Classical Conversations CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Tutor Plans for Masters

Here is everything that I plan to do for Classical Conversations CC Cycle 3 Week 1 in my Masters class!

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Memory Work

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Timeline

This week for timeline, I plan for us to play the game Dog Catcher.

This game has two variations and has basically an unlimited amount of character options. It is similar to the bomb game I have seen for CC timeline ideas.

What you will want to do is have six dog print outs & one dog catcher print out.

Tape six of the dogs onto the back of six timeline cards.

Tape one dog catcher on the back of one timeline card.

Here are the two ways you can play:

1. Good Guy – in this version, the dog catcher is a good guy who is saving the most amount of dogs that he can. Your class will want to guess the dog catcher sooner than later, ideally first, to save more dogs than dogs that are lost. You will sing the timeline song, have a student pick a card, flip it over to reveal, then repeat 6x.
2. Bad Guy – in this version, the dog catcher is a bad guy who wants to bring the dogs to the pound. Your class needs to rescue as many dogs as possible, i.e. flip over all the dogs before the dog catcher is flipped over.

If you have a younger or more sensitive class, you can always say at the end something like, “Good news! I just received a call that all the dogs escaped on the ride to the pound.”

If you want to keep this “stick in the sand,” instead of printed pictures, just use a sticky pad to write “dog” or “dog catcher” on the cards.

I get my pictures from Canva and then laminate them to use for future years. Or in my case, I used them last year and will use them again this year.

Supplies needed to play Dog Catcher:

• 7 Timeline cards pertaining to the week
• 6 dog pictures and 1 dog catcher picture & tape (or 7 sticky notes with the words “dog” or “dog catcher” on it)

Approximate time it takes to play Dog Catcher: 5 minutes

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Math

For the Masters class, I like to do minute-to-win it type of games or mathercise. 

This week, we played Yahtzee, which is basically a minute-to-win-it game.

This game works best for a class of seven students or less. If you have eight students, have the first two students go at the same time, then one student at a time after that so that there are only seven repetitions.

If you have less than seven students, do one for each student and then you can either just say the facts quickly for the remaining repetitions or hold competitions between the top competitors.

To play Yahtzee, give one student (or two, see note above) five dice. Have the rest of the class recite the math fact one time through while the person with the dice plays.

The student with the dice needs to roll for all of the same number on the dice. We will recite the 1s first, so roll for 1s.

Say they roll 5 dice, and they get two 1s. They keep the two 1s up, pick up the remaining 3, and keep trying for 1s.

You can make it more difficult by adding more dice or just see how many Yahtzees they can get.

The person stacking does not do the recitation.

Continue playing with each student and see who can get a Yahtzee!

Play again for the 2s, rolling for 2s this time.

Supplies needed to play Yahtzee: 

• five dice

Approximate time it takes to play Yahtzee: 6 minutes

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 History

Last year my class loved playing Hot or Cold for history and since I have mostly the same class, I decided I’ll try it again this first day to see if they still love it as much.

To play Hot or Cold, listen to the history song one time all together.

Then, show the class the item you will be hiding.

This week, I plan to bring a dry pinto bean for a play on the Pinta ship.

Have one parent bring one student outside into the hallway while the rest of the class chooses a place to hide the item.

Once hidden (tip – only give them 30 seconds so it’s not a big time suck), invite the student back in. Have the class sing the history song loudly if the student is close to finding the object and quietly if the student is farther from the object.

The student has six repetitions to find it. If they find it in time, they win, if not, the class wins.

If the student finds it before six repetitions are over, have everyone sing or say the history song as fast as they can for the remaining repetitions.

Supplies needed to play Hot or Cold: 

• object to hide – I plan to use a dry pinto bean this week

Approximate time it takes to play Hot or Cold: 5 minutes

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Latin

This week, I found a fun song on YouTube that I plan to replicate with the class.

It is a call and repeat song which is even better because you get two repetitions with each time through the song.

Here is the song I will use:

For my 7 repetitions, I plan to:

1. Read the grammar

2. Inform them that I will sing a part of the song and then they will sing it back the same way. Sing one time through and see how they do. This will count as 2 repetitions.

4. – 5. Repeat the same way, I will start and they sing back.

6. – 7. Either do it the same way, or challenge them by having them start and I repeat.

Supplies needed for Latin: None

Approximate time needed for Latin: 4 minutes

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Science

I found another fun song by one of our favorite CC YouTubers, Home Video Variety Show:

And hand motions that I will incorporate with the song by Stephanie Laughlin, another favorite YouTuber of ours!

Here is the order I plan to present science to get all seven repetitions in:

1. Read the question and say the answer, making sure to say “Four types of tissue are…”
2. Read the question and have the class answer
3. Introduce the hand motions to the class
4. Do the hand motions together
5. Introduce the song to the class
6. Practice the song with hand motions with the class
7. Sing and do hand motions together

I don’t actually like to sing but I know my own children learn the memory work really well with songs so I always incorporate at least a couple songs on community day.

