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I was a part of a co-op last year, but found it to be a bit disorganized. I am considering starting one up next year but I am still a homeschooling newbie so I would really love feedback about how yours works. I was thinking of having something for primary aged children focussing on one area/or curriculum. The co-op I was a part of did not have a focus, I figure if I'm going to put in the effort I want something that counts!

 

Please tell me about yours; how many children/families are in the group, how do you balance the teaching how much time does it take up, do you study a particuar subject or area, what works, what doesn't and anything else I should know. :)

 

TIA!!!

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I can only give a minimal answer, as this is my first year participating in our local co-op but I'll still try...

 

Our co-op is nursery ages through high school, approx. 200 students.

 

I only have younger children, so I don't know much about high school. I do know they have a variety of classes that they choose from. Biology,meterology, anatomy, chemistry, zoology, essay writing, economics, government, civics, geography, spanish, latin, various arts, photography, yearbook, music appreciation, home ec, and a few more.

 

The 1st-5th graders have a focused study in the mornings. First semester was government/elections and U.S. Presidents. Second semester is Georgia history (we are in Georgia :-) . The afternoon is their choice of clubs, such as art, p.e., science, drama, girls' club, boys' club, etc.

 

The preschool and kinder classes are pretty much regular K and Pre-K stuff. Nursery is for children too young for pre-school.

 

It is a wonderful co-op. Very well run, lots of friendly people. I love it!

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Also, one parent of each family volunteers in either the morning or the afternoon, though sometimes subbing for someone too. So, generally, we are volunteering half of the school day and free to do whatever (planning lessons, just hanging out, running a little errand if necessary). Sometimes, though, if you are subbing, you may work both morning and afternoon.

 

Because I currently have the youngest child there (2 months old), I am just in the nursery so I can be near him since he nurses. Some of the other parents have taught in public schools and are very qualified in their respective subjects. It is a wonderful team effort.

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Ours does not focus on one area. We currently run between 50-60 families each session. We have 5 hr long periods during the day but you do not have to sign up for all of them. Folks submit class ideas around June/July for the fall and then November/Dec for the winter/spring session (2 ten week sessions) We usually offer 1 gym class per age range and then we try to balance out the other subjects through out the day. We have classes for pre-k-12th grade (although not as many high school classes as elementary classes) If the person who is gathering the class descriptions notices lets say we do not have any history classes for a particular age group she will send out a note to the group saying we could use one for such and such an age. It actually balances out fairly well. This coming session dd is taking an art class, gym class, 2nd 1/2 of a science class, history class and a literature class.

 

For our co-op you do not have to teach but you are expected to help out as a hall monitor or aide for part of the time in the building if you are not teaching. Teachers also get first shot at registration so we have lots of people who are willing to teach. We also require that every family does 2 set ups and 2 clean ups during the session, many hands make light work. I normally teach one class. During the week I probably do 1-2 hrs of prep work, so it is not that bad.

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Co-op can mean sooooo many different things.

 

We've been in a couple. Right now we're in one with 10 kids - all of them are 7/8 or 4/5 yos. There are four parents. The kids and the adults together use consensus to pick topics for the year. This year, we picked elections, wonders of the world, comic books, robots, water and... something that I'm forgetting. Each family is responsible for teaching one class about the topic. We hold an all group meeting for about 20 minutes at the end of each unit to make decisions like if there will be a field trip and if so, where, what order the different families will be, and to resolve any problems. We meet at 11 and have a morning session, then we all eat lunch together and play and then have an afternoon session. We are flexible - the kids often make changes to things. We go camping together in the spring most years. We have been together for several years now so the kids have long term relationships.

 

This obviously isn't for everyone. But for us, it's a pretty essential thing. We had another co-op that worked similarly and it ended up breaking up because of personal issues between the moms. It was soooo difficult and unfortunate. There wasn't one particular person to blame - problems persisted and they just didn't get solved so they festered. I would say you have to really have a deep level of trust and a good understanding of how to make consensus work in order to have a co-op like this.

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Our Co-op is 4 age groups, Preschool, elementary, tween, and teen. This year, the theme is "Around the World", so each week a parent picks a country/culture and teaches it to the kids with art projects, food, songs, dancing, games, and stuff like that. There's a show and tell component, where kids are encouraged to bring in artifacts or pictures from the country/culture under study and talk about it. Last year, we didn't have a yearly theme, and parents picked activities where they were strong, and I feel it led to stronger lessons, but the organizers liked the idea of having more consistency from week to week so that parents COULD more easily decide where this fit into their lessons at home (personally, I liked my DD having a week of theater games one week, followed by dissecting a frog the next, followed by pottery the week after, but I wasn't trying to make co-op fill a niche in my schedule-I consider the classroom behavior and social skills to be the lessons to be learned in co-op, not anything academic).

