Cycle 1 Week 13 At Home Activities for Classical Homeschooling

Looking for creative ways to practice the Cycle 1, Week 13 memory work at home? In this post I share about activities, games, and books that have enriched our homeschooling week.

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Over winter break, we embraced a slower pace and focused on working through our Christmas Bible study. We also spent lots of cozy mornings reading our favorite Christmas picture books. If you’re curious to see our list of 30 favorites, you can check it out here. We also played several fun review games that helped my children reinforce the memory work they learned during first semester.

It was a refreshing break and now we are ready to dive back into our normal homeschool routine. If you’re curious about what we did at home during the first semester of Cycle 1, read more here. You can also get a peek into our first couple of homeschool weeks here.

Tutor Ideas for Classical Homeschooling

If you are part of a Classical homeschooling community, are you tutoring? If you are, be sure to check out my posts with tutor ideas for the first fourteen weeks here.

Also, I have a youtube channel where I make videos with tutor and memory work ideas each week. Below is my video with tutor videos for Cycle 1 Week 13. Visit my channel for tutor ideas for many other weeks and other videos with homeschooling tips and encouragement.

Practicing the Memory Work At Home

In this post, I share with you about my weekly homeschool rhythms with my small children (ages five, three and one). I explain about the activities, games, and readings we do together to practice the Cycle 1 Week 13 memory work (new grammar) at home throughout the week.

Morning Devotional Time

I begin each day with our morning devotional time. This is my favorite part of the day with my kids. It is also one of my favorite things about homeschooling. I love that we don’t have to rush out of the door in the morning. My kids get the sleep they need and we can linger over breakfast and read God’s word together.

I have learned some morning habits that help us all get down to breakfast at the same time. This helps me make the most of our morning time together. Read more about these habits here.

Once we are all sitting around the breakfast table and my kids start eating, I begin with our Bible study time. I read to them a small passage from my Bible and then the corresponding story in The Complete Illustrated Children’s Bible. (TCICB). This Bible has BEAUTIFUL illustrations and is very accurate to the truth of the actual Bible.  We follow along with the Bible readings and study that corresponds with the Bible memory work we are learning. 

Bible Study

What Bible study am I doing you might ask? I love using the Foundations of The Bible study from @drivenbygrace. This Bible study goes along with Bible memory work. Lindsey, the author of the study, matches the stories from TCICB that go along with the Bible study and Bible memory work for that week.  If there aren’t enough Bible stories for each day of the week, then I find others that go along with the theme.   After I read, I try to ask my kids a few questions about it to see how much they understood.  My five year old is pretty sharp at this. 

If you’re curious about more of what I do in our morning devotional time, read my post about it here.

This week, I read Lesson 13 from the Foundations of the Bible study about the 12 Sons of Israel. The Bible stories from TCICB that I read each morning either correspond to the Bible study or part of this week’s memory work. See the end of this post for my PRINTABLE lesson plans with details of what I read each day.

The 24 Family Ways

As I read to my kids from the Bible Study Lesson, I have them either color their 24 Family Ways coloring book or one of the activity pages from the Foundations of the Bible study activity book. This works well because they can concentrate on coloring and listen to me read.

After I read the part of the Bible study lesson to them and we talk about it, I go over the Family Way (from Sally and Clay Clarkson’s 24 Family Ways) we are learning about this week. We also work on memorizing the Bible verse that goes with that Family Way. I write both the Family Way and the Bible verse on chalk boards that I have hanging up by our kitchen table so we can see them often. 

I also have found songs that match with each Bible verse that I play after we eat breakfast.  The songs I use are mostly from Steve Green’s CDs. Songs are amazing for helping children memorize the Bible. Download my matchup of the 24 Family Ways with Bible verses and songs from my Resource Library.

Singing Hymns

Then comes my kids’ favorite part, SINGING HYMNS!  I stumbled over this gem of a book called My First Hymnal by Karyn Henley and it is AWESOME!  I let my kids each choose a hymn to sing and I sing it for them (sometimes they join in).  It’s great that they are learning hymns and the ones in this book are fabulous for kids. I also show my kids one of these Attributes of God letter cards from @drivenbygrace.

Math and Language Arts

Each day I try to do at least a little math and language arts with my oldest daughter. This year she is working through The Good and The Beautiful Level 1 math curriculum. Read here why I decided to switch from Saxon math to The Good and The Beautiful (TGATB). TGATB is very open and go and a good mix of lessons and activities. It’s beautiful too! I try to do a lesson with her after our morning devotional time. She is usually the freshest then and if I wait until later in the day to do it, I’m not as consistent.

I also have this Handwriting without Tears for my oldest daughter the first level for my younger daughter. Sometimes it works out to have my girls do some of this in the mornings. If we don’t have enough time the, I have my older daughter do a bit in the afternoon when it’s quiet time. I don’t do it every day with her, just a few times a week.

