Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 2: Week 15
How’s it going? I hope that you are feeling blessed this week. God has called you to do one of the most important vocations- teaching your students to know, love, and serve Him! Of course, they can do that better by knowing how to read, do math, and understand history. Don’t feel discouraged this week, but take comfort in knowing you are doing God’s work in your family.
Memory Work Idea
If you have a gym nearby or a basketball goal in your driveway, this could be a fun memory game for you! Play a version of HORSE, memory work style! Choose 5 memory work sentences/songs to work on. Then have your students try to make a basketball goal from 5 different positions. When they make it to the first position, they have to recite the first memory verse correctly to move to the second position. Keep going until someone has made a goal AND said the memory work for that position correctly in all five places!
Religion
Continue filling in your Saint Cecilia fun pack this week!
- I have some coloring pages and handwriting practice for the Seven Sacraments.
Math
- You could use this week to introduce the concept of different measurement standards. American vs Metric. Then explain that just like languages we can translate our measurements. We ‘translating’ numbers between different units is called conversion.
- Find your rulers and show how it has centimeters and inches on it! Then measure items in both centimeters and inches!
- Go look in your car at the speedometer- they often show miles per hour (MPH) and kilometers per hour (kph).
- Look up directions to grandma’s house (or anyone’s house or a store you like- whatever you want), and write down how many miles it is. Then convert the miles to kilometers.
- Here’s a link to plenty of measuring worksheets, printable for free 🙂
Language Arts
- Pick two colors of highlighters and pull out your Saint Cecilia Fun pack. Read the short bio of Saint Cecilia and highlight subjects in one color, and predicates in the other color as you go! You can repeat this activity for any newspapers or magazines you might be done with, to practice finding those subjects and predicates.
Art
- Mosaics are so much fun and so easy to do. In your program this week (or if you are doing the Year 2 Art Book at home), your students will make a mosaic stepping stone. You can also have fun making mosaics with small pieces of paper or confetti (like the large stuff). Here’s how to make easy paper mosaics at home. (just construction paper, scissors, and glue stick needed).
- You can also make mosaics out of pantry items like rice, beans, and pasta. Print a coloring page (or tear one out of a dollar store coloring book), and let your students glue beans and rice to the different areas to create a mosaic. Make sure it’s an easy coloring page- one with big spaces to fill and a few small details.
(I had a bag of dried beans, called 15 bean soup– maybe you can find it in your grocery store, it had plenty of different kinds of beans for this lizard mozaic)
Music
- Here’s a YouTube playlist of Oboe and Harp Music. Great for background music as you do your homeschooling this week. It’s all Debussy- one of my favorite composers.
- Learn about the Oboe with this video. He explains a lot about the instrument and techniques, as well as plays some interesting sounds on the Oboe.
History
- The Didache is some of the documentation of our beliefs. You can find the Didache and lots of translations and introductions on this website. It’s not that long to read one of the translations, so you could read it aloud and have a discussion about it. What do your students think about it? Does it remind them of any prior writings of our faith (like maybe the 1o commandments)?
- Here is a cute short video summarizing what we know about the Mayans.
- I love these DK Eyewitness books for all their pictures and small captions. They’re not very good for read-aloud but are great for quiet reading time, and for your students who like to see all the details in pictures. Check out Aztec, Inca, and Maya (DK Eyewitness Books) from your library or get it on Amazon.
- I found a cool printable Colosseum and Constantine Arch that you can print and assemble. (I was hoping to make my printable model that’s a little easier to print and is to scale, but alas I don’t have the time for that this week)
- Saint Anthony is also known as the “Desert Father” because he would go away into the desert to pray. I hear over and over that our prayer life should include some time when we ‘go away’ from the noise and distractions of our everyday world to engage in conversation with God. Encourage your students this week to have some alone time with God. We live nowhere near a desert, nor would I want my student to go there alone, but you can have your ‘desert’ time anywhere private and quiet- your bedroom, a closet, or even a peaceful place in your backyard. If they need something to ‘do’ send your students to their quiet place with a Bible or prayer book. Adoration is a wonderful place to sit in the quiet and spend time in the presence of Jesus. Find time for you the teacher to do the same.
- Saint Anthony also gave away everything he had to the poor. Have your students choose something to donate this week, be it clothes, a toy, money- or their time.
- Emperor Constantine saw a huge glowing cross in the sky with the words “In hoc signo, vinces” which means ‘In this sign, you shall conquer.’ Make your own ‘glowing’ crosses in the sky this week. Print and cut out the cross page below, and decorate however you wish- color it, paint it, glitter it, etc. Write either the Latin phrase or the English phrase on it. Then attach it or hang it from your ceiling light.
- Chi Rho was the first monogram used for Jesus, Chi the Greek letter for K (or rather the /k/ sound), and rho for R (or the /r/ sound), the first two letters in Christ (in Greek that is). It looks like an X (chi) and a P (rho) overlapping. It was first widely used during Emperor Constantine’s rule, and we still see it in A LOT of our Catholic art. Next time you are at mass, take a look at the tabernacle, the Missal or even look at the art on the walls. How many Chi Rho’s can you find?
- Saint Helena was Emperor Constantine’s mother and became a Christian late in life. She also is said to have found the remains of the true cross and is shown in art holding a cross. Here’s a coloring page of Saint Helena!
Geography
- Keep going in your Middle East Lapbook!
- Check out this Middle East Crossword Puzzle. You’ll have to know a lot about the area to fill this one in!
Science
- Draw the Solar System in chalk on your driveway this week. Then have your student act out rotating (by spinning around). Can they always see the sun you drew? (no, not when they’re facing the other way!) Next practice your ‘revolving’ by walking/running around the Sun you drew. It takes Earth 365 days to make one revolution around the sun. How long does it take your student to make one revolution?
- Our moon also revolves and rotates. Did you know it rotates and revolves at just the right speeds so that the same side is always facing Earth? One rotation and revolution of the moon is 27 days, 7hrs and 43 minutes. Your students can act this out on your driveway by revolving around the earth and spinning so they are always facing the Earth.
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