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Sharing narrations
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I was wondering if we could set up a place where we could share examples of our children’s narrations. I think it would be helpful to see what’s narration looks like in other homeschools ( at least it would be helpful to me). I think it would be best to give a short synopsis of the assignment or at least what the book was and the general age category of the child ( maybe just lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school or high school) and whether it is an oral or written narration.
Ok I’ll go first. Here is a written narration from my upper elementary boy: source was an “I wonder why book”
A hurricane forms when hot air spirils up. As the air spirils upwords it gets hotter, which makes it spin faster and faster, until a hurrican is formed.
(PS I left in the spelling mistakes so you see them- it seemed only honest to do so).
Here’s a written narration from my middle school girl. Source is an article from Science Daily.
A new planet has been found with earth-like qualities. The new planet is called Giliese 832C and is 16 light years away. Giliese 832C takes just 16 days to orbit it’s red-dwarf star. Even though it passes so close to its mother star water can still exist on the planet. The water can exist because the red-dwarf star is smaller and cooler than our sun. Giliese 832C was discovered because it’s mass was pulling on the mother star. The red-dwarf star was actually being wobbled slightly. If Gliese 832C has an atmosphere that is similar to that on earth it could sustain life. Because of the earth like features it has been named one of the top 3 earth like planets. Dispute all of the proof that Giliese 832C could sustain life because of its gravity, it probably has a very large atmosphere. Having a large atmosphere would make Gliese 832C a very hot planet because it would trap heat in with its large atmosphere. So, dispite being earth like Gliese 832C could not sustain life.
Again I type it up as written.
I look forward to see others narrations.
Lindsey
This is from my almost 9 yr old DD, who started written narrations about a month ago when we set up her own blog. She has the advantage of spell check, when she bothers to pay attention to the little red lines under misspelled words!
Viking Tales, Part 7
King Harald had most of Norway under his control, and some of the other kings did not like that. So they went to war with him, this time, the war was on ships. When the two ships pulled along side each other, they started fighting. King Harald was losing. He was on the deck, watching the battle. When he saw that he was losing, he ran down from the deck shouting” Harald and victory! Harald and victory!” When Harald’s men heard that, they fought harder. When the other king’s men heard that, they were scared. So they sailed away as fast as they could.
Joanne
I’ll try to remember to come back to this post and add some from the kids later in the morning! Following this post too!
Oral Narration, Daniel, age 6. He’s nearly finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe independently.:
The witch had been killed in the book I’m reading for 30 minutes. Edmund killed her when they were doing battle. The witch had lots of wicked creatures with her in the battle. They were fighting against those who believed in Aslan. When the witch got killed I was glad because she was bad. Edmund fought with a sword. I think it would be fun to fight with a sword. I would have fought for Aslan.
Oral Narration, Emma, age 8. She is reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.:
Professor Umbrage is a really mean lady. She found out about the students meeting in the Room of Requirement. When they were in there they were practicing spells because if there was an attack they wanted to be ready. Since Umbrage came to the school there have been a lot of new rules. One rule is that the students are not allowed to practice spells. She also made a rule that they were not allowed to have clubs. So the students did a secret club called Dumbldore’s Army. They meet in the Room of Requirement because noone really comes in there. In classrooms people could just walk right in and find the club meeting. Besides, they need a big space.
When I stopped reading Professor Umbrage was taking Harry to Dumbledore’s office. I think Harry is going to get in big trouble. I think Dumbledore, the headmaster, is going to try and help Harry though.
Oral narration, Joseph, age 9. He’s been reading the Percy Jackson series and is in the third book, The Titan’s Curse.:
Whats happened recently in Percy Jackson is that the oracle has made her prophecy. The oracle is this mummy that usually sits on a three legged stool in the attic of the big house. The mummy came to where the campers were playing capture the flag. She had green smoke coming out of her mouth. It sounds like two people are going to die. The prophecy says five shall go west to the goddess in chains, one shall perish in the land without rain, and more things. The five are supposed to find the goddess and save her. The five who are going are Grover, a saytr, Thalia, a camper, Zoe Nightshade, a Huntress for the Goddess Artemes, Bianca Di Angelo, another Huntress, and a third huntress. Percy wanted to go too, but they had reached the number five. You don’t mess with prophecies and bring too many people.
I think I would go on the quest if I were in the book. It would be fun and I could fight lots of monsters and hopefully not die.
Makayla, age 13, combination written and oral narration. She created a Venn diagram comparing two characters from a book series she read (Pendragon), then narrated orrally using that as her springboard.
