The Our Patron Saints Unit below is a much smaller spin off from the unit I put together on “Special Agents for Christ” by Annalisa Boyd for my presentation during the previous webinar.  I had originally created this mini unit for my boys as part of our homeschool curriculum but it is easily adaptable for classroom use as well.

My background is in elementary education.  I have taught in public schools in the past and while I no longer teach in a traditional classroom, I suppose you just can’t take the teacher out of this mommy.  I’ve done quite a bit of extensive research on learning styles over the past ten years or so.  1) I find it absolutely fascinating. Maybe it’s my geeky teacher side coming out.  2) I wanted to teach my children in the way they will learn best.

That being said, I try my best to create my lessons and units to appeal to the different learning styles of my children.  Based on recent brain research, Dr. Linda Silverman elaborated in her book “Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner” about our current understanding surrounding the functions of the brain’s hemispheres.  She explains the two basic types of learners: visual-spatial and auditory-sequential (logical-sequential).  Dr. Howard Gardner further breaks down the different learning styles into even more specific ways of learning in his theory of multiple intelligences.  I tend to use Dr. Silverman’s two learning styles more often because they’re simple but still encompass all of Dr. Gardner’s learning styles as well.

Here’s a simple assessment to determine if you are a auditory-sequential or visual-spatial learner:

*Remember, we use both sides of our brain.  You may find examples from both lists apply to you but look to see which learning style you tend to favor.

As a whole, we tend to teach all children as though they are auditory-sequential learners.  I cannot even begin to explain how big of a disservice this is to visual-spatial learners.  Visual-spatial learners think and learn in a way extremely different from auditory-sequential learners.  So much so, that oftentimes visual-spatial learners are labeled as disorganized or learning disabled because they do not think, learn, or function in the same way as auditory-sequential learners.  It’s vitally important to develop our lessons and units to reach both learning styles especially when research has shown that auditory-sequential learners will excel when given visuals and manipulatives (regardless of age) in addition to the normal educational approach of reading text, writing papers, and completing worksheets.

Let me give you an example.  My daughter (who is now a freshman in college) struggled with note taking through middle school – not only note taking but deciphering the notes for studying later.  After an “aha moment” in my research, I had her draw a simple picture of the lesson, for example in history, and then label the picture with the date, names of important people, and location instead of writing out sentences or shorthand note taking.  Where she once struggled to even explain the basic summary of the historical event with traditional note taking, she could give me vivid details of the entire event from her non-traditional note taking.  This is the difference it makes when we teach to multiple learning styles instead of just one.

The “Our Patron Saints Unit” is in three parts:

1) Worksheets:  Fill in the blank for each member of the family’s patron saint with the appropriate information.  (Dad, mom, brother, sister, and self)  Then label on the map at the bottom of the worksheet to show where the saint lived.  Read the story of each person’s patron saint – via a book or a search on the Internet.  Then search on the Internet for any remaining information you need to complete the worksheet.

*Adaptation for classrooms:  a) Complete just the “self” worksheet for each person in the classroom or  b) Send home all the worksheets inside a small folder with brads and ask the parents to complete the worksheets with their child and bring them back to class.

This worksheet is predominantly for the auditory-sequential learner.  Listening to the story of each saint, writing down details of each saint, and systematically learning about each family member’s patron saint all appeal to the auditory-sequential learner’s strengths for retaining information.

Labeling the map at the bottom of the worksheet appeals to the visual-spatial learner’s strengths for retaining information.

This worksheet will be a tool for labeling the map in the next part of this unit.

Here are the worksheets for this part of the unit:  Unit Patron Saints

2)  Map:  I used the same bulletin board I used for our unit on “Special Agents of Christ”.   We showed where all of our family’s patron saints lived on the map by labeling the map with an icon of the saint and brief details about the saint.

*Adaptation for classrooms:  Place each student’s patron saint on the map instead of every child’s entire family.

Labeling the map predominantly appeals to the visual-spatial learner.  The map is an important tool for the visual-spatial learner to retain information about the patron saints.  Written details about the saint, such as writing on a worksheet that their saint lived in Turkey, does not bring big picture meaning to a visual-spatial learner therefore they have a difficult time retaining the information.  They need to see where Turkey is located on a map and then they can visually recall the map along with instantly recalling additional details about the saint later.  It will also allow the visual-spatial learner to understand and remember how close or far apart the family’s patron saints lived from each other.  It helps to bring meaning to the lesson on a grander scale for them.

3) Timeline:  We created a timeline of everyone’s name day using the icons of our patron saints.  We labeled the date of each person’s name day under each icon on a post-it note.  I mixed up the icons and post-it notes and asked my boys to put them in the correct order – according to who’s name day occurs first in the year.  (Decide ahead of time if you want to have the timeline start in January with the secular calendar or September with the ecclesiastical new year)

*Adaptation for classrooms:  Have each child bring in their icon of their patron saint.  Create a timeline of your class’ name days.

This portion of the unit appeals to both learning styles.

For the auditory-sequential learner, they see in a sequential manner who’s name day occurs first, second, third, etc.

For the visual-spatial learner, they can see the icons lined up and recall the order of the icons in their mind as they remember who’s name day occurs first, second, third, etc.