Weekly Memory work songs

I try to review as much of the weekly memory work with my kids as possible during the week with songs and games. Often when I’m cleaning up breakfast, I play this week’s playlist of memory work songs. We also listen to these songs in the car when driving. See my playlist of Cycle 1 Week 13 songs for English, Science, Math and Geography below.

Daily Subject Focus

I like to dive deeper into one subject each day. I’ve found that focusing on just one subject each day is very manageable and doesn’t feel overwhelming. Here is our usual weekly schedule (you can download this template here):

Geography

This week in geography, we learn about Western Africa. First, I show my girls where these locations are on their placemats. We find the Atlantic Ocean, the Sahara Desert, the Ivory Coast, and the Senegal and Niger Rivers. We also enjoy reading these books about Africa (most I found at our library and a few we own).

• Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema
• We All Went on Safari by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns
• Africa (Discover the Continents: Blastoff Readers, Level 3) by Emily Rose Oachs

Make sure you check out the entire Cycle 1 booklist I made for second semester! I have amazing picture books that relate to the memory work for each week in the second half of Cycle 1 (weeks 13-24).

My daughter enjoys putting the western African puzzle together that I made and my three-year old works on this world puzzle. You can get this western Africa puzzle for free with my other Cycle 1 Week 13 Memory work activities at the end of this post. My oldest daughter also starts drawing her own African continent using the book, Draw Africa by Kristin J. Draeger.

We sing a song together to the tune of You Are My Sunshine. This helps my girls remember these locations in Western Africa. See my video below.

Learning the Countries of Africa

We are LOVING learning the countries of Africa as part of the geography this second semester. I made this fun Africa map that we have on our wall by our kitchen table with all the countries made out of felt.

My girls love taking the countries off and on as we learn their names and locations. Download a paper map of Africa with all the countries labeled here.

I have the patterns for all the African countries, as well as a tutorial about how to make this kind of map in my Etsy shop. Also see my video for how to make this map with a few simple materials. You can find more information and links for these materials here.

We also made up a fun song to help us learn all of these African countries!

History

This week in history we learn about the Kush. We enjoy reading the books, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema, and Cultural Contributions from Africa: Banjos, Coffee, and More by Holly Duhig.

Kush Tic Tac Toe Game

We have a blast playing this tic tac toe game I made about the Kush. My daughter and I alternate drawing cards that match part of this week’s history sentence, and then marking the corresponding space on the game board. Whoever gets three in a row first wins! This is a great way to practice the history sentence with your kids. You can get this game for free with my other Cycle 1 Week 13 Memory work activities at the end of this post.

Timeline Image Coloring Page

Each week I also give my kids the Timeline Image from Scribblers in ccconnected.com. My girls enjoy coloring a camel this week.

I like to laminate these each week and make a timeline of them on our wall as we go through the school year.

Science

This week in science we learn about some parts of the geosphere. My daughter colors the Science coloring page from Scribblers Cycle 1 Week 13 in ccconnected.com.

I read to my girls from several books we checked out from our library about plant systems. We really enjoy The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole, Hello, World! Planet Earth by Jill McDonald, and Planet Earth (Closer Look At…) by Margot Channing.

Geosphere Color by Number

My daughters also enjoy coloring this geosphere color by number that I made. It is a fun way to talk about the different parts of the geosphere as they identify and color them. You can get this game for free with my other Cycle 1 Week 13 Memory work activities at the end of this post.

We sing a song together to the tune of Bumpin Up and Down in my Little Red Wagon. This helps my girls remember the different parts of the geosphere. See my video below.

Lesson Plan Templates

Click here to download an EDITABLE template of my detailed lesson plans for Cycle 1 Week 13. Here is a blank template you can download too.

Picture Books for Cycle 1 Week 13

Here are all the picture books we enjoy this week:

1. Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema
2. We All Went on Safari by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns
3. Cultural Contributions from Africa: Banjos, Coffee, and More by Holly Duhig
4. Africa by Claire Vanden Branden
5. Africa (Discover the Continents: Blastoff Readers, Level 3) by Emily Rose Oachs
6. Mapping Africa (Mapping the Continents) by Paul Rockett, illustrated by Mark Ruffle
7. Roar! (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 3): 100 FUN Facts About African Animals by Stephanie Warren Drimmer
8. How Do You Measure Liquids? (Measure It!) by Thomas K. and Heather Adamson
9. The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen
10. Planet Earth (Closer Look At…) by Margot Channing
11. Hello, World! Planet Earth by Jill McDonald
12. Araminta’s Paint Box by Karen Ackerman, illustrated by Betsy Lewin

You can see my ENTIRE Cycle 1 picture book list for weeks 13-24 here!

Cycle 1 Week 13 Memory Work Activities

Here are activities to help practice the remaining memory work. You can sign up below to receive these AND the activities I mentioned above for geography, history, and science.

• Compound preposition snakes and ladders game
• Latin noun cases maze
• Liquid equivalents math game

How has your transition back to homeschooling been after winter break? Comment below and tell me how your family gets back into your homeschool rhythm.