Talking too much ( ME ) and need to understand the flow of a CM school day

NO!  ACK!  I know the link I shared earlier looks like lots of lapbook/binderized stuff.  That’s NOT what I mean AT ALL! 

If you’ve ever read Lindafay’s suggestions over at Charlotte Mason Help, that’s what we’re doing.  Composition notebooks with written narrations, notes, drawings that pertain to what they are learning in a subject.  I don’t forsee using clipart, lapbook kinds of things with our youngest two dc.  We did that for a short time years ago with our older children and we all agreed it was just occupation.

These are personal notebooks that the kids each design on their own to keep their observations in the various subjects that we study.  Taking a cue from Lindafay, we won’t necessarily pull out a fresh notebook for the next “grade.”  They’ll get a new one started for a new subject, or when they fill a composition book for a subject that needs to continue.

Make sense?  I’m gleaning lots of ideas from Laurie Bestvater’s book and it looks like the research she’s done on the notebooks used in the Parent’s Union Schools fits the bill for our purposes. 

Not sure that explains what we’re doing, but that’s the plan.

Helpful link:

http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/09/organizational-tools-for-grades-7-12.html

Helpful book on the topic:

The Living Page:  Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason, by Laurie Bestvater

@coralloyd  So true!  In the past, I had our older children “teach” our younger ones when they were toddlers/babies.  No, they couldn’t comprehend the process of borrowing during subtracion problems, but I encouraged them to be very careful to teach them each and every step.  It caused them to slow down and pay extra attention to the process.  Very good practice.  Our eldest daughter used oral self-teaching when she found herself stuck in her Algebra lessons with Saxon.  It was a suggestion we learned from our time using the Robinson Curriculum.  Works fairly well no matter what curriculum is used.

Sorry!  My son has pneumonia and I’ve been a little distracted.  I didn’t mean to post and then go stealth. 

@Lindsey – I had no intention of suggesting you only did a read/narrate/repeat cycle in my post.  And I don’t want to imply that I’m forcing some artificial discussion on mundane tibits of information either.  We don’t go there!  I think my point is that I have not been able to accept a booklist for individual reading as the only means to teach a period of History over a year’s time.  I know that a huge amount is learned that way.  And so I do assign individual reading in Historical literature and biographies.  But in addition to that booklist I feel I need to foster something more.  History is so rich and full and varied.  I do understand too that we are not going to learn it all nor learn it all at once.  I get that too.  This is just what works for us for History and Science. 

RE: Notebooks …. I don’t think I’m doing anything interesting really!  In year’s past we kept our work on loose sheets … compostiions here, written narrations there, math here and there, map drills here and there, drawn narrations on various sheets in various locales – you get the image.  I’d take all that and file it away.  Literally, file it away.  What good was that?

Now, I simply gave them either a notebook or a binder for each subject/group of subjects so that all their work is in one spot.  I noticed that once we did something, in the Fine Arts for example, they never looked at it again because they never saw all those papers again!  Now at least they have to see, as well as tell me orally before looking back, where we left off last or who we talked about last or what poem was studied last.   I’m hoping it offers consistency and pride in their work, etc.

Our notebooks – tabs listed:

• Fine Arts Binder – Hymn Study, Picture Study, Composer Study, Folksongs, Shakespeare, Plutarch
• Geography Binder – Maps, Blank numbered Maps, Map Drills
• Foreign Language Binder – Verbs, Vocabulary, Sentences, Translations, Notes (there may be others, each child’s is different)
• Language Arts Binder – Composition, Dictation, Copywork, Grammar, Current Events
• History Folder
• Bible Study Journal
• BOC Binder (family)
• Nature Study Sketch Book
• Science Composition Book
• Math Composition Book (son)
• Math Binder (daughter) – Notes, Daily Work

Now, in these notebooks they jot down anything they want to as well.  So, interesting articles might make it in there, or drawings they do on the subject, or a variety of other things.  The biggest advantage I see is that all their work and notes and experiment records are in one spot.  One spot that they can thumb through easily and often as they continue through the year. 

@lovethetruth – I love oral Math and Math narrations.  I was shocked to discover the power of having them narrate their Math lessons to me.  I didn’t start out doing that and it’s been a great change to our CM.  I would do a lot of oral work using David Eugene Smith’s books but I didn’t think to ask them to narrate the lesson back after they were done.