 

It's 2 hours of class, followed, after clean up (while the kids play on the church playground) by eating lunch together most days. The group also does parties-a Halloween carnival and a Thanksgiving Lunch/Kids craft Bazaar in the Fall, Valentine's Party and Easter Egg hunt/party in the Spring-and for DD, that's a big deal because her friends in PS get to do the fun holiday stuff with their classmates. Usually the teens will put together games and activities for the little ones.

 

We pay $10/child per semester as a donation to the church, and each family provides the materials needed for their week's lesson-which is another reason why I liked the more free-form "pick what you want to do" way of planning lessons, because it let families who were struggling financially pick lessons that didn't require a lot of materials. The country theme, with trying foods and crafts, can easily get expensive to do for a 20 kid class.

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We have six families and 17 children total. We meet for two hours, then have lunch and then the kids go to the Y gym programs for an hour and a half.

 

We have divided the group into ages 4-6 and 7-10. The younger kids do FIAR, math, show and tell, and Story of the World. The older kids do public speaking and Story of the World for the whole year, as well as another topic for about 7 weeks at a time (Literature study, inquiry science, circuits....).

 

Each of the moms helps out with something and is usually teaching for about 30-45 minutes each week. The younger group also has a snack together based on the book they are reading for FIAR.

 

Our Co-op is amazing! The kids and moms get along so well and it has become a family. I don't think I would want it any bigger for this reason.

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This book is a great place to start. The author is a CPA who has worked with various co-ops, and is part of the leadership for a co-op in her area. Our co-op started small but got big quickly, and this book was helpful in making sure we were keeping things organized. For me, organization and communication are the keys to effective leadership.

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I am currently involved in running a hybrid kind of co-op. We pay rent and we pay mentors to teach classes using a specific curriculum. It runs from 8:30 to 2:45 one day a week. We have moms taking turns volunteering to be hall monitor/playground monitors as well as help out in the nursery. They have morning and afternoon shifts. We have about 30 children in the group.

 

When I first started homeschool, we had a different type of co-op that lasted for 8 years. This was held 2 times a month on Friday mornings and was considered extra-curricular though we did a lot of quality stuff. There was nothing for high schoolers, instead we had a study hall for them where they could do their regular work but also have a chance to socialize with other high schoolers. The church let us use the space for free but we did collect yearly donations to give to them for their generosity. We had a nursery for the babies, a preschool program for the 3 to 5 year olds and then classes for 5 and up (the 5 yos could go to the preschool program or the older classes depending on where the moms thought they'd be happiest). We just had three class periods and they consisted of whatever the moms were willing to teach. We usually had a choice of two different classes each period. The ones I remember: I always seemed to be leading a hands on science class - usually The Jason Project. Another mom from Argentina played the guitar, taught basic Spanish vocabulary and conversation and taught Spanish songs. Another mom was an artist and had an art class. Then there was always a P.E. We had a mom who had been a P.E. teacher so it was a real P.E. class. Usually there was a writing club and a book club going as well. It was at a Catholic church so some years if there was an available priest, he'd come down and teach a religion class. It ended at lunch, so in nice weather everyone would head to the nearby park and have a picnic and play outside for a while. It was a really great co-op and it really gave me a lot of support in my early years of homeschooling. Just the camaraderie of the group was so great. I guess we had about 50 kids, give or take a few, depending on the year.

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I have experience with 2 different kinds of co-ops. I directed an enrichment co-op for 3 years with over 20+ families and 60+ kids. We met 8 weeks each semester and offered special classes in subjects we might not do at home. I really left it up to whatever the moms were wiling to teach, although I did approve the topics. We had lots of classes through those years (geography, math games, trial simulation, PE classes because we had a gym, art, crime scene investigation, pioneer days, etc.).

 

Moms had to teach or volunteer to help in a class, so it wasn't a drop off service. I did allow moms to bring other people's children for special situations. I worked with the moms of little ones who couldn't leave them. The co-op was a Christian co-op with a basic statement of faith; however, we didn't offer Bible classes that taught doctrine because of the variety of people we had. I had a detailed schedule so that everyone knew where they were supposed to be when. I didn't want it to turn into a few moms working and the rest of the moms standing around talking.

