Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Our First Day Of Co-Op!



A group of us who are interested in homeschooling our kiddos decided to start our own co-op, and today was our first get together! In a co-op, everyone takes a turn being "in charge" and hosting the gathering...they plan a lesson, gather materials, lead the group, etc. Our group formed with three children, & we've doubled in size and had 6 children today. It went really well...and the lesson I planned worked great.


We focused on triangles, circles, & squares. Our activities included following directions with a song called The Circle Game, sorting a bag of shape crackers into triangles, circles, & squares, counting our crackers and then graphing how many of each shape there were, a listening activity with a song called Triangle, Circle, or Square, & some free play after ALL that hard work!

Reese didn't really want to participate in the main Math activity (Cracker sorting, counting, & graphing) but that's OK. Some days are just like that :) I was glad that we were learning at home, because his desire to do his own thing & eat the crackers instead of follow my directions would have not been "OK" in a classroom setting I'm quite sure. It was nice to know that, hey, maybe he's hungry & wants to eat the crackers...and we can do the lesson together when HE'S ready...you know?
Having that freedom feels so good...

You wouldn't believe how much FUN it was to have six 3 year olds sitting at the kitchen table working on Math! Sorting, counting, graphing, classifying, eating! It was a great morning!!

I also made sure to make duplicate copies of everything, & have baggies and extra crackers ready. That way the kiddos could take home fresh copies of exactly what we worked on today and share their experience with Daddy & Siblings...or as in our case, can do the lesson again when ready!

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