American Studies

Week 1: 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 theme for today was Christopher Columbus. We spent time with a globe to find Spain, India and the route that Columbus thought he would take to take to find India. We also spent a good amount of time working on some math (skip-counting worksheets, number identification, and adding) and reading (lesson 1 in Catholic Speller--some worked on letter ID and sounds while others read from a chapter book). For the next class, please bring My Very First Catholic Speller, 

Week 3: Today was a lot of fun! 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,

NOTE: please remember not to bring nuts in as a snack for the children since St. Joseph's tries to keep a nut-free environment. 

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 docility, patience, and kindness. We had an opportunity to practice these virtues by making a puzzle of the USA--I was quite impressed by the children's continuous desire to work on virtue as well as the puzzle the whole time. 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 math exercises as well--I am still trying to work out where everyone's abilities are, but next week should have three different levels of challenge for the students. Finally, the boys and girls made their own beaver dams today out of Play-dough, sticks, and leaves! They worked on making sure that they collaborated with each other in a virtuous way, and they had a lot of fun. 

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!).