 

We didn't pay any of the teachers because they were all moms. We only collected enough money to cover supplies for the classes and a donation to the church where we met. It usually was $25-$40 each semester per family.

 

The co-op I am directing this year is much more laid back. There are only 12 families, and we started meeting because we were all wanting to try IEW's Student Writing Intensive A with our upper elementary curriculum. During the first 1.5 hours, I lead the IEW class with the 3rd-6th graders. Another mom is teaching a reading and writing class with our K-2nd group. During the next 1.5 hours, the other moms are taking turns each month teaching life skills/fun topics. Each mom (and some dads) have been able to focus on his or her own interests and strengths. During that time I teach Biology labs for my daughter and a few other teens who come just for that class.

 

I have a co-op application that I'd more than willing to share with you. I definitely wanted policies in place over important issues as well as waivers saying the church we meet in/staff of the co-op weren't responsible for anything that happened. I didn't pay a lawyer to draft it, but the group had a dad who was a lawyer during our first session who looked at it and thought it was good. Just private message me your email and I could send it to you.

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I've been in small co-ops in the past (6 or 8 families), and I'm currently a part of a larger co-op. All the co-ops I've been a part of used church spaces to meet. Neither of the two smaller co-ops I was a part of were able to offer anything in the way of care for younger children (which is partly why I found a larger co-op). Once you figure that a mom or two was always teaching or helping with the class, and some moms who didn't themselves have a baby or toddler didn't really want to help me with mine, that pretty much just left me to try and wrangle my little one(s) while also helping my older kids if they needed help or even while at the same time teaching if it was my week to teach. It was challenging.

 

Of the two smaller co-ops I was in, one recruited members by advertising on local homeschool email lists and thru word of mouth. The advantage to this is that they could be really up front with the type of group and the philosophy of the group, and members could sort of "self select" if they fit that group or not. We really didn't fit in with that group, which is another reason we didn't stay long in that group. The disadvantage is it might take a while to find enough like minded people to get going.

 

The second small co-op I was in for two years was made up of a group of friends I knew from church. That was nice in the sense that we didn't have to find each other, but just because we were already friends did not always make it easier to agree on how a co-op should be run. When one mom really wanted to bring cupcakes for a birthday while another mom insisted on only non-sweet snacks, we had to work it out and still be friends afterwords because we were going to see each other at church. So if you are going to do it with friends, you have to think about whether your friendships can survive all the decision making! :lol:

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I've been in small co-ops in the past (6 or 8 families), and I'm currently a part of a larger co-op. All the co-ops I've been a part of used church spaces to meet. Neither of the two smaller co-ops I was a part of were able to offer anything in the way of care for younger children (which is partly why I found a larger co-op). Once you figure that a mom or two was always teaching or helping with the class, and some moms who didn't themselves have a baby or toddler didn't really want to help me with mine, that pretty much just left me to try and wrangle my little one(s) while also helping my older kids if they needed help or even while at the same time teaching if it was my week to teach. It was challenging.

 

Of the two smaller co-ops I was in, one recruited members by advertising on local homeschool email lists and thru word of mouth. The advantage to this is that they could be really up front with the type of group and the philosophy of the group, and members could sort of "self select" if they fit that group or not. We really didn't fit in with that group, which is another reason we didn't stay long in that group. The disadvantage is it might take a while to find enough like minded people to get going.

 

The second small co-op I was in for two years was made up of a group of friends I knew from church. That was nice in the sense that we didn't have to find each other, but just because we were already friends did not always make it easier to agree on how a co-op should be run. When one mom really wanted to bring cupcakes for a birthday while another mom insisted on only non-sweet snacks, we had to work it out and still be friends afterwords because we were going to see each other at church. So if you are going to do it with friends, you have to think about whether your friendships can survive all the decision making! :lol:

 

I wanted to add that our co-op had classes for kids as young as 3 years old. Every age group was scheduled into classrooms with moms assigned as lead teachers/helpers. Our nursery was scheduled mostly with nursing moms. Even our 2 year old class would have some structured time with reading and such. If moms go into it expecting to work and have their children cared for while they work, it will be much easier to keep it that way than change later. If I had moms who were uncomfortable leaving their very little ones, then they were expected to work in those classes and help take care of all the kids in that age group.

