Take Online Summer Courses with Cicero
Summer is the part of the year when a student can follow curiosity rather than a syllabus, and our summer courses are built that way. Tell us what your child is drawn to and we will design a course around it, taught one to one by a teacher-mentor or in a pod of three or four students who want to learn together.
Are you a high schooler prepping for an AP? A tween about to start high school? A student who has never been allowed to spend real time on the thing they actually care about? Our summer seminars are for you.
"The idea behind our summer seminars is to give teens space to explore their passions, experiment, and challenge themselves."
What a summer course looks like
You meet your mentor online once or twice a week for four to eight weeks. Because the timeframe is short, the first session establishes what your child actually wants from the course, and that shapes the rest of it more than it would during a school year when a syllabus has to be covered regardless.
Some families use the summer to get ahead, taking a maths course before the year it is scheduled so the autumn feels less steep. Some use it to repair a subject that went badly. Most use it for something a school timetable has no room for, which is where the more interesting work tends to happen.
Ten seminars we have designed
These are illustrations rather than a fixed menu. Each one began as a conversation with a family, and each shows the kind of thing we can build. If your child wants something not described here, that is the normal starting point rather than an exception.
Essay Essentials
For middle schoolers or high schoolers who want to level up as writers. Across fifteen sessions with an English language arts teacher, students build a genuine process for writing essays, from developing a thesis to producing a prose-perfect college essay. One to one, or a pod of up to four. Four to eight weeks.
Let's Break AI
Rather than trying to prevent students from using AI, we think it is more productive to teach them how it works. There is a long tradition in technology of hacking something in order to understand it, and that is the approach here. Over four weeks, with a computer engineer from MIT, students try their hardest to break an AI chatbot and explore its uses and misuses along the way. Empowerment rather than fear.
AP English Summer Reading Club
For students taking AP English Literature in the autumn. With a trained AP teacher, this reading club gets into the required reading early, in a setting designed to be relaxed and enjoyable, the way summer reading should be. Students explore narrative themes, do some textual analysis, and finish more confident about writing persuasively and holding their own in discussion.
Spanish Conversation
The real mark of fluency is being able to speak, and this seminar exists to give students regular practice. Meeting once or twice a week over four weeks with a high school Spanish teacher and translator, a student spends an hour in conversation. One to one, or a pod of three or four.
Prototyping
Learn to build a prototype of an idea. Working with an experienced engineer, a student turns a big idea into something workable, picking up design thinking, working at scale, and the principles of prototype building along the way. Hands-on, with practical experience developing and testing. Materials are easy to find and the mentor specifies them before the course starts.
Anthropology of Me
Part history, part political science, part anthropology, and entirely self-discovery. A deep dive into your child, their family, and their relationship to the places they live and travel. The course begins with an optional DNA test, and while the results come back students do basic genealogy and family research.
Hot Sauce & Fermentation
Learn to make excellent hot sauce with an impresario who produces and sells it at his local farmer's market. Along the way students learn the art of fermentation, the differences between pepper varieties, and what actually happens in the body when you eat something hot. There is a primer on farmer's market entrepreneurship too. Four weeks.
Meditation Workshop
Meditation has a measurable effect on executive functioning, improving working memory, attention control and cognitive flexibility. In this one-to-one workshop with a trained facilitator, students explore a range of practices and learn how meditation fits into ordinary life. It also works well as the foundation of a morning and evening routine, which sets a student up for the autumn.
Ecosystem in a Jar
Build a self-contained ecosystem with a trained biologist. Along the way students explore some of the building blocks of life on earth, including the nitrogen and carbon cycles, using materials they already have. They then monitor the jar over two weeks, learning how observational biologists track change in a system over time.
Blogging Workshop
Over four weeks with a former worldschooler and travel blogger, budding writers learn how to launch a blog, write for an audience, and grow that audience. A good way for teens to find their voice, pick up technical skills, and build somewhere to publish their ideas.
Designing something else
Most of the seminars above exist because a family asked for something and we found the person who could teach it. That is still how it works. Tell us what your child is curious about, and we will tell you honestly whether we have the right mentor and what a course around it would look like.
Some requests turn into a four-week enrichment seminar. Others turn out to be a full-credit course better taken across the academic year, and we will say so rather than compressing something that needs more time.
One to one, or a small pod
Every seminar can run one to one with a mentor, which gives the most flexibility over scheduling and content. Most can also run in a pod of three or four students, which suits discussion-led subjects and shares the cost. Some students simply prefer having peers over the summer. You choose when you enrol.
Summer courses while travelling
Most of our summer students are somewhere other than home. Our teachers work across many time zones, so we can usually find a slot that fits your travel rather than asking you to fit the course. If you are moving between countries mid-seminar, tell us at the start and your mentor will plan around it. A week off in the middle of a six-week course is normal, and we would rather schedule it than have you miss sessions.
Frequently asked questions about our summer courses
How long are the summer seminars?
Most run four to eight weeks with one or two sessions a week, which fits around travel and family plans. Essay Essentials runs fifteen sessions. Each seminar below states its own duration, and we can compress or extend where a family needs it.
Are the seminars one to one or in groups?
Both. Every seminar can run one to one with a teacher-mentor. Most can also run in a learning pod of three or four students, which suits discussion-led subjects and shares the cost. You choose when you enrol.
Can a summer seminar earn high school credit?
The seminars are enrichment rather than credit-bearing courses, and that is deliberate. If you need a full credit over the summer, we can build one from our regular catalogue at a more intensive pace. Tell us during your consultation and we will say honestly whether the timeframe works.
What age are the summer seminars for?
Middle and high school students, roughly eleven to eighteen. A few suit younger students well, and Anthropology of Me and the Meditation Workshop both work at almost any age. If your child sits outside that range, ask.
Do I need to buy materials?
Very little. Prototyping, Hot Sauce & Fermentation and Ecosystem in a Jar are hands-on, and each uses easy-to-find materials your mentor specifies before the seminar starts. Nothing requires specialist equipment, and nothing needs ordering weeks ahead. Anthropology of Me offers an optional DNA test.
Find the mentor who changes everything.
Book a free consultation. Tell us what your child is curious about and we will match them with the right teacher-mentor. No obligation, no sales script.
Book a free consultation