American Studies

Week 1: We had a great first day of class! Today, we learned about some of the early explorers who possibly discovered America, especially St. Brendan the Irish monk. We also became "explorers" today and explored our classroom, the field outside, and our map of the world. Finally, we did some basic math and reading exercises which helped me develop an idea of where the students were in their abilities.  

Week 2: The adventures of Christopher Columbus was the theme of the day. We traced his route on our globe and made newspaper boats. We spent a good amount of time on math today. We practiced identifying numbers greater than 10 and skip-counting/adding by twos. For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller. 

Week 3: We learned about the Indians and did our history reading in a longhouse that the children built and decorated. We did a geography lesson on the location of different tribes and learned about the conversion of St. Kateri and the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues. For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller,

Week 4: Conquistadors, Aztecs, and Our Lady of Guadalupe were the themes for today. The children learned the story of Cortez and how he helped free the Aztec Indians from their false religion. We also learned about how Our Lady's appearance to Juan Diego helped convert almost a million people within his lifetime. The story was reinforced by collecting fall leaves in our "tilmas" and tracing them with pencils. We also did a geography puzzle of the United States. For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller,

Week 5: We continued to learn about the Spanish settling of America, especially of the founding of St. Augustine--the oldest city in the USA and the name of our school! We also learned about the virtues of patience, and kindness. Finally, we labeled the points on a compass rose to start to familiarize ourselves with the cardinal directions. For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller,

Week 6: We are now exploring the French settling of American. We learned about FrenchVoyageurs and St. Isaac Jogues, a man who made great sacrifices for love of his Mohawk friends. We did some brief reading and writing, focusing on words with the short "a" vowel. Finally, the boys made their own beaver dams today out of Play-dough, sticks, and leaves! They worked on trying to collaborate with each other in a virtuous way. 

For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller AND something like a floating bathtub boat (we will be learning how the French explored the Mississippi River and will be holding boat races!).

Week 7: We learned about Fr. Marquette and Louis Joliet who explored the Mississippi River. We colored different parts of the North and South American continent on a map to help orient our history held boat races to mimic Fr. Marquette's journey of 2500 miles! For reading, we worked on short "a" vowel words, words that rhymed with them, and wrote them on whiteboards. For math, we worked on addition on sheets with pictures. For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller,

Week 8: Today, we learned about the five Great Lakes . We colored in a map and worked on identifying the lake by its shape--our read-a-loud, Paddle to the Sea, offered some great images to remember the history around each lake by its shape! We went outside a couple of times to take in the nice weather and to go on a nature scavenger hunt and, later, a leaf-identifying expedition. We started moving towards subtraction and the boys found the visual aid of taking away pencils to be helpful. We also had time for a reading lesson, working on short "i" vowels words. 

For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller, as well as a clear jar container with a lid! We are going to make nature jars--something like a clear mayo container would work!

Week 9:  Today, we focused on some traits that are unique to Michigan: we started to learn a fun song called "The Mermaid of Ontario"; colored a page with different Great Lake fish while I retold the plot of The Rainbow Fish; and learned about what it would be like to live in early Fort Detroit. After that, we attended Dr. Brown's Art and Architecture lecture which the boys seem to enjoy--Dominic even decided that he wanted to be George Washington after seeing "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Leutze! We spent some time in our spellers, progressing onto each boy's next lesson--I was quite impressed with how much the they have improved! For math, we had a worksheet that taught addition by counting the cookies in two jars and adding them. On our whiteboards, we practiced subtraction, trying to figure out how many cookies were left after "eating" some. Finally, we went outside and collected some cool nature items and made a display in a jar that the boys brought home. 

For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller.

Week 10: We started talking about the English settling of America and the first Thanksgiving. We imagined what it would be like to sail on a boat for months and then arrive at our new home in wintertime with little food and no house--the English must have been very thankful after their first harvest! Our math and reading exercises made for a kinesthetic day! We used Saxon's math wrap-ups to count in sequence, and then moved on to solving riddles i.e. word problems. Our reading/writing lesson took the form of cutting out feathers and writing things we are thankful for and pasting them onto a turkey--we had lots of practice working on our dexterity! For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller. Have a happy Thanksgiving!