Spring Co-op Night 2010

Every semester for the past couple of years, our family has participated in our local LEAH (Loving Education at Home) co-op. We all have a good time together for two hours on a Monday afternoon. On the last day of co-op we go to classes and at the end we set up for an exhibition and presentation of our ten weeks together. Our family has dinner out and we head back for the evening (no time to go home in between when you live outside of town). It's always a fun night.

Dan and I (mostly Dan...I'm the administrator and general motivator) taught a LEGO NXT programming class again this semester. Our goal was to teach the kids more programming so that we can have a more complicated program next FLL season. We are currently finalizing our roster and hope to have the new team in place by the end of next week. We'll be meeting throughout the summer to research the new theme and then on the challenge release day we'll have a web party to hear about the challenge. We are looking forward to it.

The boys did successfully program the robot to follow the black line using two light sensors. This was an accomplishment! I think we get the prize for working with 12 middle school boys every Monday afternoon!

Mixed-Media Collage class outdid itself for the display. All kind of collages were made and I know my daughter had the best time in there. I mean...there was lots of glue involved and sticking random things to it. You have no idea how much time R9 spends doing stuff like that at home!!

J4 took the Play Dough Class and he had a fun time. Each week the teacher (a brand new homeschooling mom with really young kids) picked a theme for the kids and they made play dough items to match. They learned facts related to the theme and then she took a picture of the creations and put them together on co-op night. So cool.

E11 took a Family Math: Middle School class cleverly titled Math Puzzles and Games. Sometimes it's all about the class name so if you are co-op teacher remember that wise piece of advice. E11 LOVED this class. He's a math kid.
I7 took a Games class...check out Bug-opoly. These themed Monopoly games I've seen before, but never close up. There are lots of fun facts in this game...I'm seeing some in our birthday future. I mean right now my kids are playing Monopoly Deal- a Monopoly card game. They can't be stopped!!
Here we have Making Things with Stuff class. Art made from recyclables basically with some reuse themes mixed in there. I7 had the best time in this class getting to use a saw, hammer, and nails at one point.
J4's other class was Fun with the Five Senses. Let me tell you how much he adored this class. He would come home and tell us all about it on Mondays. He learned a lot about how his eyes and ears work. Amazing the things he's recalled.
We'll have to wait all summer, but we are all excited about next semester already. I have the privilege of being on the co-op committee and we will start collecting class ideas pretty soon. I would love to teach a two semester survey of American Girl dolls, but I'm not sure how that will work with the Junior FLL team next year.

I should add that our co-op is designed to be extra-curricular. So, we don't do a lot of core subject work. We've had so many really good classes. The parents do a really nice job with this. Do you participate in a co-op? What are some fun co-op class you have taught or that your kids have taken?