A Year of Co-op's In Review - Part 1

Since the school year officially came and went, and we entered into our lazy (hah!) summer session of schooling and co-ops, I figured that this would be a good time to look back on our year with the two co-ops that we were a part of.  A lot of the pictures ended up coming from my phone, but hey, at least I got them, right?

I'll start with Classical Conversations.  This was a VERY time consuming, yet rewarding group that we joined back in August.  As great as it was, it is really expensive, and it requires a great deal of work on my part (which wouldn't be such a big deal if I wasn't already working my rear-end off with the boys on a daily basis).  It added a lot of stress to the school year, and after doing some serious soul searching, I decided to not continue this one.  Maybe another year in the future it could be a possibility, but for now, I need to try to simplify things for myself as much as I can (we'll see how well I accomplish that goal).

All the things that the kids learned were (and I hope I'm not forgetting anything):  History Timeline, Geography, Latin, English grammar, Math, Science, Fine Arts, and Public Speaking.  You'll notice from the pictures what I really liked the most from Classical Conversations.

First Day Oral Presentation:
the students had to give a little presentation about themselves.

Learning the prepositions to the tune of "La Cucaracha"

Geography:  Africa

Science Experiement:  the inside of a lima bean

Morning Assembly

Sawyer's class was geared more toward preschool.
This was outside time.  Sidewalk chalk drawing.

Playing games and learning about nature.

Science:  The Naked Egg Experiment (which we actually did at home last year).

Oral Presentation:  Hayden showed how to make fruit kabobs

Science:  Donning latex gloves for owl pellet dissection

Science:  Owl pellet dissection

Music:  Tin Whistle lessons (this was brutal for us parents by the way)

Science:  Outdoor exploration.  Learning about animals in our area.

Oral presentation:  Hayden had to make the class laugh.
We chose our little bird puppet for him to talk with and make jokes.

Art:  Can't remember what this one was called.  They created some sort of
bas relief, I think?  Basically, using wiki sticks to bend into a design on
cardboard, they covered it with aluminum foil, painted over it with black
paint, and then scratched off some of the paint to reveal the design.

Hayden's wiki stick design.

Painting it with the black paint before using sandpaper
to rub it back off.

Oral Presentation:  with a little help from his tutor, Hayden
gave his presentation using his lapbook on frogs that he made
the previous summer.

First Broadway musical experience!  We got the tickets
through our CC group.

Awaiting the start of the show!

Science:  Studying particles of sand/rock.

Science:  Making Borax crystals (another experiment we have already done
at home, but never gets old!)

Oral Presentation:  Hayden made this melted crayon on canvas
art project at home.  His presentation this day was to explain from
start to finish how he did it.

Finale of fine arts was learning about the different periods of music (Baroque, Classical, etc.).  Each class of our CC group learned a section of the orchestra and sang their part.  All parts were sung together to create a chorus of instruments.  I hope this video comes through.  It was a lot of fun and sounds great!