CO-OP Fridays

Today is Friday so it seemed appropriate to write a co-op Friday post.

Who cares if the last co-op day was 3 weeks ago.

It is still Friday and you still haven't seen the pictures!

For the last day of co-op Matthew had to create a diorama of his favorite habitat for his Wild Animal Habitat class.  He choose the Arctic. 

His box wasn't fancy but he made it by himself and he was proud.

The giant silver thing in the middle was an iceberg, he also had a beluga whale, an arctic seal pup, and a man in a canoe.

A few days later we attended the co-op fall showcase.

Kaityn's Jr. Drama class performed "Hansel and Gretel in the Creepy Woods",

Kaitlyn played an elf named "Jumpy".  Kaitlyn is not a fan of talking in front of people, or a fan of talking to people for that matter so this was a big deal for her.  She did great though!  

Taking a bow.

Even without a smile on her face I think she makes the cutest elf!

After the performance we all enjoyed eating cookies and punch while looking at some of the art projects the co-op art classes had made.

  

The project on the left is a group effort to recreate the chandelier on the right completely out of water bottles, hangers, and twists ties.  This project was raffled off among the students and unfortunately Kaitlyn did not win.  She was really hoping it would be the perfect piece to add to her bedroom.

Her final piece from recycled art was a castle.  It was made primarily out of recycled toilet paper tubes, cereal boxes, and paper mache.  I thought it was super cute and fit perfectly with her mermaid themed room.

Over all it was a fantastic semester at co-op.  The kids learned a lot and made some great friends and I enjoyed getting to chat with the other moms.  I am happy for the long break in between semesters that allows us to get caught up on stuff at home but I know my kids will be counting down the days till next semester starts!

CO-OP Fridays!

Co-op Fridays!

I am now creating a weekly segment and I shall call it Co-op Fridays and Co-op Fridays it shall be called!

Last week at Co-op the student council organized a superhero day! 2 of my 3 kids participated:

Kaitlyn actually had a super cute cape and sunglasses on but being a true 8 year old kept it in her purse and waited to see how many people actually dressed up before wearing it.  But that's Kaitlyn!

Jr. Explorers

The Jr. Explorers (Samantha's class) had a camping theme.

Tent playing fun!

Painting a fire with a giant marshmallow on a stick.

Making a smore with mini marshmallows and ghram cracker cereal-wait a minute I think she stole one of the giant ones!  That stinker!

Yesterday's theme was outerspace.  We pretended to blast off in a rocket and then we searched for moon rocks in the dark using our glowsticks!

Afterwards we ate cookies that we decorated to look like a full moon.

We also went on a star hunt around the building! I made the mistake of telling the kids to say "twinkle twinkle" everytime they see a star. I did not realize how loud 12 3yr olds yelling "twinkle twinkle" could be.  I'm sure we disturbed several classes!

Kaitlyn's Classes

Kaitlyn's drama class is hard at work on their play.  They perform in two weeks and I can't wait to see her perform!

For the past 2 weeks Kaitlyn has been working to create a castle in recycled art. I am excited to see what the finished product will look like!

Jr.FLL is still working on building and programming robots and she has done many fun experiments in Candy Science. 

Matthew's Classes

Unfortunately I have no pictures of Matthew's classes!

I know he has been building away in his lego class and having lots of fun in his P.E. class.

Every week Matthew comes home with tons of facts from his Wild Animal Habitat Class!  He absolutely loves it and he has learned so much.  We will miss this class when it is over.

And of course Matthew loves Candy Science!  I am told that every week Matthew is the 1st to ask his teacher if they can eat their experiment when they are done!

Only 2 weeks left in co-op this semester!  It has just flown by!  

Ancient Egypt Unleashed!

This week has been a busy week!
Despite having a holiday Monday and starting co-op on Thursday we accomplished a lot of learning! So much in fact it's hard for me to believe that we only had 3 at home school days!

Of course I just got back from and amazing marriage retreat this weekend so this post is coming out a little later than usual but it was delayed for a good cause!

We started ancient Egypt this week and it was every bit as exciting as I hoped it would be!  I've been looking forward to it since I bought the curriculum last March and hoped it would finally spark my kids interest in history.

We started off learning about the Nile River and about the upper and lower kingdoms of Egypt.

After that we created the red crown of Lower Egypt and the white crown of Upper Egypt.  Of course we needed costumes to go with our crowns(thank you goodwill sheets and safety pins).  Then we were all ready to reenact the story.

It was an epic battle between the two kingdoms but in the end...

...the Lower Egyptians won!  So the king wore the double crown of Egypt to unite the two parts into one.

We also made salt dough maps of the Nile:

Samantha just played with her dough like playdough!

We used this picture from our encyclopedia to help guide us in the molding and shaping of our Nile

After letting the dough dry for 2 days we then painted them

 Samantha's creation is on the left(obviously I didn't require her to make a nile)  Kaitlyn's is on the right.  She took great care in forming her stalks of wheat and barely.  She even added a little bridge across the trench.
 Matthew's Nile(below).  He accidentally painted his Nile green and will have to let the paint dry to fix it.  His brown trees didn't hold their shape and so are now brown blobs.  He also has no idea why he painted part of his field pink-he just wanted too. * Sigh* I'm not sure these types of projects are for him!

1st day of Co-op!

Thursday we had our 1st day of Co-op.  Co-op is easily everyone's favorite day of the week.  The kids love it because they get to pick their own classes that are usually filled with hands-on projects and I love it because I teach 2 hours and then have 2 hours to myself!

The day started off with a "not back to school meeting"
 
The co-op has basically doubled in size since last year!  It is really exciting to see!  Here are the classes the kids are taking this semester:

Soda can faces

Kaitlyn is taking:

• Jr. Drama
• Jr. FFL(first Lego league)
• Candy Science
• Recycled Art

Today in Drama she had to do a cold reading so that they could cast the play.  If you know Kaitlyn this is not a class she choose herself it is a class I chose for her.  I am very proud of her for trying something she is terrified of doing.

Matthew is taking:

• Lego builders club
• Wild Animal Habitats
• P.E.
• Candy Science

Coke and Mentos

Samantha is in 3yr old tot school classes which includes music, gym class, sensory play,art, themed books, snack, and free play.  I join her for 2 of the class periods as her teacher.

 

Music class
 Working on an art project with her friends! Somehow strawberry managed to make her way into co-op today.  I had meant for her to be left in the van but she is sneaky!

The theme this week was chicka chicka boom boom.  All the kids super enjoyed playing in the sensory boxes.

Overall it was a super fun week! We can't wait for co-op next week!