Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 1: Week 7
Yay! Welcome to the second quarter of Tour 1! We have a new saint to learn about, a new composer to study, and many more fun ideas coming your way!
Religion
- For the next three weeks, the saint’s focus is on Elizabeth Ann Seton. She had a huge impact on Catholic schools and education in the US. Print the Saint Fun Pack and keep it for the next three weeks. Learn about Elizabeth Ann Seton and practice your Language Arts and Math skills!
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Fun Pack
- Moms, Saint Elizabeth Seton can be a great saint to pray to in those times you need extra help from our Heavenly Father. Homeschooling can be tough sometimes- print this prayer by Elizabeth Seton and keep it in your pocket. Next time you are having a moment when you need extra patience, love, kindness, or just the right words to help your children, pull this prayer out of your pocket.
Lord God, you blessed Elizabeth Seton with gifts of grace as wife and mother, educator, and foundress, so that she might spend her life in service to your people. Through her example and prayers may we learn to express our love for you in love for others. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Math
Students learn about parallel and perpendicular lines this week. These are literally EVERYWHERE! Here are a couple of ideas to have fun learning and practicing finding parallel and perpendicular lines:
- Have your student give you a tour of your house, pointing out all the parallel and perpendicular lines he/she sees. (Bookshelves–have them show you the parallel lines from the shelves, and the perpendicular lines in the corners; dining table–if yours has four legs they better be perpendicular to the top! Crucifix above your door–definitely perpendicular lines there)
- Grab a page from one of your students (or their younger siblings) coloring books. Draw a vertical line on the page and challenge your student to find all the parallel lines to your line. (you may have to choose the right kind of page- kittens and flowers may not work well; trains work great!)
Language Arts
- Have fun filling in this Mad Lib for adjectives! Ask your friend to give you adjectives to fill in the blanks. When you’re done read the story out loud using the adjectives your friend chose blindly! Be ready for some giggles.
Mad Libs “Road Trip”- Printable
- Practice using adjectives this week by repeating the exercise from week 1 (sit in one place and name as many nouns as you can) except this time give each noun an adjective! Examples may be “red cup, dirty plate, sticky syrup, cold juice, hot coffee, sharp knife, etc. (Can you tell which room I’m in!?)
Music
- Listen to Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5.” Have a short discussion about it. Have your students heard it before? Do they like it or dislike it? How is it different from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor?
- If you have Netflix, there is a cute episode of Peg + Cat (one of my favorite cartoons for my preschooler) that features Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Season 1 Episode 8 “The Beethoven Problem.”
History
- Check out Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin Patent and other info at:
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent/
Eli Whitney invented something that greatly improved the life and productivity of cotton farming. Challenge your students to think of something difficult or tedious that they have to do and invent something to improve life. They can either draw the plans for it and you can talk about it, or if it’s simple enough you can help them build their idea and put it to use!
- Write a newspaper article about the Louisiana Purchase this week. Include what it is, where it is, who was involved, how much it cost (total $ and $/acre), and any other interesting information your students learn. Make sure you draw a picture! You can use this printable or your own paper:
Louisiana Purchase Newspaper-Printable
- Also, you could listen to “Schoolhouse Rock’s Elbow Room” song on youtube. I thought it was cute and catchy!
Schoolhouse Rock Elbow Room – Youtube
- Lewis and Clark took quite a journey traveling 8,000 miles! They kept detailed journals of everything they saw and experienced, and also mapped the land. Go on a field trip with your students to a state park or national park. Take an ‘expedition’ with your students (similar to your explorers week), but this time challenge them to create a map of where they go. Mark on your maps the animals you encounter, plants you see, paths, and water features (review Week 3 geography!). When you are done exploring, go to the visitor center/gift shop/park ranger house/brochure rack and get a map of the park you were exploring. Compare your student’s maps to the ‘official’ park maps. What can your student conclude about map making? Was it easy or harder than you expected?
- Check out the Johnny Appleseed essay and craft Blog Post!
- Enchanted Learning has several fun activities to go with learning about Johnny Appleseed: Enchanted Learning Johnny Appleseed.
Art
- Did you build a birdfeeder in Week 4? Is it still there? If it is, and if you have some bird visitors take some pictures of them. Print the pictures and then try your hand at drawing them. JJ Audubon drew hundreds of birds from all over the country. Draw the birds of your own backyard and color them in with colored pencils, watercolors or oil pastels.
Here is a how-to-draw birds guide for your students to use (I think he does a nice job in this how-to):
How to draw birds–John Muir Laws
Geography
- This quarter students start learning about U.S. states and capitals! In 1997, President Bill Clinton authorized the US to mint special quarters honoring each state. For 9 years in a row, 5 new state quarters were released each year. The backs of these quarters have pictures that are representative of that state either in history, symbolism, geography, etc. It’s a great and fun collection that your students can start this quarter of the school year! You can simply collect them into a nice container or you can purchase a book or album for them. I really like this one:
The Official US Mint State Quarters
(Using this link helps Catholic Schoolhouse continue its mission)
It has a pretty sturdy cover and I like the format for inserting the quarters such that you can still see both the front and the back. Some of these quarter collectors are one-sided and even though the front never changes, I think it’s cool to still be able to see it. My only complaint is that it was made in China. Really they should’ve at least made it in the USA. Oh, the irony.
Here is a picture of our own collection–we’re still in the process of collecting! But you can see how the pages show both sides of the quarters!
You can buy the whole set of quarters online; however, I highly recommend collecting them yourselves. It’s really fun and exciting for your students, plus when you get them one or two at a time, your students will spend more time looking at the backs and becoming curious as to why each design was chosen.
- Do you have a big table? How about a big tablecloth? Replace your tablecloth with a clear plastic one and put a US Map under it. You’ll be amazed at how much your children will learn while they’re eating their cereal. It will also spur conversation at dinner. A map is so much better to read than the back of a cereal box! If you are like me and want everything to just arrive at your door instead of going out and shopping for it- here are some links: Clear Plastic Table Cloth and Large US Map (I like the Rand McNally ones, but use your own preference). When we are done with our study of US States, you can either roll it up and keep it safe somewhere, post it up in your school room, or take it to hobby lobby and have it foam mounted. I love foam mounting my maps, they seem to last longer that way and its cheaper than framing them.
- I am starting a series of geography lapbooks for each region of the U.S. If your students like lapbooks, they will love this one. Be sure to check out the Southeast States Lapbook- Part 1 to get started!
Southeast States Lapbook Part 1
Science
- This week explore the water cycle with your students. If you have Netflix – this is the week to watch Season 2 Episode 5 of The Magic Schoolbus. The Friz takes the students on another crazy field trip into the Watercycle.
- We have a small collection of “The Best Book of” series, and I really like the one on Weather. I actually found our copy for 10 cents at a garage sale, but after having one of them, I would gladly pay the full price ($6ish) for these. The one on weather goes through several of the topics that we study in science this quarter and the pictures are really nice. If you buy it now, your students can use it for the next six weeks as we learn about precipitation, clouds, wind, fronts, and extreme weather.
(Using this link helps Catholic Schoolhouse continue its mission)
Here’s a picture of the page on the water cycle. I love the pictures in these books!
- Make a water cycle wheel, using this free printable:
Thanks for reading. Have a fabulous week!
Did you miss week 6? Find it here!
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