Thursday, May 8, 2014

Ideas for Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 16

Classically Catholic Memory: Gamma Year: Week 16

For the last two weeks the kiddos have been memorizing the 10 Commandments. For an exhaustive list of ideas for learning about them check out The Catholic Toolbox.

Lesson 1
We made a simple 10 Commandments tablet out of brown constructions paper and then the kids wrote down the second 5 commandments on the right side of the booklet. (Last week they wrote down the first 5 commandments on the left side.)

If you missed listening to Keep the Rules from Angel Food last week, you can still do it this week :).

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

This week's topic: The French Revolution. Yep, it drastically changed our world as we know it. Finding supplemental material that doesn't portray all Catholic clergy as overweight, lazy, comfort seekers who cared little for the poor is hard to do. (In fairness some of them did fit that descriptions, but most did not.) So we used the book You Wouldn't Want to be an Aristocrat in the French Revolution, which was the best I could find.

Kevin took it from there and gave an oral explanation of what happened, why it happened, and what it all means for us today.

Of note, there is a movie on The Battle of Waterloo, but I have not idea if it is any good. If you have over 2 hours to watch it, let me know what you think :).

We are currently in the middle 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

Lesson 1
Newton's 2nd Law of Motion: Supplies needed:

This week we combined science and P.E. (Well, we don't formally do P.E. at home, but if I had to track subject hours for my state, I'd count this as P.E. too.)

Using the instructions for the opening discussion in the CCM Teacher Text, we demonstrated the concept of mass equals force times acceleration by letting the kids test out the difference between hitting a tennis ball and a basketball with a racquet. This is supposed to be demonstrated by the teacher, but the kids needed the exercise and, due to my lack of athletic ability, it might have taken longer for me to make contact with the balls than it did for them.

We continued the discussion portion from the Teacher Text by having the kids feel the difference between pushing heavy and light objects.

Finally we watched a short youtube clip on Newton's 2nd Law of Motion.

Lesson 2
Materials needed:

For our second lesson we completed activities 1 and 2 from the Teacher Text, which consisted of rolling a ball down a ramp at various inclines and observing the difference between the ball hitting a paper cup and a metal pot.

And lastly we did activity 3, which involved kicking a soccer ball... more P.E.

The goal was to kick the ball and bounce if off the wall with just the right force to get it to rest at the chalk line. As you can see there are cracks in our concrete, and therefore our patio is not level. This caused the ball to always keep rolling, resulting in a homeschool fail. If you do this, you need a level surface.


Lesson 1
This week we memorized the formula for the circumference of a circle. Bean drew a circle on the driveway (also not an ideal place for the kick-the-ball-off-the-wall demonstration above), and repeated the formula while walking the circumference of a circle.

Lesson 2
Next I had her write the formula on a paper circle and we learned about the concept of a radius. I left it at that and didn't do any computations with the formula. She's probably behind in 2nd grade math now, but at least she had some good P.E. lessons this week.


Lesson 1
We called this game "Disappearing Timeline".

I wrote down the entire timeline on a white board and had Bean read it to me. Then she closed her eyes and I erased one word. When she opened her eyes she read the timeline to me again, stating the missing word from memory. We did this over and over until the board was blank and she could read all eight cards without any words on the board. For this particular week that had her reciting the timeline 24 times, which helped her successfully commit the order to memory!

Lesson 2
Our timeline book was neglected this week. My images from the swap I did never arrived... I need to go send them an email...

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!


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