Family Schooling Summary

Here are some samples from more co-op school lessons.  Big sister A studied the water cycle last week and wind this week:

 We are in charge of teaching Joy School this week.  The theme is "the Earth is Amazing" and my units were on seeds and plants in particular -- one of my favorite topics.  We went out to gather some things for the lesson and found 2 fuzzy caterpillars.  Which the kids are now calling "caterpickles" since they heard that in a book recently.

All the kiddos love going out to see the chickens, so we included that as part of our lesson on the Earth today.

 Looking in the nesting boxes for today's eggs. We had to close it up and give Felicity some privacy since she was trying to lay and egg right then.

 We also did two crafts relating to seeds and plants.  The first was a seed collage.  Big sister A grouped her seeds by type and wrote the name of each.  The others were much more free form.

We used bits of my succulents and little jars to make terrariums. I hope that everyones plants will root properly.  Here are the ones that sister A and brother M made.  I was not sure whether the kids would like this activity, but they loved it. Each one selected several of the cuttings and happily poked them into their jars of dirt.

I made a larger version as an example and to replace my orchid (previous occupant of the large jar) which died after about 5 years... It only bloomed twice, so I don't feel too sad.

 Succulents are such great plants, so undemanding, productive, and easy to share clippings of.

Big sister A and brother M started their "Bedtime Math" Club last week.  

It is free, kind of a pilot project for the non-profit group that is trying to get kids excited about math.  There are tons of cool lessons and activities on their website. This week, they used different numbers of glow sticks to make shapes. Here they are hiding under the table so that they would be able to see the glow better. 

Brother M was not as enthusiastic about it as A.  He mostly played in other areas of the Discovery Room/library.

  Looking at how groups of smaller shapes can be combined to make larger shapes.