Year 5 Celebration of Learning

We made it through the school year! June has been SOOOO busy that we had to schedule our Celebration of Learning at the end of the month. We studied South America this year. Some of our family members are Brazilian and some have visited other South American countries, so we really enjoyed this school year and celebration. Our Brazilian family taught me a couple of recipes, and the children found other recipes they wanted to try. Here's what our celebration was like!

Mmmmm... a basket full of pao de queijo, Brazilian cheese bread. My sister-in-law taught me to always make extra!

The menu consisted of:

• Feijoada, we served it with Chilean Rice rather than seasoned white rice. It was good, the rice had carrots and sweet red peppers in it.
• Oranges (I forgot to set them out so they're not pictured, but you must have them with feijoada!)
• Pao de queijo 
• Ensalada de aguacate
• Chilean ensalada
• Pasta Caruso
• Sopa Paraguaya
• Mandioca frita
• Alfajores
• Brigadeiros

So much good food, no one went away hungry!

The children were tour guides, and as our guests arrived they took them to the tables and art displays. They told them about what we studied, and little bits of info about their work that was on display. We were glad Grandma and Grandpa let us borrow their Paraguay and Uruguay flags.

We also studied anatomy & physiology, Amos Fortune, Free Man, The Tempest, Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, various artwork of the Americas, the restoration of the gospel to immigration, and much more.

The last unit of our history curriculum this year covered immigration to the United States. The three older children picked an ancestor to study, their reports are shown below. Our lessons focused on Ellis Island and life in New York City, and our ancestors came through Boston. My favorite part was seeing the children get to know their chosen ancestor. E said to me that the great-great-grandmother she studied became more than just a name she didn't really know; E learned a lot about her and found out some very interesting things about her life.

A little note - part of the reason E learned these interesting things (one was that their refrigerator was a hole dug in the front yard) was because my parents interviewed their parent's siblings over 40 years ago. They asked all sorts of questions about their family and life and recorded the interviews. They included a slideshow. Those interviews are one of the things we studied.

The moral of the story is that you should interview your family members, have them write in journals, anything to preserve the stories that will help you get to know them and keep their memory alive!

The children presented their geography reports. N was quite excited and couldn't wait to get started. She presented what she'd learned about Uruguay.

E's report was about Chile. One reason she chose that country is because a previous year she chose Easter Island. Please note that she chose to wear her geography shirt!

We create a book for each child full of their research, but condense the information into an oral report. Our goal is to be under 15 minutes per child. This year I typed out the oral portion of the report on a separate paper for E and N. They read from the oral report and advanced slides at each new paragraph. It worked out so well compared to flipping pages and holding up paper images!

J chose Paraguay, the country that Grandma and Grandpa met in while serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The blue and white box on the back of the music stand is a speaker. We bought it a few years ago for this purpose. When we sit outside it's harder for everyone to hear the children speaking. The microphone and speaker help a lot!

M chose Brazil, the country our cousins and aunt (and their extended family) are from.

M and J decided to do a PowerPoint presentation this year rather than hold up papers. What a good idea! E and N wanted to do it too. We scanned the maps they had colored and helped the younger girls put their images into a presentation. M and J cast the presentation from their tablets, and E and N used a remote with the laptop to project the presentations onto the TV. I think this way made it easier, more organized, and it looked cool too!

Please excuse the mouthful of brigadeiro!

What a great day, and what a fun way to end the school year. The children look forward to this every year, and the grandparents do too. It's a lot of work for me, but I love doing it and seeing my children take pride in what they have learned.

Curriculum used: Family School