Our First Middle Ages Co-op

We had a fabulous first co-op of the year and the kids were so happy to be together again. One of the moms commented that at the first of last year when we first started everyone was quiet and didn’t say much. This year... a whole different response!!

It was so great to see. Because our students are spread far and wide many of these children didn’t see each other at all during the summer. It is so great to see them so comfortable with each other. 

Our first Middle Ages Co-op was based on learning about the Feudal System. What a great amount of learning went on. First our Mom taught about the different positions of authority and wealth in the Feudal System. Who needed who and for what purpose. She had a great visual representation of the system. There was a lot of discussion amongst the kids about what was fair and what wasn’t. This is so encouraging! 

Next our Mom gave each of the children a position to pull out of a hat. Most were peasants, some were knights, a few were nobles and then of course our king!  She had them arrange themselves up to table to the top of the table where the king sat (the poor peasants were seated on the floor!) Then each of them got a cup with 10 jelly beans and they had to pay their taxes. So the peasants ended up with only two jelly beans, the knights with more, the nobles many more and of course the king with a huge pile!! The peasants were “That’s not fair!!” and the king was waving his hands to bring on more jelly beans. It was a lot of fun. 

After lunch the children had a great art lesson with our wonderful art Mom. She taught them all about drawing in perspective. She tied this in to this type of art beginning in the Middle Ages and then the early artists that showed these techniques.  The children followed her steps and drew a picture with perspective. It was a great lesson!!

This year we have added one more element to our co-op days. PE. We have one of the Dads teaching many different aspects of group sports. A different sport each month. This is great exposure to our homeschool children as many of them have not had the opportunity to play a variety of sports - especially with that many children (we are capped at 20!). 

Our sport for this month was softball. Many of the kids had never played and so our dad had to coach them through how to play. He did an amazing job!! He warmed them up and then had them learn by playing! It was really great to see. 

Co-ops are an incredible blessing! Learning by doing, learning to adjust to different teaching styles, rich discussion, a variety of skill levels and gifting all adds up to a wonderful learning experience. I can not encourage you enough to find people in your area (some of our families drive over 1.5 hours to get to our Co-op) and join together!! 

Blessings,

Natalie

Lapbooks

We have done lapbooks for many years now, all the way back to when our 23 year old was in Grade 4. Back then, we created our own. There weren’t great companies like Hands of a Child that put things all together for you. 

We have used many different lapbooks over the years. Elizabeth and I are especially grateful to all the participants from Homeschool Share. 

I have also created my own Lapbooks as I saw a need. I have completed Provincial ones on BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and hope to do more of the provinces this year.

I have also created a lapbook based on Canadian Immigration and Citizenship. I have a long list of Canadian ideas that I would love to create in the future!!

Right now Hands of a Child has all their lapbooks on 1/2 price. This is a great deal until the end of August. Their freebie currently is Island of the Blue Dolphins.

We are studying the Middle Ages - Reformation this year so I purchased one on The Norman Conquest, The Anglo-Saxons and one on Shakespeare. All of these covered a Grade 8 level. 

I like that about Hands of a Child - they have materials at a higher level. A few that Elizabeth has completed are the Poetry Lapbook, one on Single Celled Organisms and Ecosystems. These are just a few of the many.

They are well laid out and can be done independently or as part of a study of a topic. That’s how we use them, as part of a study. 

We added in Discovery videos, Adaptive Curriculum, many novels and our core "texts". 

If you have made your own lapbooks and would like to share them I would love to hear from you!!

Blessings!

Marching in the Roman Army - Last Co-op of the Year

We had an incredible co-op yesterday!  Thank you so much to the wonderful mom that led us! There was so much to learn as the children made Roman sheilds, learned about Roman armies and practiced Roman formations. 

It was a great day!

First the children made amazing sheilds. They used cardboard, red tagboard, cut outs of designs and plastic bowls and foil. It took alot of glue to make it work and we needed a heavy duty glue gun. We tried to make the size of the cardboard as uniform as possible.

They turned out very well! The children looked like they were in a regular Roman Army!

After making their sheilds the children watched this excellent video on Roman Armies. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0JJlDlYGRM&feature=related

It really brought to life what they were doing. 

After they were finished they took their sheilds and swords (swimming noodles) and we did some formations. This was great. They saw how challenging it was to keep in formation. 

They had a great time afterward when the battle was on!

In the afternoon they were ready to settle down and draw and paint a portrait of a Roman god or goddess. This was a wonderful finish to a great year!

Next year on to the Middle Ages! This week we planned out our topics and who was going to lead... it will be so much fun! We will continue on with the art and drama focus in the afternoons. What a blessing! Thank you to all the Mom’s who gave their time and creative energy to lead our children!!

