Cycle 1 Week 2 At Home Activities for Classical Homeschooling
Read along to see the activities I have planned to do at home with my kids to help them practice the Cycle 1 Week 2 memory work.
We are into the second week and I’m easing us back into school rhythms. Last week we got back into our Bible study routine, did some activities related to the Cycle 1 Week 1 memory work, and read some related picture books. Read more about what we did at home for Cycle 1 Week 1 here. You can also get a peek into our first week here.

Tutor Ideas for Classical Homeschooling
Have you had your first community day yet? It’s so exciting to be back with your community and have your tutor introduce the memory work to your children. Or maybe you’re tutoring this year? If you are, be sure to check out my posts with tutor ideas for the first four weeks of Cycle 1 below:
- Cycle 1 Week 1 Tutor Ideas
- Cycle 1 Week 2 Tutor Ideas
- Cycle 1 Week 3 Tutor Ideas
- Cycle 1 Week 4 Tutor Ideas
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 2. If you are thinking past the second week, I also have videos for Cycle 1 Week 3 and Cycle 1 Week 4, and of course Cycle 1 Week 1. Visit my channel for tutor ideas for future 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 2 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 2 from the Foundations of the Bible study about Creation. 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. 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.

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). I love that they are learning hymns and the ones in this book are fabulous for kids.

This week I also sing The Solid Rock with my kids. This hymn isn’t in My First Hymnal but I play it for them. I love reading about the history and author of each hymn to my kids using these beautiful Hymn Study Cards.
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 2’s songs for English, Science, Geography, and Latin 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 the Assyrian Empire. During our morning snack time, I start out reading to my kids from Maps and Globes by Jack Knowlton.
We find the Mediterranean Sea on their Classical Conversations placemats. Then I show them where the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Babylon are. I encourage my oldest to outline the different seas with a dry erase marker. My younger daughter enjoys drawing on her map also.


We sing the song together to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus. See my video below.
Then we play the geography dice game I made (see picture here). To play this game, my daughters switch off rolling a die. Each number they roll corresponds to a location in the Assyrian Empire that we are learning about this week. For example, if they roll a 4, they try to identify the place on their map that is labeled with a number 4. You can get this for free with my other Cycle 1 Week 2 Memory work activities from the Resource Page on my blog.
History
This week in history we learn about the second five of the ten commandments. I give my kids the Timeline Image from Cycle 1 Week 2 Scribblers (page 3) in ccconnected.com and my girls paint it.


I like to laminate these each week and make a timeline of them on our wall as we go through the school year. Here is a picture of what last year’s timeline looked like.


My oldest daughter continues to work on a tablet of God’s rules (Cycle 1 Week 1 Sandbox Ezine page 12). She wrote a few of the ten commandments on the first tablet last week.


We also play the ten commandments memory game I made. Get this also for free from the Resource Library on my blog. My kids and I love playing games. I love making the memory work into a game so we are playing a game and practicing the memory work at the same time!
I continue reading What Are the Ten Commandments? by Yona Zeldis to my kids this week. Since it’s a chapter book, I didn’t read the entire book last week and my kids enjoyed it. We usually have some reading time while they have a mid morning snack.
I am also trying to start some read aloud time with my oldest daughter. She is very into puzzles lately, so I read Chapter 14 from Story of the World Volume 1 (SOTW) that relates to the history we are learning this week while she works on her puzzle.
Science
This week in science we learn about the Kingdoms of Living Things. I give my kids the choice of coloring either the Scribblers coloring page or the Cycle 1 Week 2 science coloring page from @amysniderDESIGN. While they color, I read to them from the book: Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth by Rochelle Strauss.

I made a Kingdoms of Living Things Seek and Find that my older daughter enjoys this week. You can get this for free with my other Cycle 1 Week 2 Memory work activities from the Resource Page on my blog.


We also have a blast doing the yeast and balloon experiment from the “attending” part in “Take A Look” in Scribblers. I fill a plastic bottle with warm water, a tablespoon of sugar, and a packet of yeast and put a balloon over the top. In about an hour, the balloon inflates! We talk about how as the yeast feeds on the sugar in the warm water environment and as it grows, it expels carbon dioxide gas which inflates the balloon.
We sing a song to help us remember the Kingdoms of Living Things to the tune of Do Your Ears Hang Low. See video below:
Lesson Plan Templates
Click here to download a template of my detailed lesson plans for Cycle 1 Week 2. Here is a blank template you can download too.
More Memory Work Practice
During some extra moments this week, here are some other books and activities I do with my kids as time allows:
- Continue to read Out the Door by Christy Hale (a book about prepositions)
- Read Behind the Mask by Ruth Heller (another book about prepositions). *I skipped the page with the witch on it.
- Read And There Was Evening and There Was Morning by Harriet Helfand (relates to the Bible memory work)
Here are all the picture books we enjoy during Cycle 1 Week 2:

Cycle 1 Week 2 Memory Work Activities
Activities to help practice the remaining memory work (you can sign up below download these for free from my resource library):
- Skip counting activities for counting the 3’s and 4’s this week.
- Preposition card game (we learn the first five prepositions this week)
- Latin maze (we continue to learn about the Noun Cases this week)
How many weeks are you into Cycle 1? How are things going? Comment below and tell me about any activities you have done or fun books you have read.