Here are our plans and ideas for Classical Conversations - Cycle 2, Week 1... HISTORY SENTENCE It is pretty hard to find ideas and activities surrounding Charlemagne. Truthfully, I'm not going to worry about this too much. Week 1 will be our first week back to CC for Merrick, and the twins' first week in CC (they just turned 4). It will also be my first week as a tutor (eeeek!), so we will probably keep it simple. We will probably just end up borrowing some good books on Charlemagne from the library and reading those together. However, I do love some of the ideas displayed here at Cup of Tea blog: I may just have to get that Story of the World activity book this year! Charlemagne for kids Also, I think we are just going to HAVE to make a family timeline this year! I will not expect much from the kiddos on this one. I thought perhaps we can just add one person a week. There is some great info on how to do this (along with free printables) at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood blog. SCIENCE We must, must, must build a biome in a bottle! How cool is this?!? Directions and more pics here. More biome resources: Biome worksheets on Enchanted Learning (requires a membership) World Biomes Pin Map (with free printables). Just glue the map to a piece of corkboard and use straight pins to place the biome cards. Oh.my.gooooodness! I just found this "Biome song" that uses Minecraft as the backdrop. Merrick will be soooo excited to see this! Another biome song written by a teacher. This one is very educational! GEOGRAPHY Youtube video of the Continents and Oceans song This is a great game we can play to learn the continents! Another good idea: make a map out of a Chinet oval plate (could do a paper mache globe as well, but this seems easier). Scoutie Girl thinks it would be awesome to paint an interactive map like this one: If we made this map, we could laminate the continents and names of the oceans and continue to play with it over and over again. I could even use it as a tutor at CC. ENGLISH Fun idea for teaching the 8 parts of speech (blog origin unknown) 8 parts of speech CC chant on Youtube Parts of speech posters ($2.50 at Teachers Pay Teachers) Other fun ideas: Marshmallow Catapult! Books to borrow from the library: The Minstrel in the Tower Books to Purchase: The Apprentice The Sword and the Tree Tales of Robin Hood That's it for now! I should mention...this is just a list of resources and ideas. We don't actually complete all of these activities. In a typical day, we have a Bible lesson, review the CC memory work, do phonics and math, and (perhaps) complete one craft activity or game that correlates to our memory work. We also spend time reading together. Merrick will be in the 2nd grade starting Fall 2013. The twins will be 4 years old. Aside from the Bible lesson, I do not expect any thing from the twins in regard to their formal education. If they choose to join us, they may. If they do not want to participate, they may play independently. I'm linking up to the Cycle 2 Weekly Link Up Page on Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood blog. It is one of the most helpful blogs there is for CC parents!