Friday, January 31, 2014

Ideas for February Feast Days and Celebrations

Posted by The Cotter Family
Here are some of our favorite traditions for the Month of February. This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather it's my way of creating a resource that I plan to revisit each year for myself! I hope you can find it beneficial as well!

Month of the Holy Family
February 1st: St. Brigid


Our Feast Day Celebration from 2011 (Potato pancakes and St. Brigid cross craft)

Other Ideas:
February 2nd: Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas)


Our Candlemas celebration from 2011 (Candle decorating, crepes, bubbles and what today has to do with Groundhog's Day.)

Other Ideas:
  • Perform a Presentation puppet show with a free printable from Catholic Inspired
  • Make candle cookies: Catholic Cuisine (I plan on making these this year!)
  • Make candles
  • Take your candles to church to get them blessed
  • Decorate with turtle doves, you can find them in the wedding section at the Dollar Tree!
  • Pray the 4th Joyful Mystery: The Presentation
February 10th: St. Scholastica


Our Feast of St. Scholastic Celebration 2011 (stormy sea dessert and origami doves)

Other Ideas:
February 11th: Our Lady of Lourdes


Our Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes Celebration 2011 (craft)

Other Ideas:
February 14th: Valentine's Day

Other Ideas:
February 22nd: Chair of St. Peter


Other Ideas:
  • I crack up every time I see these poptart chairs for the Chair of St. Peter: Catholic Cuisine
  • Everything else: Shower of Roses (papal lapbook, book selections, games, an entire unit study...)

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas Lunch

Posted by The Cotter Family
For the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas we had a special star lunch today!


St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of students, so I think it's quite fitting for any family with kiddos to celebrate this day! You could easily pack this meal up for a fun sack lunch (maybe replace the strawberries with starfruit?) or serve it at home if you homeschool like us!

P.S. The star is St. Thomas Aquinas' symbol because of the Divine guidance he was given to write his many works, including the Summa.


For grain and protein, we had toasted whole wheat english muffins with peanut butter.


For fruit and dairy/more protein I cut strawberries in half length wise, set them up like a star and filled the middle with Greek yogurt for dipping.


And for more dairy I cut stars out of provolone and cheddar cheese slices.


Finally, for dessert I made star jam tarts. They have no nutritional value. Just mix 1 c. of softened butter with 1/3 c. of sugar, then add 1 3/4 c. of flour and a pinch of salt. Roll them out like sugar cookies (use lots of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the counter or rolling pin), put a small spoonful of jam onto the middle of a star base, and top the star base with a picture frame star. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Don't forget to finish your meal with the Litany of St. Thomas Aquinas!

While I made lunch Pal entertained Peanut with the star cookie cutter that was too big for the english muffins, tarts, and cheese.


They are already best buds.


Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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Monday, January 27, 2014

Ideas for Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 9

Posted by The Cotter Family
Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 9
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
This week's religion memory work was on the six laws of the Church, so we made a paper wheel book of the laws. You can grab a free template to print at Homeschool Share. Just print the large wheels on page four and five. I abbreviated the laws for the wheel, but it'd also be a good idea to have the kids copy them word for word to help with memorization.


You can also check out what Family Catechism has to offer on this topic!

Latin
We are learning the Sanctus by watching and listening to this version on youtube.
History

Lesson 1
History this week is on the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment, which influenced the French and American Revolutions. Whew, that's a lot to try to get a 5 and 7 year old to digest and it's really hard to find books on these topics that don't try to make the Church look like a bunch of oppressive idiots. Nicholas Copernicus: The Earth is a Plant is what we used, but you'll still have to do some explaining. Basically, the Church was seeing some conflicts between how they were interpreting the Bible's account of the solar system (like certain passages in Psalms which talk about how "the earth stands still") and what scientists were discovering. They wanted to be sure they could reconcile the two before making official statements and they needed time to do that.

Some other books with activities you can dive into are Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities and Galileo for Kids: His Life and Ideas, 25 Activities.

Lesson 2
For a quick and easy lesson on the French and American Revolutions we watched an episode of Liberty's Kids on Lafayette part 1 and part 2. Yep, that's it... I left it to the TV. P.S. You can buy the entire Liberty's Kids series on DVD for only $5-$10!

Science
We are moving on from the chemistry realm into physics! Woo-hoo! I'm excited to start talking about something other than matter.

Lesson 1
To start we did an introductory lesson on energy. You'll need...

First we read Energy is Everywhere and learned that energy is everywhere. Then we did some of the activities that are suggested in the CCM Teacher Text. For example, we rolled a ball to knock over an empty 2 liter bottle and talked about how that relates to energy...



And we observed a toaster to discuss how there are different ways to get energy.


Then we read Energy Makes things Happen.

Lesson 2
Lesson number two on energy taught the kids the difference between potential and kinetic energy. Grab a ramp and lots of balls!

