Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 3: Week 23

This is a tough week to find anything funny about.  But I did come across Toy Story’s Mr. Potato head Picasso pose and laughed.  Hope it brings a smile to your face too!

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Religion

Keep going in your Mother Teresa Fun Pack this week!

Saint Teresa of Calcutta Fun Pack

• This week work on memorizing the Sorrowful Mysteries.  Here’s a notebooking page from my blog (drawn2bcreative) that your student can use to either describe the mystery or illustrate it in the boxes provided.  Then, color in the rosary border.

Sorrowful Rosary Notebooking Page 3

• I also have a mini-Rosary book printable you can make using one sheet of paper, a cut and a few folds.  It’s free here.
• Make a peg doll of Mother Teresa!  If you want to take the easy road, get a copy of Lacy’s Printable Peg Dolls, and just paint the head and glue on the rest 🙂

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Math:

• We continue in our memorization of unit conversions.  Now we are up to quarts! Have your students make you some Lemonade this week.  Have them convert the amount of water from cups to ounces, pints and quarts.
• If you have a sandbox, and it’s warm enough outside, let your students play with measuring cups and pitcher (preferably pitcher that have measurement markings on the side).  Write the memory work down somewhere, and have them prove the conversions true using sand.

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Language Arts:

• Check out the ideas for paragraphs in the Tour I Week 23 posts.
• Have your students choose a topic from this week’s Tour Guide and write a paragraph about it.  It could be science, art, history, anything! Make sure they think about having a topic sentence, supporting details and a conclusion.
• Here are several free worksheets that focus on Topic Sentences.  In the first one you have to find the topic sentence, in some of the other ones you have to write them.

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Music

•  This might be silly, but have your student choreograph their own dance to “Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey.”  My kids think they are hilarious when they do fast dance moves to fast parts, and slow moves to the slow parts, and lots of stomping with drums.  Have your students decide on their own ‘style’ of dance and put on a performance!  If your students don’t want to do the dancing themselves, suggest they make their dolls/stuffed animals/toys do the dance.

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Art

• Here is a cute video designed for kids that discusses Picasso’s cubism portrait.  It could be a great intro into this week’s Art lesson, a Cubism Portrait.

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Latin

• Here are this week’s Classical Root flash cards.

Classical Roots Week 23

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History

• The Vietnam War is yet another war in our Modern History Timeline.  Some of us still have grandparents around who were in the Vietnam war.  If you do, this would be a good time to practice interview skills and ‘interview’ your relative who was in the war.  Even if you don’t have a relative who fought in the war, chances are that they still have stories from that time frame about how their lives were impacted.  Have your students write down some questions they plan to ask.  Ask the questions and take notes on the answers.  Then write up their findings in a report.
• Here is a PBS site with a lesson plan for teaching about the Vietnam war.  It uses an 18min video that talks about the Vietnam war and also shows how the students in Vietnam are taught a different history than we are about the war.  You could have a discussion with your students about how history can be distorted.  The video does discuss some of the negative aspects of Vietnamese society like alcohol, and drugs (briefly), so you may want to watch it first.
• Use items from your recycling bin to build your own satellite. Here’s an eHow on how to do it, but I would recommend leaving out the spray paint and complicated stuff.  Just give your students some boxes, cans, bottle caps, toothpicks, straws, and glue, and see what they can do.  If you want it to look more space-y you could let them wrap some parts in aluminum foil. Here’s a picture depicting lots of NASA’s satellites if you need some inspiration for construction.

(Here’s a really lame sputnik I made in 5 minutes using aluminum and pencils)

• Here’s a good youtube video on the space race between the USA and the USSR.  its about 5 min long and goes from Sputnik 1 through Neil Armstrong to how the space race has helped us advance science aside from getting to space.
• Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon are some of History’s most famous words.  Almost anyone in America can tell you “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”  Have your students think for a little bit about what their first words would’ve been if they were the first person on the moon.  Then do some ‘moon walking’ around as you pretend you’re on the moon! (around here that just means slow-motion jumping haha).
• Make a moon out of salt dough this week.  Roll it out, cut out a big circle, then let your students add some craters with their fingers, or by pressing marbles into the dough.  Once it’s dry, write some facts about the Apollo 11 mission!
• Second Vatican Council is an in-depth topic for grammar-age students.  But you can talk about some of the more obvious changes in the church with them.  Here is also a lesson plan by Loyola Press to help your students learn about Vatican II.
• Listen to some Beatles music this week!  Here’s a playlist on youtube of their greatest hits.
• Have your students imagine living during the time when the Apollo Mission 11 took place.  Write a news article about the first man on the moon.

Man on the Moon Newspaper Article

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Geography

•  Finish up in the Africa Lapbook.
• Do a report on a country in Africa.  Have your students choose one of the countries you’ve learned and write extra information.  If each student chooses a different country, have them give a short presentation on what they learned.

African Country Report Notebooking Page

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Science

• This week’s science focuses on good hygiene.  Does your family have a schedule for showering?  Not that long ago, houses came with only one bathroom, and families would have to agree on how long and when each member could use them.  Make a ‘schedule’ for your family’s hygiene regimen.  Which days or what time do your students each bath/shower?  What time do you brush your teeth?
• Put up a little post-it next to the sink for each student, and a pencil nearby.  Each time they wash their hands have them add a tally mark on their post it.  Who washes their hands the most?
• “Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society and to ourselves.” – Francis Bacon.  Discuss this quote.  How does keeping our body clean glorify God?  (Remember our bodies are our temple!)

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Did you miss Week 22? Check it out here!