The Imagination Village

We started our new homeschool co-op last Friday with some good friends from Treehouse (which was our co-op from last year). It's a brand new group and we're all excited about putting together unique learning opportunities for our kids. There's about 30 children in the group so far, and we meet at the Sager Arts Center in Siloam Springs - a great old building with tons of character and plenty of space.

Both Brennan and Rich are taking a Nature Study class, Rich is taking Art and Periods in History (this week was the Renaissance), and Brennan is taking Movement and Music, and a class that teaches rhyming through games and activities. The boys had a blast and got to hang out with friends all day, learn new things, and help start a community from the ground up.

If you're not familiar with the concepts of a co-op, it's simply a group of homeschool families that meet regularly (in our case, once a week) to offer a group learning setting for the kids. The great benefit of a co-op is that parents teach the classes, which means the kids tend to learn things that are outside of their own parent's ability to teach. For instance, the boy's nature class is taught by two parents with a strong background in botany and biology - something I know very little about. Conversely, I'm teaching a class for the older kids that demonstrates the effects of political and economic change on the music and entertainment industry (talk about a specialty class!). It's fun to start this adventure with friends and see where it takes us.

We're baaaaack!

It's been a long, crazy summer, so I haven't had time to post. We've struggled with a health crisis (mine) and found that our idea of learning stands the test: EVERYTHING is a learning experience. You'd be amazed what technicians at hospitals will let kids watch if the kids are inquisitive enough. But I digress...

We're trying to add a bit more structure this year, at least with Maths and History, which seems to be working well so far. We're also still looking for real life opportunities to learn everywhere - from baking cakes and trips to the grocery store, to helping mom pay the bills and and clean the van out.

Rich is currently immersed in ancient Egypt, which involves making cuniform tablets and papryus scrolls and putting them through a number of tests to see which is more durable, building a living model of the Nile and pyramids in an aluminum baking dish, and reading about foods and holidays of ancient Egypt. He's also wildly enamored with the excellent and hysterical Franny K. Stein book series right now. Recommended if your kid likes mad science, sentient lunchmeat, and experiments involving brain transplantations.

Brennan is learning about Animal Habitats, which involves a lot of craft projects, studying animals in their natural surroundings, drawing pictures and making up stories about them. By way of this, he's learning about his immediate environment (the home) and his larger environment (the earth). His favorite thing so far is his construction paper/clothespin snapping turtle.

So all in all, we've had a good two weeks so far. Looking forward to getting outside some more now that it's not 275 degrees outside.

Treehouse Gala!

Treehouse is a homeschool co-op the boys have attended for the last two semesters. We meet with a large group of homeschoolers every Thursday for a wide variety of classes taught by parents and outside instructors. The boys love going and have made many friends there. This semester, Brennan took a Pre-school class (New Horizons), Music, and Playground Games. Rich took Prairie Primer (more below), Math, Space, Cooking, and Paper Crafts. The Spring Gala is a fundraiser and a chance for the students to perform skits, songs, and recite poetry they've learned over the course of 12 weeks.

Toe-Knee Knows


Rich's "Prairie Primer" class did projects based on the Little House books. They made Hogbladder balls and Corncob dolls, made their own butter, and learned how to square dance.



Brennan does the Finger Polka!

Timeline

A few months ago, we hung a long piece of butcher paper across the wall to keep track of all the time periods and pre-dinosaur animals we've been learning about. Rich likes to know "which came first" so it's a nice visual way to remember. This summer, we'll have to start filling in some spaces much further down because we keep running across things like the building of the pyramids, Abe Lincoln, and WWII. I have a feeling we'll need a much longer sheet when we get to European history.

Rich's Journal

Rich wrote about his family earlier this year for his journal project. Here are the scans - click the individual pictures for a larger version.

What Are You Learning in Homeschool Right Now?

The boys (and mom and dad) get this perplexing question so often, but it's the hardest thing to answer. The more appropriate question might be, "What are you not learning right now?"

The boys are both starting to remember what they knew as toddlers: Learning happens all the time, everywhere, whether you like it or not. We learned about the different parts of plants that we eat while meandering through the produce section this afternoon. We learned about the muscles in the human leg when mom tore one a few weeks ago. We learned about brass instruments when we cleaned out a closet and found mom's old saxophone. We learned about death when we had to put down our dog of 15 years last month. Learning is life, life is learning.

I could tell you what we're purposefully learning, I guess. Short and long vowel sounds. Everything you never wanted to know about nouns and predicates. Multiplication. Early reptiles and fish like Dunkleosteus (the boy's favorite - Google it) that lived during the Devonian period. How green beans grow. What happens when you mix primary colors. The history of Carnivale! in Brazil, the Incan people, and the Yanomami hunters of the Venezuelan rain forest. Why The Phantom Tollbooth is one of the greatest books ever written (it is, trust me). Building volcanoes that erupt.

The problem with lists like that is it makes everything sound so segmented and clinical, when in fact, every one of those things are linked somehow, and we usually find ourselves wandering happily from one interest to the next. It's not that we don't use textbooks and worksheets, it's just that I never know where we're going to end up. But it's always enlightening, and never where I would have gone myself.

February Already?

I haven't posted because we've been busy with trips, family, snow, and illness. But we're back! We started planning more "structured" time for this semester to make sure we're covering everything. Rich has especially taken an interest in cosmology (not to be confused with cosMOTology), fossils, and the passage of time. We're starting more formal music "classes" with Brennan on Friday, which should be fun. Lots of pictures!

Making Fossils

They made their own planets out of Play-Doh.
Planet "Colorful" and Planet "Double Rings"


Rich explaining the ecology of his planet:


We journal every morning about whatever we want. Rich has written about all his immediate family, so now he's starting on extended family: