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!).

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, and we held boat races to mimic Fr. Marquette's journey of 2500 miles! For reading, some of us worked on short "o" vowel words, some on their next lesson in the Speller, and others on reading a chapter book. For math, some worked on addition with pictures, others on two-digit addition, and others were beginning to work on multiplication. 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 (for some, it was double-digit) and multiplication by twos. We also had time for various reading lessons--the part of the group worked on short "o" vowels, while some read from a chapter book. I recently found a chapter book with pictures on Father Marquette's travels which I think the advanced readers will enjoy! 

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 the state flag, seal, bird, ect; and read about what it would be like to live in early Fort Detroit. We spent some good time on reading--most students progressed to the next lesson in their speller while the others read about Fr. Marquette's travels while making a list of words they didn't know. For math, everyone was given an assortment of problems on the whiteboard with some simple and advanced adding a subtracting as well as some multiplication. Finally, we went outside and collected some cool nature items and made a display in a jar or on a plate. 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! We attended Art and Architecture, then returned for our math lesson. It was a kinesthetic day! We used Saxon's math wrap-ups to either count in sequence or for basic subtraction, then moved on to either solving the riddles of word problems or continuing multiplication. 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!