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Cycle 1 Week 13 Tutor Plans for Classical Homeschooling

Kick off the second semester of Cycle 1 with fun, engaging tutor ideas for week 13 in classical homeschooling! Read along for creative ways to introduce the memory work. If you are looking for tutor ideas from the first semester, you can find them here.

Please note, I am not affiliated with any Classical education organization; these are simply my own ideas and suggestions based on my experience as a tutor. I hope they inspire and support you as you plan for Cycle 1, Week 13.

cycle 1 week 13 tutor ideas pinterest pin

This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.

We love being part of our Classical homeschooling community. Read more about how God redirected our path from private education to homeschooling and Classical education here.

Are you new to the Classical model and want to know more about it? Keep reading below about how it’s organized, the different cycles, our community time, and MORE!

If you already know about the Classical homeschooling model and you are ready to jump to the actual tutor ideas, click here.

A Classical model of homeschooling

We are part of a Christ-centered homeschool program that follows the Classical model. The younger children, ages 4-12, focus on a memorization-based curriculum which acts as the groundwork of learning that is built upon in later years.

Children and their parents learn key facts across the core subject areas including history, science, English, mathematics, geography, and Latin. Tutors use fun activities, games, songs, and lots of energy to introduce the new material. The parents can then expand on that material at home throughout the week.

Cycle rotation

The material is divided into three cycles, which each last one year. The cycles continue to rotate every three years, so most children who start when they are kindergarten age, complete each cycle at least twice. This allows them to develop a deeper comprehension and grasp of the material through repetition.

Cycle 1 material

This year, in Cycle 1, we are learning about ancient world history, biology, earth science, Latin noun endings, and English prepositions and verbs.

The following ideas are what I’m planning to do with the group of kids I am tutoring this year (ages 4-6). You may use these ideas if you are also tutoring in a Classical homeschooling community, or if you’re a parent who is looking for memory work ideas to use at home.

Also, you don’t have to be part of any particular Classical homeschooling group to use these ideas! These are ideas to help children learn key concepts in the core subject areas. If you are a homeschooling parent, or just a parent who wants to supplement what your kids are currently learning in school, these ideas will be helpful for you.

Community group time

Our homeschooling community has been meeting on Tuesdays. Our leader starts off the morning with everyone together in a big group setting. She typically begins that time with a devotional reading and prayer, and then continues with some announcements, celebrating birthdays, the pledge of allegiance, and anything else she wants to cover with everyone.

After this time, we split off into our different groups based on age. The tutors lead their groups into different classrooms and begin the New Grammar part of the day. This is when the tutor introduces the memory work for each core subject. Check out my post and video about how to make your own tutor board!

cycle 1 week 13 tutor board
Cycle 1 Week 13 Tutor Board

Cycle 1 Week 13 Tutor and Memory Work Ideas

New Grammar

English

For English this semester, I will continue to use these lined notebooks that the children wrote prepositions in last semester. I like to lay these out on the table before our class time begins. When the kids walk into the room, they find their notebook which shows them where to sit.

preschool lined paper notebook opened to cycle 1 week 13 with compound prepositions and blanks for kids to write other compound prepositions on.

I love using these notebooks because I think it’s great for the kids to get some writing practice. During the summer, I decorate the front of each notebook with each child’s name and a fun biology design related to Cycle 1 (see below for picture). You can download a template of this biology themed notebook cover here and customize for your kids.

In these notebooks, I write each week’s English memory work on a blank page as large and neatly as I can. I use a light colored marker, so that the kids can trace my writing and easily see their own writing with their pencil.

I lay the notebooks out on the table before our class time begins. After English, I collect them and bring them back the following week. At the end of the school year, they will have all 24 weeks filled out and they can take their notebooks home with them.

compound prepositions written in preschool lined paper notebook zoomed in
english notebook cover decorated with students name and biology design

Cycle 1 Week 13 English

In Cycle 1 Week 13, we learn some of the compound prepositions. I prep the notebooks with three of the compound prepositions already written, two dotted compound prepositions that the children can trace, and one horizontal line where I will have the children write the last compound preposition. See picture above. Depending on the ages of the kids in your class, you could adjust this to meet their level:

  • Write five of the compound prepositions and have the children write the last one.
  • Write some of the compound prepositions normally and then write one very lightly or with dots so the children can trace.
  • Have the children write all five compound prepositions on their own.
  • Write the compound prepositions but with missing letters and have the kids fill the correct letters in.