First we dropped balls from mid air to see the difference between potential energy (ball raised up) and kinetic energy (ball falling). We also flung rubber bands to demonstrate the two kinds of energy.

Next we rolled the balls down ramps. Elevating the ramp to different angles and using balls of different densities allowed us to discovered all kinds of fun things about kinetic energy! Details for how to walk your kiddos through these activities are in your Teacher Text.

Finally I passed the lesson over to Bill Nye and the kids watched his episode on Energy.

Math

Lesson 1
Multiples of 10 this week! We used dimes to review them, followed by money questions from mom. Things like, "How many dimes do you need to get a dollar?" Or "How many dimes do you need to buy a $0.70 toy?"


Lesson 2
We also used our hands to count out the multiples of 10. I think you can figure out how to do this one.


Timeline

Lesson 1
To have fun with our timeline memory work this week I put together a word search using a free word search generator from A to Z Teacher Stuff. Unfortunately I couldn't link to the one I made, but it is very easy to make one yourself.


I gave Bean the word search with no word bank and then told her things like "Leif _______ and the ______." She had to figure out the blanks and then find them in the word search (Erickson and Vikings in this case.) This would be something fun to do in a co-op setting if you had the kids race!

Lesson 2
And once again, pictures of each timeline card went into our timeline book.

Geography
Since May we have been studying one state per week to go along with our study of North American geography. Here are the states I've blogged about so far. (Um, none yet.) You could pick one thing from each lesson or just do something fun about a few states each week. I'll keep linking to the state studies as we move through our Journey Across America!

Iowa
Missouri
Arkansas
Louisiana
Texas
Oklahoma
Kansas
Nebraska

Great Words I
This week we began memorizing "Pocahontas" by Rosemary Carr Benet. We will continue to memorize it until the end of the year. That's a long time.

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 a book on her, 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
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Saturday, January 25, 2014

St. Paul Lunch

Posted by The Cotter Family
For the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul today I put together a special lunch for the kids using St. Paul symbols. It was easy, quick, and very kid friendly. Maybe this is what I had for lunch as well, so maybe it's also adult friendly.


Here is what you'll need to put on your shopping list.


"Wait, what is the ice cream for?" you ask. It's for the stormy sea dessert! Let's start there.


St. Paul made many voyages to spread the gospel. On one such trip there was a massive storm that left him shipwrecked. To remind us of this Pauline adventure we mixed Sprite, blue food coloring, and vanilla ice cream to create a stormy sea.


Because St. Paul was a Roman citizen he was not crucified, but rather beheaded with a sword. For this reason the sword is St. Paul's symbol. To incorporate this symbol into our lunch we made hotdog swords with pretzel stick blades. The kids loved being able to dip these into ketchup and eat them in one bite.


As I already mentioned, St. Paul made many voyages, so we made apple and cheese ships for the many boats he traveled on.


Finally, St. Paul is the author of many of the books of the New Testament. In the past the Scriptures were written on and read from scrolls. To remind us of St. Paul's writings we had Fruit by the Foot scrolls.

St. Paul, pray for us!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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Thursday, January 23, 2014

Journey Across America: Rhode Island

Posted by The Cotter Family
This post is part of a 50 state Journey Across America. For information on the basics of this project check out this post.

The Books:
We began by reading R is for Rhode Island Red and then Bean used the information she learned to make a notebook page for her United States scrapbook.

Next we used Rhode Island Red as a read aloud (I changed the words of some of the rude banter as I read) and Bean read Finding Providence on her own.


We also taught the kids about Rhode Island using the Our United States of America: Catholic Social Studies textbook.

The Food:

Pizza Strips, a popular Rhode Island treat, served as our easy to make Rhode Island food. The kids covered Flatout Bread with pizza sauce and then used a pizza wheel to cut it into strips. You eat pizza strips at room temperature, so that was it! They really enjoyed them, especially because they were able to make them completely on their own.




The Craft:

Apparently we never made the Rhode Island craft that I had in mind. I'm thinking it's because this was the last state we did before Peanut was born. Anyway, we were going to make these paper tube violets because Rhode Island's state flower is a violet.

There you have it! Next on our journey is Vermont!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Journey Across America: North Carolina

Posted by The Cotter Family
This post is part of a 50 state Journey Across America. For information on the basics of this project check out this post.

The Books:
We began by reading T is for Tar Heel and then Bean used the information she learned to make a notebook page for her United States scrapbook.

Next we read a few North Carolina picture books: My Great-Aunt Arizona and The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree.


Finally we taught the kids about North Carolina using the Our United States of America: Catholic Social Studies textbook.

The Food:
We used a Pork Barbecue, North Carolina Style recipe from food.com for our state food this week, however I replaced the pork with chicken. The recipe calls for 1 cup of vinegar, which consequently made for a very strong taste in the sauce.  So, if I were to make it again, I would cut back on the vinegar.


The Craft:
Each year Banner Elk, North Carolina hosts a Woolly Worm Festival with 20,000 in attendance. It's believed that the thickness of the center band on the woolly worm predicts the upcoming winter weather.

