Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 2: Week 5

Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 2: Week 5

Week 5 is here, and I hope you are going strong. Here’s your encouragement for the day:

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Memory Work

Play a version of follow the leader.

Have your students form a line and choose a starting place. The leader picks an action to do (pat your head, skip, hop, lunge, twirl) as they walk around the room doing the action and leading in reciting the memory work.

The leader says the memory work and everyone following repeats.  When he/she gets back to the starting point again, the leader runs to the back of the line and the next person in line picks a new action and a new memory sentence. Letting the leader choose the memory sentence to recite allows them to choose one they may have memorized best. Try to have each student choose something different, but be flexible so it stays fun, and help them out with the memory work as needed.


Religion

Work on the Week 5 activities in your David Fun Pack this week!

David Fun Pack

  • Continue practicing handwriting with the Bread of Life Discourse in this handwriting printable:

Bread of Life Discourse Handwriting- part 2


Math

  • Skip counting by 10s and 11s is this week’s math focus. 
  • Skip count your family’s fingers (or all the students’ fingers in your program meet-up) by 10’s. You could make a game of it by lining up 13 students.  Have everyone hold their 10 fingers out in front, and one student run down the line skip counting by 10s.  When he/she gets to the end they stop and hold out their fingers.  The next student in line runs and skip counts the fingers. Keep going until everyone’s had a chance to skip count!

Language Arts

  • Verbs are the topic this week for Language Arts. I have several ideas over at my Week 5 post from Tour 1.
  • Here’s another game idea for learning/practicing verbs.  Write down several different places/locations and drop them into a hat. It can be anywhere: house, store, zoo, playground, park, woods, etc.  Draw a place from your hat and set a timer (longer for younger kids shorter for older kids), and have all your students write down as many verbs for that place as they can think of.  When the time is up, score it like boggle.  Any verbs that more than 1 person has, get crossed off the list.  Verbs that are unique each get 1 pt. This game will get them thinking of some interesting verbs! For example if ‘grocery store’ was drawn, verbs written down might be: walk, shop, buy, weigh, smell, read, add, subtract, talk etc.  As long as your student can defend his/her answer then it’s fair.  You could have a vote for the really out there answers. (You might roll a shopping cart, but it’d be difficult to fly in a grocery store)

Latin

  • If you are teaching Latin using Prima Latina, chances are you know some other Latin words by now.  See if your student can create some sentences that use each of the memory work verb conjugations.
  • Or if you watch the snare drum video below, see if you can chant the Latin memory work to the different stroke patterns on your home-made instruments.

Art


Music

  • This week’s music focus is on the snare drum!  If you live near a music store, you could always visit and see a snare drum in real life! That’s right, snare drums are used in marching bands here in the US, so you can find them in music supply stores.  Go when business is slow so that the store owner will be a little more accommodating to your ‘field trip.’  Usually this means on a weekday in the morning- which is no problem for you because you homeschool!
  • Check out  this video that discusses different ways to play a snare drum. Start at 1:06 to avoid the intro describing how this is a prep video for apply to the Atlanta institute of music. It was designed as a tool for drummers planning to apply to Atlanta Institute of Music, but I still thought it was a great video that clearly broke down different stroke patterns used on a snare drum, as well as demonstrated them individually (vs in a whole drum line).
  • If you want a video that just describes a snare drum quickly and demonstrates the sound it can make, check out this video. It’s short and aimed at younger students but still informative!
  • If you just LOVE snare drums, there are an unending supply of drum competitions on youtube that you can quickly get sucked into. The Navy vs Army drum competitions are some pretty good ones, and you can clearly hear the snare drums.
  • Don’t forget you can use the Music Notebooking Page page every week!

