Our Co-Op

We are apart of a homeschooling co-op and we love it!!  We have a great group of moms and kids. Here are some of the fun activities/lessons we have done:

We love the cultural cases from BYU.  They have tons of artifacts that the kids get to hold.  The kids love them!  We really are learning so much about different cultural's from around the world.

 We went to Tracy Aviary and watched a cool bird show.  It was even interactive too!  In the next pictures, some of the kids got to hold one of the birds on their arms.  This bird is a Red Crested Turaco and his name is Kambo.

One of the other co-op moms and myself got to have a tucan jump across our arms.  :)  So much fun!  (The whole black and white shirts thing....totally coincidental!  We didn't even know the other mom.)

We always take a lunch in between the 2 classes we have on co-op day!  What's more fun than eating on a trampoline?!?

For Creative Writing, they wrote their own comic books using Ed Emberley's Thumbprint Book as their characters.  We then turned them into books.  It is so fun watching a child use their imagination .

The younger kids are learning their letters and sounds.

Here they are making the shape of the letter with their bodies.

We are all having tons of fun and we love learning together.  Lots more to come on the co-op.  

Mom, what can I do??

When T-man asked me this today....my brain went blank.  For some reason, when either one of my children ask me this question, I can't remember all of the cool activities that I have seen in the past.  It's like we are still trying to get our creativity back that was squashed in a classroom.

Luckily T-man came up with the idea of making his own play doh and creating something with it.  So I found the easiest recipe and let him loose!  He got everything out and did most of it by himself.  Can I just say that I love that!?!  It is so fun to see their ability to do more on their own come out.

Months ago, he decided to build a house out of jumbo popsicle sticks.  I suggested that he cover that with the play doh and then paint it when it dries.  Hours of entertainment right there!  :)

Next time I will take better pictures but here are the ones I got.....

Working on the roof:

 I asked him if he was having fun and he said, "Oh yeah!  This is the kind of stuff I like."  Hopefully tonight he will be able to paint it and I will post about it once he finishes it.  I love being a part of his activities.  Just another reason that I am so grateful we home school.

Volcanoes

We are a part of a homeschooling co-op and we LOVE it!  There are 5 families and we all get along fabulously.  We focus on History, Science, Art, Creative Writing and Crafts.

Recently, for Science, one of the moms did volcanoes, earthquakes, and tornadoes as the lesson one day.  T-Man couldn't have been happier.  He built his own volcano to set off for the lesson.  We used salt dough and formed it around a small plastic cup.  He set it in the sun to dry for a day.  After it was mostly dry, he painted it.  He did the painting all by himself and he did a great job!  

I love the snow he put on the top.  The alligator is in the water along with the elephant.  He put a couple rocks in there too.  I love how much thought he put in to it.

                                      

The best part about it was he had fun doing it.  He was self-motivated and excited to finish this project.  This makes a homeschooling mama very happy!  :)

Leaves anyone??

We don't have a lot of trees in our yard but we do have a few.  The leaves have really been falling the past few days.  T-Man decided that he wanted to go rake them up.  Well, I have absolutely NO problem with that!  What kind of mother would I be if I objected to him cleaning something up?  (Hehe)

So out he goes with the rake.  A few minutes later, Muffin goes out to help.  Every few minutes, I am checking out the window to see that they are still getting along and to my surprise, they are working together to pick up the leaves!  I am ecstatic! Working together nicely and cleaning up?  Wow....what a fantastic morning!

Next time I look out the window, about 5 minutes later, they are both on the tramp with the container of leaves.  Uh-oh......what do I do?  Do I tell them NO and have them dump them in the garbage can?  (I seriously considered this one.)  Do I let them make a mess with them and have fun doing it?  Yep, I chose the 2nd one.  I grabbed my camera and got some shots of them having fun after their hard work.....even if it means the leaves will eventually end back up on the grass.

Thinking about going crazy with the leaves......

Still thinking....

And it has started!

There you go....let LOOSE!

Today's lesson:

For T-Man, it was WORK (which he hates to do).  He did most of the raking and did great at it.  The best part is that I didn't even have to tell him to start it in the first place....or finish it!  :)  This makes me one happy mama!

For Muffin, it was working with T-Man and obeying.  She is a very independent squirt and has a hard time dealing with someone telling her what to do.

And then of course we can't forget about the most important lesson of all!  PLAYING!  They are kids after all!  :)