Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 2: Week 2

Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 2: Week 2

How did your first week go? Let’s jump right into week 2!

Also, be sure to check out the resources page! (Just click resources in the top navigation bar).  There are plenty of great resources under the Year 2 heading, many are even submitted from our own CSH families! Thank you to all the contributors!


Memory Work  

Grab a ball (the more fun the ball the better- think squishy, tentacle-y). Sit in a circle and say the memory work sentence that you will be working on. Have everyone repeat after you.  

Toss the ball to a student and have them recite the memory work (while squishing or pulling the fun ball). If they recite it correctly, that student can choose who to toss the ball to next.  If they need help, help them, and then they toss it back to you. Every time you (the teacher) have the ball, everyone recites together. Continue until everyone has a chance to hold the ball and recite the memory work on their own.


Religion

Continue working through your Saint Fun Pack this week!

Moses Fun Pack

  • Read Luke 22:14-19, or Mark 14:22-25 or Matthew 26:26-28. Where else have your students heard some of these words? Hopefully at Mass every week!  Read all three passages with your older students and discuss them.  Why does it show up in all three gospels?
  • This week when you go to an extra daily mass, focus on the words the priest says during the liturgy of the Eucharist. Sound familiar?

Math

  • Last week I introduced some jump-rope rhymes as an activity for practicing your skip counting.  It’s one of those things you might skip over as a homeschooler that your public school counterparts might learn on the recess field. See if your kids can come up with a rhyme that matches a topic in the tour guide this week. You could even have a contest in your CSH program to see who can come up with the neatest jump roping rhyme. Here’s another one I made up:

For 40 nights and 40 days,

Noah’s ark floated the waves,

how many raindrops fell?

4, 8, 12, 16… keep going


Language Arts

This week learn what nouns are!  Use the written word to make a picture– using nouns to ‘draw’ your picture.  Here’s an example:

noun picture (1024x791)

What ‘picture’ can your student ‘draw?’ Get creative and ‘draw’ underwater scenes, mountain scenes, or illustrate something from the history timeline this week!


Music

  •  Fill out the music notebooking page again this week and focus on the Mridangam!

 Music Notebooking Page

  • This YouTube video shows a senior at Kalamazoo College (back in 2007) explaining the different sounds produced on the mridangam, as well as a performance on it.  Pretty cool!
  • Make your version of a Mridangam this week! Really, it’ll be difficult to create a two-sided drum with different tones, but you could go for an ‘instrument’ that is like a drum that you can hit on both sides. Think of cylinders that are made of something different on the top and the bottom- like a coffee can!  The plastic lid makes a different sound when you hit it than the metal bottom.  If you are missing an end, take a rubber balloon and cut off the tip- stretch it over the opening for a different sound! (some other cylinders you might have: Pringles cans, nut cans, oatmeal cans, Tupperware, etc)
Mridangam

Pull out your sistrum from last week and have an ancient Egyptian-Indian jam band!


Art

In the Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 2 Art Supplement Guide, your students learned how to make some animal cave art.
Another featured artwork (picture is in the Art Book) is the Cave of Hands in Argentina.  If you don’t like paint or getting messy then go ahead and skip down to Latin.

You’re still here, I warned you this is messy right? Ok good.  Messy is fun sometimes too.  I thought it’d be fun to keep making cave art, so we made our version of the Cave of Hands.

Supplies you need:

  • Old clothes you don’t mind getting paint on
  • Brown paper grocery bag
  • White, Red, and black paint (we used acrylics- it’s what we had on hand- get it?!)
  • A bristly brush you don’t mind getting paint on- an old toothbrush, tiny hand broom, scrubby brush, etc.
  • An outside or well-protected area to get messy with paint

First, cut out a rectangle (like the whole front) of a brown paper grocery bag.

paper bag

Place your students’ hand(s) on the paper bag (it works better if there is something solid and flat behind their hand to press against- don’t press against grass).

