Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 1: Week 4
To keep the momentum going, here are some printables, activities, books, and field trip ideas!
Religion
Week 4 is here, and we change our saint focus. This week students learn about Blessed Junipero Serra! Here’s a Junipero Serra Fun Pack to enjoy for the next three weeks!
Download the Father Junipero Serra Fun Pack
Math
- Skip counting by Eights and Nines is the focus this week. I can’t think of much that comes naturally or from the store in eights and nines, so why not make your own groups of eights and nines? For snack time, think of a smallish snack (Cheerios, raisins, marshmallows, pretzels, popcorn) and organize them into groups of eight. Skip count your snacks before you eat them! Redo the activity making groups of nine!
Language Arts
- Pronouns can be a lot of fun! Find a newspaper article and circle all the pronouns you can find. Challenge your older students to circle the pronoun and draw an arrow from the pronoun to the noun to which it refers.
Music
- Bach also wrote some very famous concertos called the Brandenburg Concertos. These are written in a major key while the feature piece “Toccata & Fugue in D Minor” is in a minor key. This week explore the differences between minors and majors. Some of your older students who are taking music lessons may already know about majors and minors. Listen to the “Toccata & Fugue in D Minor” on your Catholic Schoolhouse CD or click this youtube link:
- Now listen to the Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto 5:
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra playing Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto No.5
- How do they sound alike? How are they different?
History
- This week students learn about the Freedom of the Press. Have your student write a newspaper article about the Freedom of the Press. Be sure to include who, what, when, where, and why. Add a picture cut from a magazine, or draw your own. Print this Freedom of the Press newspaper article printable and fill it out if you want!
Freedom of the press- Printable
- Need help remembering the first thirteen colonies? Find a map of the US, and have your students point to each colony/state as you sing about them in the song this week! (Visit the store to buy the Tour 1 CDs! or buy a subscription to the CSH Classical Memory App)
- Daniel Boone helped establish a fort. Frontier Forts were typically made of logs stacked on one another to form a really sturdy structure. Do you have Lincoln Logs? If you do, build your own fort.
- Build a ‘blanket fort’ (did you do this as a kid?), by draping blankets or sheets over your kitchen table to form the walls. My kids love playing fort. You can even have fun by doing school INSIDE your fort, if you don’t mind sitting on the floor under a table with your students. 😉
- One of our awesome CSH moms recommends this book, Struggle for a Continent: The French and Indian Wars which is one of the American Stories Series. They are really nice picture books that don’t sacrifice content for pictures. It would be a great one to teach the French and Indian Wars this week.
Struggle for a Continent: The French and Indian Wars: 1689-1763 (American Story)
(Using this link to purchase this book helps Catholic Schoolhouse continue it’s mission)
- Here’s another book recommendation: Daniel Boone: Young Hunter and Tracker. Really I love all of these “Childhood of Famous Americans books.” The pictures are great, and the story makes history interesting to kids. I would recommend this historical fiction book for for 2nd grade and up.
- If you are looking for something to watch this week, look at this 20 min video about Daniel Boone and westward exploration. It’s very informative, and available for free if you have Amazon Prime:
Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Trail
(Using this link to purchase this video helps Catholic Schoolhouse continue it’s mission)
Geography
- Print a blank map of North America and instead of labeling of the countries like usual, color in the countries using the patterns of their flags. Have your older students learn what the colors, patterns and symbols on the flags represent and why they are important to that country. (This week is a great one to learn what the 13 red stripes on our US Flag represent!)
Here’s a free printable map to use
It doesn’t have to look perfect- check out this one done by an older child:
- Check out this cool Map puzzle:
Science
- This week students learn about birds! The zoo is always a good option for seeing birds, but if you want to save some money this week, go on a field trip to a pet store and look at the birds! It’s an easy way to get a good close-up look at birds that may come from other regions or countries; our pet store even has an African Grey Parrot.
- Another free field trip idea is to bring some old bread to a nearby lake or pond and feed the ducks and geese.
- Whether you go to the pet store or a pond, take a picture of your student’s favorite bird (or even a picture of your student AND their bird), go home, and write a report about it. For the younger students, the report could be as simple as what the bird looks like, eats, and why they like it best. For your older students, challenge them to learn about their native country and habitat, food, shelter, nesting habits, etc. Write or type the report and include the picture.
- Make an easy bird feeder and watch for birds this week at home. All it takes is a pine cone, some peanut butter, birdseed, and string or a pipe cleaner.
First smear peanut butter all over your pine cone
Then roll it in birdseed.
Finally, tie a string or pipe cleaner around the top of it and hang it in a tree or off your deck!
Make sure you hang it somewhere you can see easily from far away so that you can watch the birds come and eat without scaring them away!
Here’s another great book to consider adding to your collection.
The Burgess Bird Book for Children
(Purchasing this book using this link helps Catholic Schoolhouse continue its mission)
Have you been building your Animals Lapbook with us? Add the pop-up talking bird this week with the Animals Lapbook Part 4 Post!
If you’ve missed it check out the first three weeks of Animal Lapbook building with these links:
Did you miss week 3? Check it out here!
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