Greenleaf Co-Op

We started a little co-op with our cousins and a family from down the street. We have two age categories – young and younger. I got the idea when talking to another mom who had the opposite schooling strengths as myself and I thought we could benefit from each other. I then persuaded my sisters to come and do a music class to round out the morning.

First I do a letters class with the pre- and extra pre-school. The older ones do music at this time. Here we use our wooden pieces to make the letter “O.” I use several ideas and pre-writing techniques from the “Handwriting Without Tears” curriculum.

Next we practice the circle motion of writing by stirring. This proved extremely popular and even caught the interest of some of the younger ones who had been less than participatory  up to this point. As you can see, we also practiced wearing bowls like hats. This concept proved highly contagious among the class.

Last of all we glues cheerios onto an octopus as we talked about the sound a short “o” makes. Only a few pictures were completed, the rest just enjoyed a snack. The younger class then went to music.

For art, I’m using ideas from the book “Drawing with Children” – since that describes what we’re doing, plus my mom had the book. Here we start with a warm up where they try to copy symbols I’ve drawn using the “5 elements of art” as described in the book.

Next, having a hands on type learner, I try and have objects to manipulate that reinforce the idea we are learning.

We are still internalizing the five elements of art so I found food items that were each “shape” and had them create an abstract picture – first following instructions and then one on their own. The above three pictures were done following instructions.

This one started out with the directions and somewhere along the way gained a picture in her mind and continued on until she had made an easel.

At the end we all have lunch together and then free play while the moms visit. Then everyone goes home at naptime. It’s been fun figuring out how to teach larger groups and forge ahead into new subjects.