History

  • Moses’ story is a famous and popular one. Your students should already know something about Moses since he was the saint focus in Weeks 1-3, but continue teaching about him this week using your Bible or Children’s Bible.  Moses’ story starts with Exodus Chapter 2 and he continues as the main character until the end of Deuteronomy.  After all, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, that’s a long time.  Anyway that’s A LOT for a young student to read, or even an older student to read and retain.  Here are some notes in case you want to focus on just one part or a few parts of Moses’ story, or even just break it up into smaller lessons.
    • Moses’ birth – Exodus 2
    • Calling by God via burning bush- Exodus 3
    • Ten plagues on Egypt, first passover  – Exodus 7:14-12:32
    • Crossing the Red Sea Exodus 14:5-31
    • Ten Commandments Exodus 20
    • The Ark of the Covenant, Tabernacle, and vestments- Exodus 25:10-28:43
    • The Golden Calf- Exodus 32
    • About manna and the Isrealites complaining – Numbers 11
  • Maybe after you’ve taught and read to your students about Moses, you could show them The Prince of Egypt. If you’ve never seen it, its a cartoon movie about Moses’s life from birth through crossing the Red Sea. I like the music, and find myself singing “Do you believe in Miracles…” for days after watching this with the kids.  (If you want to plan ahead they also sell a combo The Prince of Egypt & Joseph King of Dreams Double feature)
  • There is no short supply of crafts and activities you can do as you teach about Moses, the Ten Plagues, parting the Red Sea, etc.  Here are just a few I’ve found in case you don’t have time for pintresting this week:
  • Have a writing exercise this week about the Exodus.  “The Israelites had to leave their home in Egypt and follow God through the wilderness for 40 years. How would you react to such a request? How would you feel if you had to leave all that you know behind and trust Moses and God?”
  • After you read the story of Jericho in your Bible (Joshua 6:1-20), have your students reenact the events at home.  March around your house quietly 6 times (to represent the first 6 days), then on the 7th lap play your home-made instruments and shout!  (If you live close to a lot of neighbors, this may not be the activity for you.  Maybe they could just march around inside the house instead.)
  • Watch the Veggie Tales movie Josh and the Big Wall.
  • Here’s a short cartoon depiction of the story of the Trojan Horse.  It’s about 6 minutes long and a little hokey but not bad!
  • Over at my blog, I draw a cut and paste Trojan Horse activity that would be fun this week too!Trojan Horse Badge
  • As you teach about Rames II and the temple at Abu Simbel in Nubia, you can show them this short video Nubian Monuments, it’s about 3 minutes long and pretty cool.
  • This is probably your last week to squeeze in any other Ancient Egyptian crafts or fun like making an Egyptian head dress, Egyptian collar, Egyptian Armband, building pyramids out of everything.

Geography

  • Start learning about European countries this week!  First find them on your wall map.  Then find them on your globe.  Then get started on your Europe Lapbook!
  • I’ve found that having your students draw their own map (no matter how crude or inaccurate) is a really good way for them to memorize and learn geography.  This week have them draw Poland, Belarus Ukraine and Moldova on a piece of regular copy paper and label them.  If it’s too difficult to freehand them, you could give them some tracing paper and let them trace the countries on your wall or table map.
  • If you watch a lot of PBS, you may already know about Rick Steves.  He tours a different country in every episode and has a lot of episodes on the countries in Europe.  It might be a little dry for young students, but your older ones will be interested in the art, landmarks, food and general description of the culture in Rick Steves tours of countries.  Here’s one that fits into Week 5!
  • Learning geography often includes learning about other places’ cultures, attire, dwellings, natural resources, and my favorite: FOOD! Check out this website www.foodbycountry.com! It includes some information about the country as well as dishes native to the area.
  • I also want to share a recipe each week for you to try to incorporate some cultural experiences of Europe into your meal planning!  This week, try making a common Polish dish- Pierogis!
  • If cooking is really not your thing, pick up a frozen cheesecake- I see they eat those in Poland too. 🙂 If you can, save it for a feast day.

Science

  • Keep taking trips out with your Nature Journals.  This week, see how many different types of leaves you can find and draw.  Can you find both simple and compound leaves? How about plants that arrange them differently?
  • To keep kids entertained you could watch Bill Nye the Science Guy’s episode on plants, on Netflix. I know he doesn’t personally align with our faith, but the plants episode did not have anything I would worry about in it.  (I have NOT personally watched them all, so please screen any other Bill Nye episodes before sharing with your students.)
  • Have your students design their own leaf/plant this week.  Give them a blank sheet of paper, and ask (or write these questions) to guide them as they design. What type of leaves does it have?  Does it grow flowers? How are it’s seeds dispersed? Does it grow a fruit? It is an annual or perennial? Once they have finished, remind them how God has designed so many plants! Thousand and thousands were designed by God, even more carefully than your students just did!
  • Keep going in the Botany Lapbook

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