I find (generally) as we write/draw it sparks more details then it does sometimes if they are just orally narrating.