Bobbie Pendragon and Saint Dane are both characters in the Pendragon series. They both are smart boys who are travelers. Travelers can move from one territory to another through time and space. They protect and help the people in the territories. Or at least they are supposed to. Bobbie and Saint Dane have very different goals. Saint Dane is trying to find the turning point of each territory, which will throw everything into chaos for that territory. Bobbie is going from territory to territory with other travelers. They are trying to figure out the turning point before Saint Dane so they can stop him. A turning point is an event, for example in First Earth, set in 1937, the turning point is the crash of the Hindinberg. At first the good travelers think they are supposed to not let it crash. But they realize they are suposed to let it crash because they are not supposed to change history that much. Saint Dane is trying to change history because then different people live and that changes everthing that happened after, not just for that territory, but for other territories too. It changes everything in unpredictable ways, causing chaos. That will make it easier for Saint Dane to take over and what he wants most is to be in charge of everyone and everything. Bobbie wants to preserve the territories the way they are, the protect the people living in them, which is why he and Saint Dane are on opposite sides of the conflict.
There you go! Narrations from today by the four old enough for me to require narrations. Enjoy!
Thank you Joanne and Tristan. I enjoyed reading your kids narrations and I think they all gave great narrations. I hope more people will join in the sharing.
Lindsey
This is from my oldest daughter, age 10, grade 5. Her instructions were to read the Bible story I picked out (Samuel) and give me a written narration.
Hannah prayed for a son and God heard her, and gave her a son. She called his name Samuel. When he was old enough, she took him to the temple and gave him to God, by giving him to Eli, the Preist to raise in a Godly way. One night, while Eli and Samuel were sleeping, Samuel heard a voice. So he got up and woke Eli saying, “Why do you want me? Eli said, I did not call you. Go back to bed. Two more times this happened and on the third time, Eli said, If you hear it agian, say “Speak, Lord your servant heareth.” So he said it, and God said that Eli’s sons were very bad. So God was going to punish them. Later in life, Smauel annoionted Saul as King, because the Isralites wanted a king and were not satisfied with God as their king.
{All spelling and syntax errors are just as she wrote them. I LOVE the “She called his name Samuel” – reminiscent of Mary and baby Jesus.}
Can I have some feedback, please? Is this what you’d expect? How about paragraphs? How/ when shall I teach her to separate thoughts? (I thought I taught this – but evidently I didn’t do it well enough.)
Thanks!
Karen-I think your daughter’s narration is lovely. 🙂 How long has she been writing her narrations? I wouldn’t correct anything if she’s only recently begun written narrations but give her time to get used to it first. Then I’d only make 1 or 2 gentle corrections per narration so as not to frustrate her. She’s doing great IMO.
Daughter 13, narrating from her Science Literature book “The Sound of Wild Snail Eating” by telling all the facts she learns from a reading. (uncorrected here)
Snails (at least the snail in this book) cannot eat a concoction of cornstarch, water and another ingredient. The author tryed it and her snail had very bad indigestion. Snails like dead vegetation. They are decomposers. Very rarely do they eat from live plants and if they do, they will eat old decaying or withered parts of the plant. Snails like fungi and will eat mushrooms, even ones toxic to humans. The roots of fungi are a particularly enjoyed snack. Snails will investigate new foods with their lower tenacles and then take a tiny bite. If no bad symptoms occur, the snail will eat more. A snail can drink water with it’s mouth or absorb water through it’s foot. This is called food drinking. A snail loves cellulose which is why the snail in this book ate paper. Snails need soil. it gives them the calcium they need. In fact snails are the olny land animals able to smell calcium. Snails change what they eat based on what nutrients they need at the time.
Daughter 13, narration from The Story of Science Chapter 23, by telling what she heard from my reading it aloud – a “tell all” narration. (uncorrected here)
Albert Einstein will probably always be remembered for E=mc2. This is the equation that told us that mass could be converted into energy and vice versa. How can a rock be full of potential energy? How can a table be full of potential energy? It’s not too far fetched after the “Everything is made of tiny things we call atoms. By the way they are mostly empty space!” idea, but still it was (and is) monumentous. Einstein’s equation migh seem to blow all common sense and science out of the roof, but it actually doesn’t. Well, not completely. Perhaps it will always defy common sense, but science it does not. The energy conservation law and the mass conservation law may seem like they don’t work with E=mc2, but in fact they not only work with E=mc2; but are united in it. The mass conservation law states that mass can neither be created nor destroyed. E=mc2 combines this and the energy conservation law to say that energy can be converted into mass and vice versa but neither can be destroyed.