Dip your brush in the paint, and then flick it onto their hands!

red coat of paint

Let the first color dry.  Then repeat with your other colors, letting it dry between each coat of paint.

cave of hands craft

It’s speculated that the people who made the hands in the Cave Hands of Argentina did so by mixing up pigments from the ground and water, putting it into their mouths, and then spraying (spewing/spitting) it out at their hands pressed against the cave wall. I’m not a huge fan of spitting, and I’m pretty sure we should not be putting acrylic paint in our mouths, so I don’t recommend that method of spraying! But you could explain to your students that the ancient people in Argentina did not have old toothbrushes or hand brooms, so they had to come up with a different way to spray paint.

When you’re finished check out this video of several of the most famous cave art places in the world!


Latin

  • If you didn’t print the Latin flip book from last week, it’s not too late! We spend 3 weeks on each Latin conjugation to give you time to memorize them!

Latin Flip Book

latin printable

History

Here’s a link to a preview which has 3 chapters in it- it might just be plenty for your students!

  • For quiet time, or ‘read by yourself’ time- I love the DK Eyewitness books.  DK Eyewitness Books: Ancient Egypt doesn’t disappoint.  These have a lot of pictures and illustrations- and along with a main text on each page, there are small captions that go with all the pictures.  It’s not what I would use for a read-aloud, but it’s great for some self-guided study time- maybe something your kids can read while you spend one-on-one time with another student.  Also, check your library- a lot of them carry these Eyewitness books!  They also have a great one called Pyramid, which goes well with this week’s history.
  • When you tell the story of the Tower of Babel, read it from the Bible of course! Genesis chapter 11 tells the story.  Then discuss different languages.  Check out this YouTube video where “Hello” is said in 30 different languages.  Could your students understand any of them other than English?  How hard would it be to build something if no one spoke the same language? What lesson do you think the people who were building the tower learned from this experience?
  • Make some paper pyramids this week.  Here’s a printable template to get you started.
  • Have fun with the Egypt theme this week, and serve some Hotdog Mummies.  All you need are hotdogs and crescent rolls in a can.  Cut the crescent rolls into little strips and wrap up the hotdogs.  Bake until golden brown on top. As you eat, discuss how the Egyptians mummified their dead, which was a long process involving more than just being wrapped up (if your stomach can handle such a discussion over lunch).
mummy hotdogs
  • In 2900BC King Menes united Upper and Lower Egypt, and wore both crowns at the same time to signify the unity.  Make your double crown this week using some red and white construction paper.

First, make a band about the size of your student’s head.

head band

Then cut out a curved tall part using red construction paper to attach to the back.

red part of king menes crown

Cut some triangles into a couple of sheets of white paper.  Taper the paper inward and tape it on the inside.  Roll into a cylindrical-ish shape.

cut triangles and tape

Cut another small strip of red paper- and curl the end up around a pen to give it that curly shape.

Roll with a pen

Tape all the pieces to your headband, and ta-da you can be King Menes while you study ancient Egypt!

King Menes crown

 What, you’ve never seen an ancient Egyptian Panda King before? Ok, I can’t promise your kids will want to wear it. No one would pose for a picture with it on, but I still think it’s pretty cool.


Geography

  • Print the World Maps Printable and label the Hemispheres, equator, Prime Meridian, and lines of latitude and longitude!
  • A quick explanation about grids could help your younger students.  We use grids to help us find places.  A grid allows us to define a specific place by two numbers.  Numbered vertical and horizontal lines break up the space and give each place its own coordinates.  Show a flat grid, then show the grid that is on Earth made of Lines of latitude and longitude.  The equator and prime meridian are the 0’s of the vertical and horizontal lines! Practice your latitude and longitude finding pirate treasure with this cute online game.
  • Find the coordinates of the city where you live!  What is your latitude and longitude? Find the latitude and longitude of some of your family members who live in different cities.

Science

  • Check out Biology4Kids.com.  It has a lot of great info you can use for teaching, plus some videos, quizzes, and picture slide shows.
  • Keep going in your Nature Journaling this week. Go for a walk somewhere different from last week if you can, or pick a different topic on which to focus. The memory work talks about photosynthesis this week, which happens in the leaves- draw some leaves this week!
  • Nature journals are open-ended- don’t feel like you need to structure or perfect anything that goes into them.
    Allow your students to explore nature and record their favorite parts of it in their nature journal.  It doesn’t all have to be pictures or diagrams either- let them write poems, descriptions, or even songs they make up about nature in their journals!
  • Keep going in your Botany Lapbook!

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