I like to do some versions with songs and some with hand motions for students who do better with hand motions.

Variety is good for different learners!

Supplies needed for science: None

Approximate time needed for science: 4 minutes

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 English

Since we have the math facts that take up a lot of time, I am planning to do a quick song for English.

I plan to sing to the tune of “Do Your Ears Hang Low,” which I got from Melody K here:

Here are the quick 7 repetitions:

1. Read the grammar.
2. Sing the song.
3. Have the students sing with me for 5 repetitions.

Supplies needed for English: none

Approximate time needed for English – 1 minute

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Geography

This year I want to try something new for my Masters class. If it goes well, I plan to do it all year.

Instead of tracing maps, I want to challenge my class to draw the US, week by week.

My director gives us large copies of the CC maps, one for each student. Last year, the students traced the maps.

I picked up some 11×7 paper. I plan for each student to keep their map all year (in a folder I will take home each week) and to build on the map each week.

I believe the Masters class will be more than capable of doing this because my 5 year old was able to draw this map her first try:

Here is what I plan to do to get our seven repetitions in:

1. Read the states and capitals for the week while the students put their names on their papers.

2 & 3. Have the students draw just the states we are doing this week, with their dots for capitals, on their papers while I read the states and capitals 2x through.

4. Show me where _____ is… (all 5 locations)

5. Tell me what this is… (all 5 locations) as I point to my map on my board.

6 & 7. Everyone reads all the states & capitals while passing their maps back to me to put away for next week.

Supplies needed for geography: 

• large map for each student
• 11×7 paper for each student
• pencil for each student
• optional – Draw the USA by Kristin J. Draeger to reference if students are stuck – she blobs the shapes of each state to make it easy to draw 

Approximate time needed for geography: 5 minutes (will take longer this week as we get used to this new method)

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Fine Arts

I love our fine arts unit studying OiLS!

I plan to first read the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds. I did this last year and it went over well to set expectations of having a good attitude as we approach the skill of drawing.

After reading the book and discussing it for a minute, I then plan to introduce each OiLS component.

The students can practice each shape quickly as a warm up.

I then plan to show the cover of Ish and have them practice identifying the OiLS in the cover of the book.

For the remainder of the 30 minutes, I will bring out some sample United States drawings for them to practice drawing themselves.

Supplies needed for week 1 fine arts:

• Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
• Paper for each student
• Pencil for each student

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Presentations

This year, I plan to have a skill of focus each week. This is in the Foundations guide but I am going to change the order up a bit!

For this first week, I plan to have the Masters focus on timing.

Last year, I had several students who wanted to speak for over 5 minutes and some only wanted to speak for 30 seconds.

I plan to have two pieces of construction or cardstock paper – one yellow and one red.

I will hold up the yellow after one minute to let them know they are halfway done.

I will hold up the red to let them know they are at 2 minutes and should be wrapping up so there is still time for questions.

Of course, they can talk for less than 2 minutes. But, these papers should help them know if they are going on for too long.

My goal is to help teach pacing to them with this method.

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Science

The first week is Van Cleave’s experiment #68.

I plan to open the discussion with conversation about cartoons the kids used to watch or currently watch, as suggested on the CC weekly helps.

I love the new (I think? – I’ve never seen these!) weekly helps. I’ll continue to follow the outline for that but also mix in a bit of a script my director gave me.

(Here is the script from my director by Tiffany Pena)

The script is good for providing more information after the students have answered their own ideas as we explore what we know about the eye.

It is definitely not required, as we are here to allow them to explore. But, it is useful when we need to fill time.

Of course, I will follow the actual experiment in Van Cleave’s once we are done introducing the topic.

My goal this year is to not read from a script, but rather read the scripts ahead of time and have the general idea in my head.

I will likely still bring the script to class in order to reference. But our tutor training this year motivated me to try to make it feel more natural this year and leave more room for exploration.

If time allows, I will let the students make their own flip photos (something other than the winking face.)

Supplies needed for hands-on science:

• Van Cleave’s 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre, and Incredible Experiments
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Paper
• Pencil
• Tape

CC Cycle 3 Week 1 Review

For review this week, I plan to have the class play Would You Rather (This or That)?

To keep the students moving, I have them move to one side of the room for “this” and the other side of the room for “that.”

I print off questions ahead of time but you can also just come up with them as you go.

Since we will only have one week of new grammar, I will have some other questions like, what did so-and-so present on today and will also review our classroom expectations.

The format is: ask a review question, then a would you rather question, review question, would you rather, and so forth.

You will run out of questions so you can just move straight into Would You Rather.

Supplies needed for Would You Rather?: 

• list of questions

Save These Masters Tutors Ideas for Later

If you have a masters class for Classical Conversations this year, make sure to save this plan to reference during your CC Cycle 3 Week 1 tutor planning!

If you need week 2, I’ve got you covered! Check it out here: CC Cycle 3 Week 2