New Homeschool Co-Op Semester Starts

Posted by My Heart Song

1/30/2013

It's that time again - time for our homeschool co-op (Home Grown Hearts) to start up for the spring semester. 

I really like the fact that our group takes a nice, long break from Thanksgiving through the end of January. This gives everybody a break during flu season, the holidays, and much of the bad winter weather Indiana doles out. A fall semester of 12 weeks, then a nice break, followed by a spring semester of 12 weeks, then summer. It works great!

So today we were back at it. Here's what our schedule looks like for this 12-week semester. 

My son has turned 5 since the end of the fall semester, but we chose to keep him in his PreSchool class. He's the oldest in the class now, but we're plugging that as a great opportunity to be a teacher's assistant and to help the newer, younger children to learn the ropes. 

My daughter is taking 4 classes: Drawing, Ballet, Character-Building Martial Arts, and Sign Language. Ballet is somewhat of a repeat from last semester because she really likes it. Martial Arts was not necessarily her choice, but I strongly encouraged her to try it for one semester and see what she thinks. So far, so good!

I am teaching a class this semester called Historical Characters, for Jr. High students. I will write a separate post specifically about this class later.

I am assisting in a Jr. High book study on To Kill a Mockingbird. The other mom/teacher is doing a great job and I fully expect I will learn as much out of this class as most of the students. I love reading, but I'm not very analytical. Leading a study such as this would be difficult for me, but getting to sit in on the class is a great opportunity. 

Another wonderful component of our Home Grown Hearts co-op is the prayer time for the moms. All of the moms get one class hour for small group prayer time. This time to be "off the clock" in terms of parenting and teaching gives all of us a breather. We have a light snack (provided by the co-op) and make prayer a priority.

My last hour is spent as a "floater" which means that I can be a helper or assistant in any class that needs help on any given day. This is a lot of fun because I may help in nursery one week, PreSchool the next, Martial Arts the next, Missionary Study the next, Show & Tell the next, etc. I get to see lots of classes (and teachers) in action, so I really enjoy being a floater! 

I am thankful to be a part of our this neat homeschooling community. So many moms have become friends through this co-op. I've grown and learned so much, even though I'm one of the "teachers." Life-long learning and growing - another reason I love homeschooling!  And that doesn't even touch on all that my kids have learned through co-op!