SEEK out Encouragement

We are in our 16th year of homeschooling. In January 2013 we will start 17 years! We have graduated 3 of our children while homeschooling and we have one left at home who is going into Grade 8. 

It is natural at times to feel a little tired, directionless, worn out and even vulnerable! 

Seek out encouragement. Seek it from your own family - especially your husband and children! It encourages me so much to hear one of my older children say that they would love to homeschool when they have children! Thank you to my husband and children!

Our family has been so fortunate over the years to make several friendships with other homeschooling families. This has been encouragement that goes beyond what I could have ever imagined. This is support for mother to mother, father to father and children to children. This is an amazing blessing and one that is so worth seeking. Thank you to those special families (you know who you are)!

I have been blessed to work with wonderful colleagues who are so encouraging when it comes to learning more about God, service to our communities, education and being a blessing to one another! Heritage Christian Online School is a community of encouragers! Thank you! 

I am blessed to join together with other mom’s once every month for our co-op day. Here we chat (when we are not leading) and support each other in so many ways. We share stories, resources, needs, challenges and so much more. Thank you to all you wonderful moms!

I titled this SEEK out Encouragement because that is exactly what I think we need to do. SEEK it. I personally need others and other’s perspectives to encourage me. For the past 16 years I have enjoyed the encouragement of so many other homeschoolers. I still remember homeschool meetings 15 or 16 years ago and nuggets of encouragement that I gained from others. I continue to seek out encouragement today!

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you”

Blessings!

Our Homeschool Co-op - The Next Installment - On the Roman Road

We had a great day on Monday learning about Rome. The focus was Roman roads and aqueducts. The mom who taught our children is a very gifted teacher! 

She was well prepared with supplies for her to teach the kids about the building of Roman roads, the importance of them, the interesting facts about them and how they influenced Rome’s control, military might and trade routes. 

The children then built their own model of a Roman road! There were all the layers represented and information was given along the way as to what they used to build the roads and how they were built! 

She then had a model of an aqueduct and showed the children how it worked. The got to see how the water ran into the cities. It was very well done!

What really struck me today as the children were released to run off some steam and then have some lunch is how very comfortable they are with each other. Prior to this, many of them didn’t know each other, several of them only see each other at co-op and yet they have become a unit!

In the afternoon was our opportunity to take in another wonderful drama presentation by our Art/Drama mom! This drama was about the Christians being persecuted in Rome. She did a fabulous job once again writing a play for 17 children to participate in! We had a few families that couldn’t make it this time so several of the children played more than one part. 

We had Roman politicians, Roman citizens, Christians, soldiers, even a lion!

You could certainly tell as they were practicing that Spring is in the air! There was lots of acting going on, lots of energy and lots of laughter! It was music to my ears!

Thank you once again to all the mom’s that participate in making this co-op such a great opportunity for learning!

Blessings!

Titanic Study “Carpe Diem” - Seize the Day!

This week we ended up taking time to to seize the opportunity to study the Titanic. I didn’t have it planned but when our daughter showed signs of really wanting to look into the Titanic more, I thought in my head... but our plan... and then I thought...why not!

Pass from the Museum Exhibit

We had enjoyed years ago going to our BC Royal Museum for an amazing exhibit of the Titanic. The wonderful part was that you were given a boarding pass as one of the passengers and you got to see where you would have slept, where and what you would have eaten and what you would have done on the Titanic. Then at the end you could match up your boarding pass with the manifest to see if you had survived the disaster or not. 

“Little One” remembered that time and rekindled an interest with the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

Narration after Museum Trip

We are reading this book which was on sale this week at Costco. We are reading some together and then “Little One” takes the book away to her room and pours over the pictures and what is happening on those pages.

We learned about the crew of the ship, we learned how they lost their lives so that more “above” could live. We also learned how they powered the ship. I don’t think we had really thought about that aspect of the voyage before.

We read several articles from this site:

We reviewed Primary sources and secondary sources and looked at the inaccuracies of the early articles. This was interesting and very eye opening for our daughter that news articles could be so untrue.

She also took a look at these pictures from the National Geographic site. 

Lately, when I come across a current event or something interesting I have been emailing it to our daughter. She then opens her email and there are pictures for her to look at, articles to read or craft ideas. Anything at the time that I might think, hmmm... she might be interested in this. I don’t see this as assigned reading but more hopefully Inspired Reading! The Titanic photos I sent her spurred on an interest in once again learning more...

I took a look at these unit studies to see if there were things that I could glean from them.

This one from The Old Schoolhouse Digital Magazine. And this one from The Living Books Curriculum. 

There are many more great resources that we can explore. We have a few documentaries on the shelf, but "little one" is feeling that they get depressing after awhile. All of the stories about real people with real families not surviving. The true meaning of tragedy. What great discussions we have been having about life, death, eternal life and salvation!

Blessings!