Cycle 2 Week 3 Tutor Ideas for Classical Homeschooling

We are settling more into the rhythm of a new cycle, and I can’t believe Week 3 is already here. Whether you are tutoring or simply looking for fun ways to reinforce the memory work at home, here is a peek at what I am planning for Cycle 2, Week 3.

As always, I keep our activities simple, engaging, and full of movement, which works so well for our youngest learners. Here is what I have planned for Week 3, organized by subject.

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 encourage and inspire you as you prepare for Cycle 2, Week 3.

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.

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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 2 material

This year in Cycle 2, we’re learning about pre-Reformation to modern history, ecology, astronomy, and physics; Latin verb endings; English pronouns, adverbs, and conjunctions; skip counting, conversions, and more!

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 2 Week 3 Tutor and Memory Work Ideas

Geography – Western European Countries

This week in geography we are learning the Western European countries: Ireland, England, Portugal, Spain, and France.

Before introducing the new material, we take a few minutes to review the European Seas and maybe a few continents and oceans. We sing our European Seas song to the tune of Father Abraham. (If you want to use it, I shared a video of it last week: Cycle 2 Week 2 Geography Song).

To make this lesson fun and hands-on, I’ll be giving each child a tiny hand that fits on their finger. Using their “mini hands,” they’ll point to each country on their laminated trivium table maps, which I will have outlined in different colors with dry erase markers. This makes the countries stand out clearly and helps them connect the names to the map visually.

After we point to and name each country together, I will teach them a short song to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down (see video below). We’ll sing it several times while pointing to the countries with our tiny hands, which will help reinforce the memory work in a playful way.

Once the children are comfortable, I’ll turn it into a game by asking questions like, “Who remembers the name of the red country? What about the orange country?” This gives them a fun challenge while reviewing the geography together.

English – Pronoun Order

This week we are learning pronoun order: first person singular, second person singular, third person singular, and first person plural, second person plural, and third person plural.

To make this active and fun, I’ll lay out eight long strips of painter’s tape on the floor, spaced far enough apart for all the children to stand on each line. We’ll use these as our “pronoun lines.”

We’ll hop from line to line while singing the Pronoun Order song to the tune of God Is So Good (see video below):

• All line up on the first strip and sing: “Pronoun order, singular.”
• Hop to the next three lines while singing: “First person, second person, third person.”
• Hop to the fifth line and sing: “Pronoun order, plural.”
• Hop to the next three lines while singing: “First person, second person, third person.”

After practicing a few times across the tape, we’ll go back the other direction. Then we’ll add fun variations: hopping only on the right foot, then the left foot, and finally with shoes off for a little extra silliness.

I also created simple pronoun signs you can print and place at each line of tape if you’d like a visual reminder for the kids. This game adds movement, rhythm, and laughter, making pronoun order easy to remember.

Timeline

The timeline stays the same each cycle, and this week we continue with the next seven cards.

I often use these Timeline Cards in class: 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.

Since I have the 4-6 year old 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.

Cycle 2 Week 3 Timeline

Before our class time begins, I put seven pieces of painters tape on the wall and I hide the cards around the room. I also tape a number (1–4) in each corner of the classroom (I used the numbers from my Four Corners game). When it’s time to start timeline, I invite the children to search for one or two cards and bring them to the table. While they are looking, I sing this week’s portion of the timeline song to keep the tune fresh in their minds. See my tutor video for the tune of this week’s timeline song.

Once all the cards are found, we lay them face up on the table. Then I ask the kids to spread out to the different corners of the room. I’ll call out the first event (for example, “Hinduism in India”) and ask, “What letter does this event start with?” After the kids answer, I roll a die. If it lands on 1–4, I pick a child in that corner to come find the matching card and hang it up on the wall in the correct order. (If I roll a 5 or 6, I just roll again.) We keep going until all the timeline cards are placed.

Finally, the children each stand in front of a card on the wall as we review the timeline hand motions together. Then we sing the timeline song as a group, trying to keep the motions and the words in sync. See my video below which includes the hand motions for this week in the timeline section:

Math

This week in math we are working on skip counting the 5’s and 6’s.

We start with the 5’s, and I have the kids give a high five to the person sitting next to them with their right hand as we chant the 5’s together. Then we switch and high five the person on the other side with our left hand. To keep practicing, I call out different variations:

• Find another partner and give high fives.
• Now try low fives.
• Soft fives and then hard fives (not too hard, just enough to make it fun!).

The kids love this activity because it keeps them moving and laughing while they practice their skip counting.

For the 6’s, we usually sing them to a tune (see my tutor video for the melody we use). To make it even more fun, I hand out action cards so that each child has an action to do while we sing. We repeat the song with different action cards each time, and the kids always get really into this.

You can download my UPDATED printable Silly Voice and Action Cards for free by entering your email in the form below and I’ll send them straight to your mailbox!

Silly Voice and Action Cards

This simple mix of songs, rhythm, and movement makes skip counting much more memorable for young learners.

History

This week our history sentence is about the Crusades: Richard the Lion-Hearted, son of Eleanor of Aquitaine, fought the Turks for Jerusalem during the time of the Crusades, from 1095 to 1291.

To help the kids learn this sentence in a fun way, we’ll play the “Silly Words” game.

First, I’ll say (or sing) the history sentence correctly and ask the children to listen carefully (see my tutor video for this tune.) Then, I’ll sing it again, but this time I’ll sneak in some silly words. For example:

“Richard the Lion-Footed, son of Elephant of Aquitaine, fought the Turkeys for Watermelon during the time of the Parades, from 1095 to 1921.”