As the children are writing, I start singing the compound prepositions to the tune of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. See my video below:

Cycle 1 Week 13 English song

I love making little jingles to the memory work we are learning. Children memorize much quicker if it is to a song, and it’s more fun too! It’s also a great way to review the material throughout the week at home. It is so easy to play the week’s songs while you’re at home or in the car. I also like playing previous week’s songs at the end of our new grammar class time to help review previous material.

I encourage the children to sing the tune with me several times as they finish up writing in their notebooks. After we sing the song several times, I hand out a sticker for each child to stick to the front of their notebook. I often try to find stickers that relate to some of the material we are learning about that week.

Compound Preposition Hand Motions

Once the kids are finished writing, I have them stand up and show them the hand motions to this week’s compound prepositions:

  • according to: shake pointer finger like you’re saying something important
  • in addition to: make a cross with pointer fingers from both hands
  • except for: cross arms and make an “x”
  • in front of: put one hand in front of the other
  • out of: take one hand out of the other
  • instead of: act like you’re handing something to someone

I encourage the children to try singing the compound preposition song while doing the hand motions with me. Then we play a game where the children take turns showing the rest of the children a hand motion for one of the compound prepositions and the other children try to guess which compound preposition the child is showing.

I also have the kids sing and do the hand motions to the entire preposition song that we worked on last semester. I plan to have them review this once each week for the remainder of the year. See my video of a slowed down version of the entire Preposition song (weeks 2-12) and the hand motions below:

Slowed down version of the entire Preposition song and hand motions

Also, check out this handout for stick figure drawings of each of the hand motions for the ENTIRE Preposition song if you want a refresher.

Timeline

I like to follow English with Timeline. Each week, I use these Timeline Cards: Set 1 (Ancient World), Set 2 (Medieval World), Set 3 (New World), and Set 4 (Modern World) I highly recommend investing in them (you should get all four sets) whether you are a tutor or a parent. I consistently use them as a tutor and also at home with my kids.

4 sets of classical conversations timeline cards set out on table.

Since I have the younger children, I like to tape the paper letter that the timeline event starts with at the top of the card. I have found these letters at my local Dollar Tree. Some of the children in my class can’t read yet, so this helps them identify the event I’m referring to.

timeline cards for week 13 with large letters on the laying on the table.

Cycle 1 Week 13 Timeline

When it’s time to start Timeline, I tell the children close their eyes and I tape a timeline card with painters tape to each of their backs. They have to put themselves in the correct order as we sing this week’s part of the timeline song.

I start singing this week’s part of the timeline song and repeat the first event, Age of Exploration, several times. I ask the children, “What letter does age start with?” I encourage them to look at each other’s backs and see who has this card. Once they figure out who has it, that child stands on the first spot marker against the wall.

I continue to sing this week’s part of the timeline song as the children figure out who has the second timeline event and so on. See my tutor video for the tune of this week’s timeline song.

Once all the children are standing on their spot markers in the correct order, we go over the hand motions together. See my video below which includes the hand motions for this week in the timeline section:

Cycle 1 Week 13 Tutor Ideas

We sing this week’s part of the timeline song and practice the motions together a few times.

Geography

Now for geography! The children are now sitting at the table which follows the timeline part well where the kids were standing. I like to try to alternate active parts with sitting to mix things up and keep the kids engaged.

trivium table map prepped with features outlines in dry erase marker with goldfish.
close up of geography trivium table map prepped with features outlines in dry erase marker with goldfish.

I prepare these trivium table maps ahead of time. You could always print a map too and laminate it. This is the laminator I have and use all the time. I outline the features we are discussing this week in dry erase marker, each in a different color.

Cycle 1 Week 13 Geography: Western Africa

This week we learn about Western Africa. I give each child a trivium table map and a homemade goldfish for the kids to point to the different locations with.

goldfish cheese crackers on baking sheet
leaf shaped cheese crackers on blue plate

These homemade crackers (goldfish or other shapes) are a nutritious snack my children enjoy regularly. I thought this would be a great opportunity to share them with our homeschool friends!

I tell this story to the children while going over these locations. They can use their goldfish to travel to each location as I tell the story.

