Fall 2016 Co-op Plans

Last year, we were part of a fantastic Charlotte Mason friendly classical co-op and loved every minute of it.  I taught history, literature, writing, and art/music appreciation to the third and fourth grade, which was a wonderful experience.  Michelle fell in love with Shakespeare because of the Shakespeare class she took there.  The only little problem with it….it was clear on the other side of town – a very sprawling town.  And we had to leave in the morning before rush hour ended.  So, we sadly had to decline participating in that group again.  I'm still sad about it.

 

For this year, our Plan A involved a co-op with a couple of friends from church who were planning to give AmblesideOnline a try this year.  We made a lovely plan for the year, and I was so very excited about where it was heading.   And then, one of those families had to move away. L  I'm still sad about that t00.

 

So that left just my other friend and I.  Thankfully, our children are very similar ages and get along really well, so we decided to go ahead and have a little co-op together anyway.  We had to pare things down a little bit from the original plan that we had settled on when we thought we were 3, but we're both pretty happy with how things are going so far…so all's well that ends well I guess.

 

What are we doing, you may ask?

 

We meet twice a month.  One meeting is at my house and for lack of a better name we are calling this an "enrichment class".    In that class we are covering the following:

 

Recitation

We start our meetings with an opportunity for any children who would like to share a poem, Scripture, or piano piece they have learned with the rest of the group.

 

Picture Study

Charlotte Mason style picture study involves studying a set of 6 paintings from a particular artist slowly, over a period of several months, so we can truly acquaint ourselves with the artist's work and style.  This is done mainly by quietly studying a painting for a few minutes, and then turning it over and narrating all we remember about the painting, talking about what we notice, and what story we think may lie behind the scene or person depicted.  Only after the students have given their insights do I share a few (very few) choice tidbits about the artist or the story behind the painting.  We will be studying Hans Holbein the Younger this fall, and Giotto this spring.

 

Nature Study

We do an "object lesson" on a seasonally appropriate topic during our time together, and spend some time journaling together.   So far, we have done lessons on seeds, fall leaves, and pumpkins (comparing and contrasting with other squashes and cucumbers).   I didn't really plan it this way, but it's working out well to study a different aspect of plant life for each of our studies, so we will probably continue with object lessons on that topic as we continue on through the year.   My method of conducting these object lessons is pretty simple: we collect samples, lay them all out on the table and observe them, discussing what we see.  I have found using the prompts What do you notice? – What questions do you have? – What does it remind you of? a la John Muir Laws helpful to guide this process.   And then we sketch something of interest in our nature journals.

 

Composer Study

We are studying Dvorak this fall and will do Medieval Music in the spring (going along with Giotto as our artist.)   Ideally, we play the music of our chosen composer at home frequently to gain familiarity.  During our time together, we do some focused listening on a selection of one of his pieces and discuss a bit what we hear (or what we see – occasionally we watch a YouTube video of an actual performance), and perhaps discuss a bit of what Dvorak's influences were.  (This is really fascinating y'all.  Maybe I'll write another post about some of the fun connections I've come across.)

 

Handicrafts

This the most challenging since we range in ages from 4-11, meaning there is a wide range of skill and ability.  This fall we are doing Paper Sloyd projects (measuring/cutting/folding to make envelopes, boxes, bookmarks, etc), which has gone okay for the most part.  We do have two adults with extra hands, and we are learning how to help the children with perfectionistic tendencies not get too upset when it doesn't work quite right the first time.   I'm not sure if we will continue paper sloyd in the spring, or choose a different handicraft. Handicrafts are neither of our forte…

 

We also have a recess break at the small playground in our subdivision, and our friends usually pack a lunch and stay and eat with us before they head home so the kids get some playtime together in too.

 

On our other monthly meeting, we plan a park day or other field trip of some kind.  Thus far, we've just had a couple of park days, but I think we will need to be a little more creative during the winter when it is likely to be too cold to want to spend all morning out in the park. J  But our crew has been pretty happy with this arrangement so far.

 

While there are times I find myself missing the more academic, discussion-based focus of the group we were part of last year, we are finding this a good fit for us this year.  Because we only meet twice a month, we have some wiggle room in our schedule on our off-weeks, which has given us time to pursue other field-trip opportunities on our own or set up outings with other friends.  These were things I rarely felt like I could give us permission to do last year when we were part of a weekly, more academic co-op (especially given the distance factor and how much that weekly cross-town trip took from all of us energy wise.)  Our kids love spending time together, and it's been good for us Mamas to be able to chat outside of church time too (especially since I've been unable to participate in our women's Bible study this fall).  So, all's well that ends well….

What We've Learned: March and April 2014

Education is an Atmosphere

“I want to do great things for the kingdom.  Those great things, however, are loving, training, and teaching the greatest things in the kingdom – His children whom He has put under my care.  For such is the kingdom of God.” ~RC Sproul Jr.

 

 

Education is a Discipline

Over the past month or so, I’ve been working on tweaking our morning routine to run a little more smoothly.  This is tough for me because I am NOT a morning person and deal daily with the temptation to sit around in my pj’s doing nothing but reading and drinking coffee until 10am every.single.day. But I do see fruit in getting everyone going and keeping everyone moving along to the next thing in the mornings.  We are able to accomplish that which needs to be done with a better attitude, and it leaves us with more time to pursue those things we would like to do during the rest of the day.  So we’re working on it.

