Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Ideas for Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 17

Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 17
I'm blogging my way through our four year curriculum program so I don't forget everything that worked for us! Please feel free to use what works for your family and share in the comments anything you would add. For more on Classically Catholic Memory go here.

Religion

Lesson 1
At Worksheet Works I created a handwriting worksheet of this week's Bible verse. The kids used it to practice their handwriting and learn their memory work!

Latin
We are learning the Anima Christi by listening to a few different versions on youtube.

History
Here are the additional resources we used for history this week...


Lesson 1:
The first portion of this week's history sentence has the kids memorizing the first three presidents. Because we studied George Washington during week 13, we only focused on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Bean read The Revolutionary John Adams and we all enjoyed reading Thomas Jefferson's Feast... several times. Finally we listened to Thomas Jefferson's America throughout the week, which is an excellent resource!

Lesson 2:
Next the kids studied Lewis and Clark and the Louisiana Purchase with Kevin by reading Lewis and Clark: Explorers of the American West.

Science
We are now at the end of memorizing one of Newton's laws of motion each week. There are three fun videos you can watch on various aspects of the laws. Here's what I suggest, but you can watch them in any order you'd like, I'll never know.

Week 15: The Magic School Bus Plays Ball
Week 16: Bill Nye Momentum
Week 17: Bill Nye Motion

Only one lesson was necessary for science as I believe this week's Teacher Text instructions are the shortest instructions of the year. Here are the supplies we used.


First we pounded our hands on the table to show that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction... Newton's 3rd Law. The harder we hit, the more it hurt as the table pushed back.


Then we (being my kids and some homeschooled friends that I was watching that morning), blew up balloons and watched the equal and opposite reaction that occurred when we let them go.


Finally we channeled the balloon's energy and sent it along a string path by sliding a straw onto the string and taping the balloon to the straw.


To finish the lesson off we watched a quick demonstration of Newton's 3rd law on YouTube.

Math 
We flipped over the circle we used last week for the circumference of a circle, and wrote out this week's formula, which is the area of a circle. Due to the complexity of the formula we left it at that.


Timeline

Lesson 1
For our timeline game this week we played a modified version of The $10,000 Pyramid. One player turns the bottom left card over and describes the card using only one word descriptors (the real game uses phrases, but that was too much like our Catch Phrase game). When the other player guesses the card correctly the first player moves to the next card. The team has 60 seconds to get all 6 cards.


Lesson 2
Our timeline book was neglected again this week. We made it through the first 15 weeks, but I still haven't received my images for the last three!

Geography
Now that we have memorized all of the countries in North America, we are focusing on memorizing our continent's major geographical features. I'm letting our Journey Across America continue to be the supplemental fun on this one, as I point out these features when we study the states they reside in.

Great Words I
We continued memorizing "Pocahontas" by Rosemary Carr Benet this week.

I don't know of any picture books of the actual poem, but as you memorize it you could do several things to learn about Pocahontas. Check out the books Pocahontas a Life in Two Worlds or Pocahontas, watch the Disney movie (maybe, I don't know if it's any good, I've never seen it), or check out this Pinterest board for snack and craft ideas.


Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa