Narrations

Every school day is a bit different, aside from one thing: Narrations. They're like pulling teeth, but I hear they have their payout in the end.

A Narration is " ‘a question that the mind puts to itself’."

We do different readings every day, today we read part of "The Bronze Ring" from The Blue Fairy Book. 

Narrations are a big part of the Charlotte Mason Method, and it goes like this: I read a chapter, passage, paragraph, etc...to Alejandro and have him recall the story back to me afterwards. He can retell the story verbally (which I do most of the time), act it out, draw it out, or re-tell it to another family member. As he gets older they turn into written narrations.

Right now Alejandro battles with his inner self, or so it seems (as he is writhing on the ground trying to "Get the words out". After about 5 minutes of him saying "it's just not for me", or "I can't say it! I can't say it!" he collects himself and gives me at least one-two short sentences of what we just read. Perfect. That is all I need. I think we need to jump back a bit and start with a more simple narration like, "Describe our walk to the grocery store, describe your favorite scene in the book, etc..." There are many tips on narrating, and I think we will sift through those to help our days.

Some sites I've compiled that help us:

http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/

http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/narration-getting-started.html

http://simplycharlottemason.com/2008/07/17/the-charlotte-mason-method-of-narration/