 

Part of this has entailed moving James towards independence with washing the breakfast dishes, with the goal of his being completely independent by the time he turns 6 in June.   We’ve been buddy washing for a long time, and I know he is capable of washing them well.  He’s a little prone to dawdling, however, and a little attached to having me right there.  So we’ve started talking about how he will be 6 soon, and when he’s 6 he’ll be a big boy and able to wash all by himself the way Michelle does at lunchtime, while I slowly start moving away to work on something else for a minute.   Why the push for James to be more independent with the dishes?  So that I can work with Elizabeth (just turned 4) on a basic morning routine (getting dressed, making her bed, etc).  This has been pretty spotty and haphazard up until now because I just couldn’t keep a good enough eye on her while trying to oversee everyone else.  If James can be more independent, then I can be more focused on her.

 

 

Also in the interest of improving our morning routine, I decided to give up computer time before chores, school, and some kind of devotional time are done during Lent.  I’ve tried to develop this discipline before and always failed….I do dearly love getting online and seeing what all my lovely Forum ladies have been chatting about over in North America while I’ve been sleeping on this side of the Atlantic. J   But trying to fit this internet time into the morning has generally meant a more rushed devotional time, kids who go do everything but what they are supposed to because Mama is distracted, and a slower (and therefore more frustrating) start to our school morning.   I found that the Lent aspect of it provided the motivation I needed to just.do.it this time, and I hope that now I have a habit I can stick with from now on.  It really does make a huge positive difference in our home when I can discipline myself to stay off the computer during the key ‘transition’ points of the day.

 

Miss Elizabeth and her dad with their winning pinewood derby car "Fish Out of Water" - just one of many fun family activities sponsored by our co-op this past month.

 

Education is a Life

April has been our Conference and Co-op Month, so we haven’t been in our normal homeschool routine.   (We did wrap up through AO Year 2, Week 9 before stopping for our break at the end of March, however.)  The way our co-op works is pretty unique due to our situation here, so I thought I’d share a little bit what 'co-op' looks like for us, and some of the highlights from this session for our kids.

 

Michelle with her co-op teacher - also our very dear family friend.

 Most homeschool co-op type groups meet once a week, but due to the fact that the majority of the homeschooling families in our mission community live somewhere outside of the city, meeting weekly isn’t possible.   So instead, we meet 3 times per year for 2-3 weeks at a time, long enough to make it worthwhile for those more remote families to travel into the city.   Families are asked to participate in at least 2 of the 3 sessions.  Our family prefers to skip the session in August and attend the sessions in December and April.   During these weeks, the homeschooled kids attend school with the children who attend our mission-run primary school full time.  For all of the students, however, they mix up the normal schedule and curriculum to make it possible for the homeschooled kids to participate in fun group activities that aren’t possible when homeschooling in a remote setting.   There are usually special history, science, and writing projects that are scheduled as well as fun things like sports, drama, art, and music.  Last December they did swimming.  This April’s session has included a study of the Renaissance for history and astronomy for science, music appreciation, drama, and baseball.  The little ones usually have the option to go to preschool twice a week during the session too.  A grand time was had by all, although we were more than ready to get back to “normal" when the session finished.

 

The Music class learned handbells or recorders - this is Michelle's group playing "Ode to Joy"

 

To be completely honest,  I don’t love this format.   This isn’t a Charlotte Mason or Classical friendly school, so I don’t always like the way that the academics are approached.  I don’t like that it eats several weeks out of our school year at home that I have to make up for somehow, meaning that we lose some of that flexibility that is a benefit of homeschooling.  I don’t love rushing to get Michelle out the door by 7:45 every morning, packing lunches, and dealing with homework.  And I always think I am going to be able to tackle all kinds of personal projects during this time, but between helping with various aspects of the session (parent involvement is expected) and still having my two littler ones at home with me, I actually find I have less time for such things than when we are homeschooling!  I debate with myself every single session if we really want to continue participating.  So why do we still do it?

 

The drama production was loosely based on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.  Michelle is the narrator between the two posts there.  Caesar is lying dead at her feet.

 

The biggest reason is because to not do it would be to cut myself off from our mission community.   As much of an independent spirit as I am, community is important – for me as a parent and for my children.   It provides me with an opportunity to serve, too.  I am a teacher by training and have a heart for MK education, especially to equip and encourage missionary parents who never wanted to homeschool but find themselves in the position of having to do so.  This is my opportunity to be able to do that…thus far in rather small ways, but who knows how God will work in the future?  This is also the main opportunity that our kids have to interact with children who don’t live in our city and participate in activities like swimming and drama.  I love that they can still do those things, even way out here in Africa.

 

Somebody got a little tired of being in the outfield during their final baseball game of the session!

 

And one other rather key thing…usually after two or three weeks of living the “school” life, I find myself so very grateful for the blessing it is to be able to homeschool my children.  Homeschooling – especially homeschooling using Charlotte Mason’s methods and Ambleside Online – has brought a great deal of richness to our family life.   On those tough homeschooling days, it can be easy to romanticize how nice it might be to just send my kids out the door every day.   Having to actually do it for three weeks always makes me more than ready to bring them back home again.  It makes me realize anew how much I really do like having them around all the time and how much I love learning and growing together with them.

 

 

And that’s priceless.

 

What have you been learning these past couple of months?