happycc Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 What curriculums/ book/programs have you used for co-ops? If you can list various subjects that would be great. Age level of kids are preschool/early elementary, mid elementary and the other is middle school. The one I can think of is Play Dough Economics. Need more ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirstenhill Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I've used BFSU to teach 1st-3rd co-op science. It works pretty well, especially extending the interactive portions of the lessons with ideas from Pinterest (see the link in my siggie). It does take some prep work though. I also did a human body semester mainly using scholastic books from the dollar sale days (Human Body Wearables, etc). This year I am using Science in the Beginning for the same age group. I am not liking it as well for a co-op setting. I find myself reading from the book, which doesn't make for as great of teaching (It is just so tempting to do it when the text is written to the students -- unlike BFSU written to the teacher). For co-op, there are some lessons in SiTB that don't really work at all or that we hit at the wrong season when trying to go straight through the book (No digging up dirt for a lesson on soil in the midwest in January!). No biggie in one sense, that was true of BFSU as well. But since BFSU is flexible in terms of what order you do the lessons, while SiTB is designed to be done in order it doesn't feel like it "works" as well when we have to skip lessons or do things out of order. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happycc Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 BFSU...yes Great idea... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I honestly think the best co-op classes are teacher created in an area of interest or inspiration. Which of course is a lot more work, but ends up being a far better and more interesting class. So what are you interested in? Could be a unit study topic, out of the box, life skill like cooking, sewing, etc.? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyinMD Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I just did a co-op class with Ellen McHenry's book The Elements. She has others besides that one but I think most of them would be ideal for a co-op setting. I just wish I'd had a longer time with my class since we there was quite a bit of material and came no where close to finishing it. Many of the activities in The Elements were well suited to a small group. I've taught a lot of co-op classes through the years (12 years homeschooling) and my favorite type of class to teach is STEM related or some type of engineering. The co-op we are part of right now has primarily fun type classes but I feel the kids learn a lot from building things. When at home I'm not as likely to do projects like that. For a class I'm going to teach next session I am using projects I found online. http://www.instructables.com/id/Project-Based-Engineering-for-Kids/ I have an engineering degree so I tend to prefer to teach classes in the sciences. Other moms feel more comfortable doing art or writing. I have done both of those type of classes though. It was fun to get out of my comfort zone a little bit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mschickie Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Pre-School/Early Elementary: Before Five in a Row Five in a Row Adorable Wearables (http://www.amazon.com/Adorable-Wearables-Human-Easy-Make/dp/0439222699) Elementary/Older Elmentary Time Traveler Series from Homeschool In The Woods Poetry (used a variety of reproducible books (like Scholastic/Evan Moore) including Poetry Projects with Pizzazz) Literature/Book Club- variety of books using Novel Units High School Government- Whatever Happened to Justice, Bluestocking guide to Justice, Painless American Government Economics- Whatever Happened to Penny Candy, Bluestocking guide to Economics, Economics Free Market Reader DBQ writing- Document-based Assessment for U.S. History (Walch publishing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRmommy Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 I just did a co-op class with Ellen McHenry's book The Elements. She has others besides that one but I think most of them would be ideal for a co-op setting. I just wish I'd had a longer time with my class since we there was quite a bit of material and came no where close to finishing it. Many of the activities in The Elements were well suited to a small group. I've taught a lot of co-op classes through the years (12 years homeschooling) and my favorite type of class to teach is STEM related or some type of engineering. The co-op we are part of right now has primarily fun type classes but I feel the kids learn a lot from building things. When at home I'm not as likely to do projects like that. For a class I'm going to teach next session I am using projects I found online. http://www.instructables.com/id/Project-Based-Engineering-for-Kids/ I have an engineering degree so I tend to prefer to teach classes in the sciences. Other moms feel more comfortable doing art or writing. I have done both of those type of classes though. It was fun to get out of my comfort zone a little bit. What age range was the co-op class for The Elements? How many times did your class meet? I'm considering teaching this class for 4th through 7th graders for a co-op that meets 14 times for the year. Most of the kids are 4th graders, and I want to make sure this will be a good fit. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCal_Bear Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 For Dr. Wile's series which I am using Science in the Ancient World this year, he did suggest (when I wrote to him) to focus co-op classes around doing the experiments to be followed up by the readings and questions after at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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