Son 11, narration from his Science Biography book Giants of Science: Leonardo da Vinci Chapter 3, by telling what he read – a “tell all” narration. (uncorrected here)
In the age of the reasance people did not live very long. If you were thirty you wer considered old. However Leonardo was the complete opisit, he lived a very long life. One of the the the things he was always facinated with was the Human eye. He wrote about them, disced them, and study them. He was (At the time) one of the best sientist of his era.
Son 11, narration from his Science Biography book Giants of Science: Leonardo da Vinci Chapter 4, by telling what he read – a “tell all” narration. (uncorrected here)
Leonardo was always thinking. He was also always inventing. In His twenies he moved to Milan and studied and invented there. He had several jobs before he came to start building and inventing on his own. Leonardo wrote and drew many things includeing lots of things we use today. He was facinated with Acamides screw and many other things.
Son 11, narration from The Story of Science Chapter 23, by telling what he heard from my reading it aloud – a “tell all” narration. (uncorrected here)
The equation e=mc2 is one of the most well known eqations ever. In the eqation E = energy and m = mass. What it means is that mass can be chaged to energy and Energy can be changed to mass. This formula is acally for a nuclear bomd.
I’ve never shared narrations before. I’m kind of having mixed feelings after having typed them but I appreciate the honesty and sharing of others here so I felt I should do so as well. Especially since I’ve asked narration questions on this forum. Typing these was interesting to me. I used the same dates for both kids and in the one case the same reading. That was interesting! I don’t read their narrations back to back and have never compared them on one page like this …. very interesting. They have such different learning styles.You can certainly see my son’s struggles with spelling! He is all about FAST when he works. I think much of what happens to him in writing is because of that speed and that his hand does not go as fast as his brain is going. When I ask him to spell a word I notice he’s misspelling he will look up and spell it for me perfectly! Never realizing that he’s misspelling it on what he is working on. I am careful and selective on which and how often we correct narrations because I don’t want to squelch his enthusiasm.
Hope these are interesting to someone or better yet helpful in some way!
I had the hardest time typing these up the way they wrote them. I may have made a mistake here or there. Both kids thought that was funny – lol.
Okay – reading the other students’ narrations has put my mind at ease!
Thank you all for your thoughts on my daughter’s narration, and for sharing your students’ narrations.
Here is ds10.5’s written narration from yesterday’s reading of Jamestown: The Perilous Adventure, Chapter 12:
“Two ships! Ships! Two Ships!” shouted the lookout. Everyone ran out of Jamestown to the dock. There, out in the ocean, two white blobs were floating toward them. The Captain (not Smith) looked hopefully and unsurely at the ships. He was hopeing that they were English, but they could be Spanish vessels. Just in case, he armed his men for the night. The next morning, English flags fluttered from the Sea Venture! Finally it had come with supplies and more colenists. Admiral Somers was the leader for this fleet. That night, he told the old settlers about the hurricane that had attacked their ship. One ship had been lost in the storm. The men almost drowned in the water that rose 5 feet deep in the hull. Finally, when they were about to give themselves up, Somers had cryed out, “Land! Land!” They had tossed overboard the luggage and supplies to make the ship lighter dureing the storm. But that didn’t matter now. A baby had been born during the voyage. But little Bermuda Rolfe wasen’t with her parents. Her tiny grave was with the other adult graves back at Bermuda.
Here is dd9’s written narration of Who’s Saying What in Jamestown, Thomas Savage? Chapters 3 and 4:
Englishmen were planning to leave. Pocahontas was to go with them. She wanted to learn Christianity. Her tutor was Jhon Rulfe. Soo they fell in L-O-V-E!!! They got maried! Thomas Henry, a German boy was trying to escape the Indians But the Indians took a hachet Buried it into the German, boy’s head! (I hate that part!) The two other boy’s escaped! (That’s good!)
As you can see, dd is very expressive of her own feelings in her narrations and enjoys liberal use of parentheses. LOL
I’ve never shared narrations before. I’m kind of having mixed feelings after having typed them but I appreciate the honesty and sharing of others here so I felt I should do so as well. Especially since I’ve asked narration questions on this forum. Typing these was interesting to me. I used the same dates for both kids and in the one case the same reading. That was interesting! I don’t read their narrations back to back and have never compared them on one page like this …. very interesting. They have such different learning styles.
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