Religion
Lesson 1
This week's religion memorization asked "What are the chief marks of the Church?" I found a printable from Look to Him and be Radiant that I was able to use for a craft to learn the four marks of the Church.
Lesson 2
We headed over to Family Catechism again this week for another video lesson with Sr. John Vianney. She does lightly touch on abortion in the video, so if you haven't gone there yet, you might want to stick to the written material on the four marks.
Latin
We are learning the Salve Regina by watching and listening to this version on youtube. I like this one because it has both Latin and English subtitles, as well as beautiful art.
History
Lesson 1: Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans
Everyday Life of the Aztecs, Incas, and Maya by Neil Morris
Aztec, Inca and Maya (Eyewitness Books)
Lesson 2: Cortez
So this is a dad original...
Wait, what is going on here? Just a lesson on Cortez and the story of how he burned (some say sank) his ships shortly after landing in Mexico to defeat the Aztecs for Spain. Getting rid of the ships ensured that no one could bail on him, thus increasing his chances for victory. In the end you could say his plan worked.
The kids and Kevin made paper ships and then floated them in our fire pit... until Kevin, I mean Cortez, lit them on fire.
Update: I recently found a book titled The Friar and the Knight: Padre Olmedo and Cortez from the American Background Catholic Series! Check it out!
Lesson 3: Our Lady of Guadalupe
When learning about the Aztecs I didn't want to leave out our Lady of Guadalupe! We read Juan Diego: Mary's Humble Messenger and then colored a picture of Our Lady from 1coloring-pages.com to finish off week two's history. You could also read The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie de Paola.
Science
Lesson 1
Here is what you will need for this lesson on the elements.
We started by looking at, and reading about, the periodic table. Well, in reality I just kind of watched my friend Jill, who happens to be a chemistry teacher, who happened to be in town last week, teach the lesson. She did a great job, so just find yourself a Jill and you will be set.
Then we watched Meet the Elements by They Might be Giants. This little music video is highly entertaining and informative. I get the song stuck in my head sometimes.
Next we made an elements mini-booklet from a printout in Discovering Atoms, Molecules and Matter for our chemistry lapbook.
And finally, using a guide from Plumbing Excellence, we did an experiment on empty space in atoms using powdered sugar and water.
We also explored the elements by looking at The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom, which is a gorgeous book, and downloaded Periodic Table+ (lite), which the kids had fun poking around on.
Lesson 2
And the supplies for lesson two are...
First I had the kids color their own periodic tables for their lapbooks.
We printed ours from Discovering, Atoms, Molecules and Matter, but if you don't have the book you could print one from here.
Math
Lesson 1
For learning how to skip count the 3s we divided 36 frosted covered cheerios (to make the activity more enticing) into groups of three. Then we skip counted them out several times, ate one from each pile and skip counted our 2s for review.
Lesson 2
Using a hundred chart which I downloaded from Currclick the kids put markers on the multiples of three.
Timeline
Lesson 1
This week we played a bean bag toss game to review our timeline cards. We don't have any bean bags, so per the suggestion of Pal, we used bean filled animals. I think this made the game even cooler.
I taped the timeline cards to the floor and labeled the animals 1-8. The kids had to toss the animals to the timeline cards in order.
Once they got a part of the animal to touch the card, they could move on to the next card and then I checked them for accuracy. They loved this!
Lesson 2
We added 8 more icons to our timeline book. I'm finding that looking up the dates is the most difficult part of this process, as different sources have different dates for these early events! I figure if we get them in the general vicinity all will be fine.
Geography
I grabbed a copy of The Four Oceans (Rookie) at the library to introduce the oceans. Then we pulled out our floor map and I had the kids label the oceans, as well as add some sea creatures to the map.
Great Words I
We worked on memorizing the second stanza of our poem by reading it from A Children's Treasury of Poems.
Week three plans will be up in two weeks!
