Christopher Columbus: Adventures in MFW #3

We next covered Christopher Columbus in My Father's World. In addition to our MFW lesson readings, we read several picture books about Columbus like this one:

A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus 

by David A. Adler

The kids journaled (using this paper), retelling what they remembered from our MFW book.

A book we particularly enjoyed was Pedro's Journal, written by Pam Conrad.

This is the story of a young boy aboard the Santa Maria with Columbus. It is about 80 pages long, and we were able to read it in about 4 or 5 sittings. It would be best for 2nd-6th graders, but my daughter listened right along. They liked hearing the story from the boy's perspective, therefore it was more relatable. It provides perhaps a new outlook on the man Christopher Columbus and what went on during those months at sea and upon the crew meeting the Indians. 

I used many online resources for enrichment, 

including these sites:

samples from a literature unit

good discussion questions

vocabulary words, activities, online test

The kids folded and scrunched foil into boat shapes. (This turned out to be a little challenging for them.) They stuck craft sticks onto the boat with a little clay, and each was responsible for labeling a boat with the ships' names.

They floated their ships in the bathtub. Tornado cut out this one-eyed cheese man to ride in his ship, and Dash opted for this Lego guy to come aboard.

They had to sail their boats using only their breath as the wind.

The kids retained a lot from this video on youtube.

We also watched a Christopher Columbus documentary on Netflix, which was less entertaining for them but informative, nonetheless.

We made these sailor hats.

Tornado and I are going through Book Two of Draw, Write, Now. He likes when it is time for us to do this together. He loves to draw so much that I'm trying to teach him tips to improve his skills. He does really well when we go through the steaps. There happens to be journal entries/art lessons that will often go right along with what we are working on in My Father's World.

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