More Ideas On How to Use CCM at Home

Alecia and Kathryn have already provided some wonderful ideas on how to continue what the children learn at co-op throughout the week at home. But I thought I would go ahead and share what we're doing in our home too.

Going over the lesson plans provided under the "Program Details" tab, I noted that most of what the kids did in class does not need to be gone over at home (especially since we are also using Catholic Heritage Curricula for our main schoolwork).  So, we just embellished a bit. ;)

I only have time to explain what we did for Classically Catholic Memory. If I find some more spare time (not likely), I'll be back to talk about Connecting With History. :)

We listened to the CD daily and also practiced the hand movements taught to us at Schola Rosa for the timeline. Then we went through each subject separately.

Religion: The questions and answers of "Who made the world?" and "Who is God?" go perfectly with Connecting With History. So I combined the two. (More on CWH if I get a chance to come back).

Latin: For every prayer we have said together as a family, we start by praying the Sign of the Cross in Latin.

History: Again, this ties in with CWH. More later.

Science: I had the children sort buttons and then we discussed how they decided to sort them. By color? By shape? By how many holes they had? This was a great intro on how and why living things are sorted, or classified. We discussed what "taxonomy" is. Then we did the suggested activity in the CCM where you copy the pictures in the appendix, cut them out, and then sort those just as the children sorted the buttons. I also taught the children the mnemonic device for classifications of living things that is suggested in CCM. Drowsy Kings Play Chess On Fine Glass Sets. I also had them write the classifications on a piece of paper, started with Domain on the top and written very large. Then, with each proceeding word, they would write it underneath and make them smaller and smaller. The point of this was to show the kids that the group of living things will get smaller and smaller the more they are classified. This sent us down a rabbit trail about binomial nomenclature and why scientists use Latin to name things. Which was a great way to talk about why the Church uses Latin. Don't you love it when things tie together like that? My children and I will slowly be putting together a lap book about Animal Classification (it's on sale right now, too!). I bought the lap book printables from CurrClick. If you've never heard of them, I highly recommend it for those who are interested in making lap books. They do all the prep work for you and have every subject imaginable. I was really tempted to buy one of the Ancient Egypt lap books I saw there too, but decided that the projects done at Schola Rosa will be enough. ;)

Math: I printed out a 100's chart and had the children color in the numbers, counting by 2's. We've also done a lot of skipping and singing, thanks to Jamie's suggestion! ;)

Geography: The kids practiced singing "There are seven continents", to the tune of "Are You Sleeping". They also took turns labeling their CCM maps. We are also doing a separate continent study for geography where the children are "traveling" to each continent. We have been working on Australia, so even my four year old was able to point that one out pretty quickly!

Poetry: I asked each of the children to describe rain. Then they had the option to write their own poem about rain if they felt so inclined.

Art: CCM has beautiful images of art scattered throughout their book. In Week 1, you will notice Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Why not use this as an opportunity to learn about Michelangelo? Stop by the library, pick out some books on him. We talked very little about his life and concentrated more on the masterpieces he has created. My children tried to recreate the hands from The Creation of Adam and realized how difficult it is. If it's that hard to draw hands, think about how much more difficult it would be to paint the entire Sistine Chapel! And on your back, no less! They certainly appreciated Michaelangelo's work even more after that. (I thought about taping some paper under the kitchen table and letting the kids try their hand at painting that way, but we didn't get a chance too)

There you have it! Lots of fun ways to learn more and give some substance to the memory work. Happy Learning to all our Schola Rosa families!