Our little fish are enjoying swimming together in the great big Atlantic Ocean. They decide they want to go on a little adventure in Western Africa so they swim into the Senegal River.  Then they jump over to the Niger River and swim to the Ivory Coast which is called Cote D'Ivoire by the French.  They are hungry and want a snack so they have some plantains and some peanuts.  They start getting a little cold from all the swimming, so they decide to go dry off in the hot Sahara Desert.  Once they are nice and dry, they start to get too hot, so they go back to the Ivory Coast, grab a few more peanuts for their journey, swim back down the Niger River, jump over to the Senegal River, and back into the Atlantic Ocean where they see the rest of their friends and family.

I teach the children a song to the tune of You Are My Sunshine. See my video below:

Cycle 1 Week 13 Geography song

We sing the song together several times while pointing to the different locations. Then I say to the kids, “Who remembers what the red river is called?” Then I ask, “who remembers what the orange country is called?”, etc.

Depending on time, I give each child a few different colored dry erase markers and let them color in some of the places we have learned about so far this year. Or if you need to move on to the next subject because of time, you definitely don’t have to do this.

I have also found that it works best to review geography WHILE we are doing geography. The kids have their maps in front of them and it’s really easy to talk about places we have learned about previous weeks.

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.

African countries made out of felt sorted into piles by color
African map with felt countries hung up on wall

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.

girl putting African countries up on large felt map on wall

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 below for how to make this map with just a few materials:

Making Christmas Special: Homeschool Traditions and Fun Review Games Video

My daughter is also enjoying putting together this Africa puzzle. She absolutely loves puzzles and it’s a great way that I can spend some time with her while the younger kids nap. I especially love these Geo Puzzles because the pieces are the actual shapes of the countries. They have puzzles for the other parts of the world as well! We have also enjoyed putting together South America this year.

girl putting together Africa puzzle on the floor
Africa puzzle put together with box next to it

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

Cycle 1 Week 13 Math: Liquid Equivalents

This week in math we are learning about fluid ounces, cups, pints, quarts and gallons. I continue singing the song from last week to the tune Alice the Camel to the children while showing them these liquid equivalent cards.

Cycle 1 Weeks 12 & 13 Math song

You can play a game at home with your kids using these liquid equivalent cards. See my Cycle 1 week 13 activity set below.

liquid equivalents cards

The Gallon Robot

Before class, I cut out and laminate the parts of the gallon robot.

liquid equivalents robot man pieces lined up on table

I have some painters tape ready and let one child start by hanging up the robot head on the wall. Then I have another child connect the robot body to the head and I tell the children the body is equal to one gallon.

liquid equivalents robot man in pieces on table

I have other children help tape up the robots legs and arms to the body. After that we tape up the pint hands/feet and cup fingers/toes. Once the gallon robot is completely taped up on the wall, I ask the children, how many quarts are part of the gallon robot? Just like there are four quarts in a gallon! Then I ask them, how many pint hand or feet are connected to each quart leg or arm? How many cup fingers or toes are connected to each pint hand or foot?

liquid equivalents robot man on wall

This is a great visual to help the children learn these liquid equivalents. You could also print these out and hang this up on your wall at home!

liquid equivalents robot man with liquid equivalent cards

We sing the liquid equivalents song (see video above) a few more times as we look at the gallon robot and point to the different parts.

History

We learn about the Kush this week. I say the history sentence once NORMALLY to the kids and tell them to listen very carefully. Then I say the history sentence again but with some “silly words” added in. I tell the kids that if they hear a silly word, to raise their hand and try to tell me what the correct word should be. Here is the correct version of the history sentence:

The Kush mined gold along the Nile River from 2000 BC to AD 350.  The Berbers traded gold, iron, and salt in the desert.     

Here is the history sentence with silly words:

The Whoosh mined bold along the Nile Shiver from 2000 BC to AD glittery.  The gerbils traded gold, lion, and salt in the blizzard.   

Each time I say a silly word and the kids catch it, I ask them to correct it. Then I say the history sentence from the beginning, correctly, until I get to the next silly word. This way the kids are hearing the history sentence correctly several times. I repeat this until I have said all the silly words and the whole history sentence correctly.