For our state craft we made our own little woolly worms by wrapping pipe cleaners around pencils and using lots of glue!


Now on to Rhode Island!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Ideas for Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 8

Posted by The Cotter Family
Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 8
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
The kids filled out a Corporal Works of Mercy word jumble while listening to a few Angel Food sermons. Pick your favorites, or listen to both!
Lesson 2
Corporal Works of Mercy Charades was super easy and fun. Write the works down on a strip of paper and then let the kids take turns drawing slips and acting them out.

You can also check out what Family Catechism has to offer on this topic, and this would be a great week to go and perform one of the works as a family!

Latin
We are learning the Sanctus by watching and listening to this version on youtube.
History

Lesson 1: Versailles
To teach the kids about Versailles Kevin used a free, and amazing, google tour! You could spend hours getting lost in the chateau without even leaving your home :). Rick Steves also has an awesome audio tour of Versailles that you can download for free. We didn't try it, but you might be able to pull off using the google tour with the audio tour for the full experience.


Kevin and I were extremely blessed to go to France for our 5 year anniversary, so we pulled out our photo book from the trip and shared with them some of our own Versailles photos as well.

A little selfie in the Hall of Mirrors. You can see the headphone cord in Kevin's hands from
our listening to Rick Steves tour!
P.S. If you ever travel Europe check to see if Rick has free audio tours of where you are headed, it's way cheaper than paying for a tour or renting the audio tour on site. We used them several times during our France trip, it was awesome on so many levels! Just download them to an iPod or similar device and bring your headphones!

Lesson 2:
For our second history lesson Bean read Peter the Great. Then we started Christmas break :).

Science

 This week's memory work is on the states of matter. There is so much out there for teaching this topic! Separate from the lessons that follow, we also read the books pictured below and watched Bill Nye's Phases of Matter on youtube.

Lesson 1
Here is what you'll need for your first lesson on the states of matter:

To begin we observed the three main states of matter: gas, liquid, and solid. We talked about their properties and what makes them unique. (Better details are in the Teacher Text.)

Next we did an activity that demonstrated how molecules move faster when they gain energy. The food coloring in the hot water spread faster because the molecules have more energy and therefore move faster.


We followed that up with activity 2, which aims to demonstrate a similar principle. Something about mixing dyed hot water with cold clear water and vice versa. It didn't work for us. I say just do activity 1.

Womp-Womp-Womp
Lesson 2
Supplies needed:

For starters we blew up a balloon with a bottle of root beer. They suggest cola, but we don't like cola, so I bought root beer. It still worked, so pick your favorite carbonated beverage.


After the balloon was filled up we compared the volume of the bottle that was used to fill the balloon to an unopened bottle and observed that they appeared to still have the same volume. I think the one that blew up the balloon looked like it now had more volume, but I'm no Bill Nye. In the end, what you are observing is that gas molecules are much farther apart from each other than liquid molecules, so there is no observable difference between the two bottles.


Next we observed gas molecules turning back into liquid molecules via sweat on a glass.

And for our last observation we put together this contraption.

It took me several readings to understand what they wanted me to do with a pencil, ruler, cups, etc., I kept picturing the pencil under the cups... anyway, there you have it (look at the picture below). The paper towel labeled A was soaked in rubbing alcohol and one labeled W was soaked in water. The alcohol evaporated faster than the water and...

boom.

Finally, we made our last mini-book for our science lapbook! It came from Discovering Atoms, Molecules, and Matter. We then assembled our folders with all of the inserts we'd been collecting over the semester and called it a day.


Math
Lesson 1
I made these strips of paper for the kids to make a ladder out of the multiples of 9.


Lesson 2
Then I taught them them a finger trick for the multiples of 9. I always found this trick fascinating as a kid!

Timeline

Lesson 1
We played Timeline Hangman this week!


Instead of drawing a blank for each letter of a word, I drew a blank for each word in the card. If a player guessed the beginning letter of a word, then I wrote just that letter in the blank. Above you see "Charlemagne Becomes Holy Roman Emperor". For this to work the kids need to be fairly familiar with the week's cards, so don't play it right after you introduce the new cards. And I'd suggest playing this game during a week when you don't have cards with dates... like week 8 :). Instead use it during week 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 16, or 18.

Lesson 2
And we put pictures into our timeline book this week!

Geography
Since May we have been studying one state per week to go along with our study of North American geography. Here are the states I've blogged about so far. You could pick one thing from each lesson or just do something fun about a few states each week. I'll keep linking to the state studies as we move through our Journey Across America!

Kentucky
Ohio
Michigan
Indiana
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota

Great Words I
It's another quick poem-in-one-week this week! I couldn't find The Elephant by Hilaire Belloc in any picture books, sorry. To bring the fun you can do some fun crafts or activities from this Pinterest board. I particularly like the milk jug elephants!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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