Whenever they hear something silly, the kids raise their hand and tell me the correct word. Each time they correct me, I repeat the sentence correctly from the beginning until I get to the next silly word. This means the children hear the correct sentence several times while staying engaged and giggly.

Once we’ve fixed all the silly words, I have everyone stand up and dance or march around as we sing the history song together. Adding movement makes the repetition fun and really helps the memory stick.

Science

This week in science, we are learning about the three types of consumers: herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. To make it fun and interactive, we are playing the “What Do I Eat?” game!

I prepared animal picture cards, and on the back of each card are pictures of the foods that each animal eats. The children sit in a circle on these spot markers. I choose one child to go first and give them an animal card to hold on their forehead so that everyone else can see the foods, but they can’t. The other children take turns telling the player what the foods are, and then the child has to guess whether their animal is a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore. If they get stuck, of course we all help them out.

After that child takes a turn, we pass the next card to another child until everyone has had a chance to play. The kids love the guessing and it gives us a great opportunity to review and reinforce the science terms together.

To finish up, I’ll teach them a simple song to the tune of Happy Birthday about herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. You can find my video for this week’s tune below:

Latin

Our Latin memory work this week focuses again on the first conjugation verb endings in the imperfect tense:
-bam, bās, bat, bāmus, bātis, bant. See my tutor video for the tune we sing these to!

To make it extra fun, we’ll sing with our animal cootie catchers. Each child gets one to use during class. As we go through the endings, I encourage the kids to make their cootie catchers “sing” in different ways (you can use these silly voice cards too!):

• Fast
• Slowly
• Quietly
• Loudly
• Whisper

It always gets giggles when the animals “sing” in silly voices, and it helps the endings stick in their minds.

I prepare these cootie catchers ahead of time and hand one out to each child at the start of class. At the end, I collect them so we can use them again in future weeks (and they don’t get lost in backpacks or pockets!).

For review this week, we’ll be playing a class favorite:  Stinky Feet! It’s such a simple game, but the kids always love it and it keeps them engaged while practicing all their memory work.

Before community day, I prep by cutting out and laminating a Stinky Feet sign and little foot cards (you can download these for free). If you don’t want to print anything out, you can simply draw stinky feet on a whiteboard and stick Post-it notes on top. On the back of each foot card are numbers ranging from –20 to +20 in increments of 5.

Here’s how it works:

1. I split the class into two teams.
2. I ask the first child a review question from any subject. If they don’t know the answer, I let their team help.
3. Once they answer, they get to pick a foot card. If it’s a positive number, their team adds the points to their score. If it’s a “stinky foot” (a negative number), those points are subtracted!
4. To make it extra silly, if a child gets a stinky card, I sometimes have them take off one shoe. This part isn’t necessary, but it makes the kids giggle and keeps the energy high.
5. The game continues until all cards are gone. The team with the highest (or lowest, if you want to switch it up!) score wins.

I personally like to ask questions on the fly to keep things lively, but here are some example questions I’ll use with my Abecedarians:

• What is something God created and do you remember which day He created it on?
• What was one of the land biomes we learned about last week?
• Who did Pope Leo III crown Holy Roman Emperor?
• In 1054 what happened to the church?
• Do you remember the definition of a pronoun?

This game works beautifully because it mixes fun, suspense, and review! The kids don’t even realize how many times they’ve practiced the material!

Our NEW Cycle 2 Memory Work Activity Book

If you’re looking for a fun way to review the memory work at home with your kids this year, check out our NEW Cycle 2 Memory Work Activity Book. I created this notebook to give kids a fun way to practice their memory work, without adding extra prep for mom, dad, or grandma.

Inside, there’s one short activity for each subject for all 24 weeks of Cycle 2. When we do geography on Monday, they do the geography activity for that week. When we get to Thursday, they do the science page. It’s so easy to match to whatever we’re focusing on that day.

I love that it keeps things simple and fun. It’s NOW available in digital and printed form, and there is a sample page you can take a peek at if you would like too! Check it out below!

NEW Cycle 2 History and Science Placemats

These brand-new Cycle 2 History and Science Placemats are designed to make memory work fun and interactive for kids, whether you’re using them alongside Classical Conversations or on their own as a way to dive deeper into history and science.

Each placemat is filled with colorful visuals and simple explanations that bring the topics to life. Just print, laminate, and use them again and again during meals and review time. They’re an easy, no-prep way to dive deeper into the history and science topics with your kids. Get your set for the first six weeks below. Future weeks will be available soon!

Cycle 2 Geography Passport

We also have a fun addition for geography review — the Cycle 2 Geography Passport! Whether you’re a tutor or a homeschool parent, this printable resource helps kids track their Classical Conversations Cycle 2 geography week by week with full-color maps and matching cut-and-glue stamps.

Each page highlights that week’s memory work with clearly labeled locations, making it easy for young learners to connect what they’re memorizing with what they see on the map. Kids love collecting stamps as they “travel” through the world!

You can use the Geography Passport at home with your own children, or print it out for use in class. A group license option is available if you’d like to use it with your tutoring class or community group.

It pairs perfectly with the Cycle 2 Memory Work Activity Book, giving your students or children a hands-on, engaging way to practice their memory work all year long. If you’d like both resources, be sure to check out the bundle option available in my shop!

Printable and Editable Cycle 2 Week 3 Tutor Plans

Here is a printable EDITABLE template of these Cycle 2 Week 3 Tutor Plans. Here is a blank template too!

Cycle 2 Week 3 Memory Work Games

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

I hope this helps give you some ideas and songs to use whether you are a tutor or a parent. Please comment below if you have any questions about anything.

Blessings to you on this homeschooling journey!