Latin

In Latin this week we learn about the noun cases again. We previously talked about these during weeks 1 and 2. We sing these to the tune Are You Sleeping Brother John. See my video below:

Cycle 1 Weeks 1, 2, 13, & 14 Latin song

We play a game this week where I start singing the song: “nominative…” and the children have to try to say the next word which is “subject.” Then I continue the song with “genitive,” and the children have to say the next word, “possessive.” We continue this pattern throughout the rest of this song.

After singing through the song a few times while children sing every other word, I hand out a silly voice card to each child. We switch off singing the song (the children continue to sing every other word) in the different silly voices. You can download these silly voice cards for FREE below!

Free Silly Voice and Movement Cards

You can also hand out a silly voice stick to each child and sing the song in different silly voices. These are large popsicle sticks that I painted and wrote some silly voices on.

silly voice popsicle sticks

Here are the silly voices I wrote on these sticks:

  • Loud to soft
  • Slow like a sloth
  • Close eyes
  • Squeaky voice
  • Super smiley
  • Excited
  • Whisper
  • Crying
  • Fish/pucker face
  • Pouty
  • Scared
  • No teeth
  • Quiet to loud
  • Mad
  • Hold your nose
  • Tongue out
  • Mouth closed

The kids love doing this! It’s a fun way to make them laugh and keep them engaged, especially when they are getting tired. You could also give each child one of these movement cards (get these for FREE also), and have the kids switch off doing these different movements as they sing the song.

Science

This week in science we learn about some parts of the geosphere. I teach the children the song to the tune of Bumpin Up and Down in my Little Red Wagon to help them remember these.

Cycle 1 Week 13 Science song

I use painters tape to make six long lines spaced about a foot apart on the floor. I use the hallway of the church where we gather for our community time for this and I make these tape lines before our class time begins. The lines need to be long enough for all the children in your group to have room to stand on them in a horizontal line. See picture below.

children getting ready to jump on each part of the geosphere image

When it’s time for science, I have the children stand in a horizontal line and hold hands while I stand in the middle. I tell the children that we are going to start in the center of the earth which is called the core. We are going to jump together to each part of the earth and at the end we will have exited our planet and be in the atmosphere. Encourage the children that we all have to jump together and only when we sing the next word in the song. You will need to sing the song slowly so that all the children have enough time to jump.

Have the children repeat jumping on all six lines as we sing the song several times. You can mix it up by having them jump on one foot, on their tip toes, backwards, etc.

For review this week, we play a game called Stinky Feet! This is such a simple review game that the children in your group will love!

stinky feet review game with little feet review cards surrounding stinky feet sign on table

Before community group, I cut out and laminate this stinky feet sign and stinky feet cards. You can download these for free! You can also just draw stinky feet on a white board and use sticky notes as the cards if you don’t want to print anything out.

The cards have little feet on the front and on the back are numbers -2o to +20 in increments of 5.

I split my class into teams. I ask the first child a review question from any subject and after they answer they get to pick a foot card off of the board. If they don’t know the correct answer, I let the rest of their team help. They turn the card over and see it’s a “stinky” foot or not. A “stinky” foot is a negative number.

Whatever point value is on the back of the card gets added or subtracted from the team’s score. I also like to have the child take off one of their shoes if they get a “stinky” card. You don’t have to do this part but it adds some excitement to the game.

The game ends when all the feet cards are gone! Whichever team ends up with the most points wins! Or you could switch it up and have the team with the least points win.

I prefer to ask review questions on the fly instead of preparing them ahead of time. Here are some more example questions I ask (remember I have the youngest children in my group):

  1. Do you remember any parts of an animal cell or plant cell?
  2. What was one of the names of a Greek or Roman god we learned about?
  3. Do you remember the Fertile Crescent song? “The Fertile Crescent, Mediterranean Sea…”
  4. What are some animals that are vertebrates?
  5. What are some animals that are invertebrates?
  6. What is a preposition and motion we have learned?

Printable and Editable Cycle 1 Week 13 Tutor Plans

Here is a printable EDITABLE template of these Cycle 1 Week 13 Tutor Plans. Here is a blank template too!

cycle 1 week 13 tutor plans template

Cycle 1 Week 13 Memory Work Activities

Also check out the FREE activities and games that you can use at home to help your kids practice the memory work this week.

Blessings to you on this homeschooling journey!

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