Cycle 1 Week 4 At Home Activities for Classical Homeschooling
Looking for fun and effective ways to reinforce Cycle 1, Week 4 memory work at home? Join me as I share about some engaging activities, games, and books that have enriched our homeschooling week.
Last week we had fun making Laurel Wreath crowns as we learned about the Greek and Roman gods in history. We also made our own animal cells out of different foods in the kitchen. Read more about what we did at home for Cycle 1 Week 1 , Week 2, and Week 3. You can also get a peek into our first couple of homeschool weeks here.

Tutor Ideas for Classical Homeschooling
How is your homeschool year going so far? 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 six 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
- Cycle 1 Week 5 Tutor Ideas
- Cycle 1 Week 6 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 4. If you are thinking past the fourth week, I also have videos for Cycle 1 Week 5 and Cycle 1 Week 6. 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 4 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 4 from the Foundations of the Bible study about Noah. 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.

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.
This week I also sing Blessed Assurance 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 4’s songs for English, Science 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 the Hittite Empire. During our morning snack time, I start out reading to my kids from Maps and Globes by Jack Knowlton.


I show my girls where the Hittite Empire is on their placemats. We also sing a song together to the tune of Apples and Bananas. See my video below.
Then we go outside and 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 Hittite Empire or one of the locations we learned about in previous weeks. 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 4 Memory work activities from the Resource Page on my blog.
History
This week in history we learn about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I give my kids the Timeline Image from Cycle 1 Week 4 Scribblers (page 3) in ccconnected.com and my girls color it.
Pyramid craft
My girls also enjoy making their own pyramids and painting them. I made this pyramid template that they use. We also enjoy reading the pyramids part of the book Wonders of the World by Tom Jackson. My girls can’t wait to put their little dolls under these pyramids to sleep at night.


Seven Wonders Puzzles
My daughter also enjoys putting together these Seven Wonders of the Ancient World puzzles. You can download these puzzles for free from the Resource Library on my blog. These are part of the Cycle 1 Week 4 Memory Work Activities. 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 am also trying to start some read aloud time with my oldest daughter. She is very into puzzles lately, so I read Chapter 4 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 Some Parts of Plant Cell. My daughter looks for the differences between the animal and plant cell and colors the activity I made. You can get this for free with my other Cycle 1 Week 4 Memory work activities from the Resource Page on my blog. I also read to my kids from the book: Plant Cells vs Animal Cells by Rebecca Woodbury.


We learn that plant cells have chloroplasts and animal cells do not. Chloroplasts essentially catches sunlight to make food for the plant. Animal cells do not have chloroplasts and therefore animals must get their food from eating other animals and plants. Here are some other differences we learn about:
- Animal cells have more mitochondria than plant cells.
- Plant cells have a cell wall while animal cells do not.
- Plant cells have a more rectangular shape.
- A plant cell has one large vacuole while animal cells have many small vacuoles.
We also sing a song together to the tune of This Old Man. See my video below.
Lesson Plan Templates
Click here to download an EDITABLE template of my detailed lesson plans for Cycle 1 Week 4. Here is a blank template you can download too.
Here are all the picture books we enjoy during Cycle 1 Week 4:

Cycle 1 Week 4 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.
- Skip-counting activity for counting the 7’s and 8’s
- Preposition card game (we learn the second five prepositions this week)
- Latin Bingo game
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.