 

The important thing is to take charge and decide how you want it to be run. Make decisions before you start and do what you are doing here by asking advice of others. It always helps to learn from our mistakes first! It won't necessarily help you avoid all problems, but you can definitely avoid a few.

 

I always asked the moms to please be flexible. Because you have whole families involved, you can find out an hour before class starts that you have 2-3 moms out because of sickness. I had to make quick decisions, moving moms around, to make sure I had all classes covered. This makes me think of another policy I had in place. Every class was required to have at least 2 parents working in it. That way no one was alone with children for any extended period of time. The church we were in was open to the public, so the mom helpers in class were expected to walk children to the restrooms during class.

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I had some more thoughts. I always opened the building and made sure things where in place before classes started. I didn't want our group to be accused of doing something in a classroom that we didn't do. We always had to clean up after ourselves as well. If a classroom had to be cleaned between classes, it had to be done by the teacher and parent helpers. One parent helper would walk the group to their next class if it was in a different location. At the end of the whole session, we had to clean up everywhere we used including straightening the bathrooms. Families took turns staying after to help get this done. I did this on a rotating basis, expecting the teachers who were teaching the most and had the most prep at home to do it the fewest number of times.

 

The church allowed us to have space for a locked storage cabinet for our supplies. That really helped a lot. I was always the first to arrive and last to leave to make sure everything ran smoothly and all things were clean and put away.

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For children of young age, such as yours, we found the most beneficial "co-op" was:

- small (6-8 families) to keep it manageable

- children of similar age/grade/ability (with babies/toddlers tagging along)

- met weekly (for months of Sept, Oct, Nov, and then Jan, Feb, Mar, April)

- with rotating activities (so one type of activity happened once a month)

- with each mom responsible for only 1-2 things per semester (usually headed either 1 field trip or 1 co-op activity per semester, and then contributed 1 activity to the big event)

- and completely planned in advance in the summer before the school year.

 

We arranged with the church that one family attended to use a classroom 2x a month (for presentation day and co-op classes) -- but you could easily meet at homes or reserve the public room at the local library for other options. Specifically ours looked like this:

 

week 1 = field trip

week 2 = presentation day (show & tell, student demonstrates something, oral report or read a book report, etc.)

week 3 = park day/play day

week 4 = "co-op class" (art, science, or other project), or a guest speaker with hands-on, or "big event" at end of semester -- things we did: Medieval Feast; Thanksgiving activities and feast; Japanese Culture Day; Roman Times costumes and activities; pool party and summer games; etc)

 

Money for field trips and co-op supplies was figured out in advance during the summer planning, and families paid in advance so no one was left "holding the bag". Also, paying in advance seems to encourage people to actually attend, in a way that "pay as you go" does not. ;)

 

One lady was the overall leader, and printed up the schedule, and sent the weekly email reminder of what was happening, when, and where, and who was in charge of that field trip or co-op class. The only problems we had were the years when we had a pretty big age spread -- i.e. most students were grades K-3rd, but we had two 6th graders who were bored. Babies and toddlers were not a problem.

 

 

Since you are thinking of focusing on a subject area or a curriculum, I would suggest meeting no more than every-other week. But make it a set time and place to maintain consistency. When you pick the curriculum or material, I'd also suggest delegating -- make each family responsible for one chapter, or unit or whatever, per semester. People invest more when THEY have to be responsible for it. Make SURE you contact each family 1-2 weeks in advance and then again 2-3 days in advance of the co-op to make sure they put in the time and prepared as needed in advance of the co-op meeting day.

 

 

Whatever you decide to do, I strongly suggest that you make expectations clear, and delegate so YOU are not having to run the whole thing. Keep it small, plan it all out in advance (a complete semester or entire school year at a time), have people pay up front. Those were the things that especially helped our little group run very smoothly, even though we all had VERY different educational philosophies, and used very different materials. BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

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This book is a great place to start. The author is a CPA who has worked with various co-ops, and is part of the leadership for a co-op in her area. Our co-op started small but got big quickly, and this book was helpful in making sure we were keeping things organized. For me, organization and communication are the keys to effective leadership.

 

Yes, this is exactly the book we used. It is wonderful. Our co-op also started small and grew fast. Even with a small co-op organization and communication are the key. Also key is putting things into place so that there is a spread of responsibility, jobs, etc. It is easy to have resentment build and explode when one is teaching 2 classes, setting up, cleaning up and directing the entire co-op while others show up, assist and then leave while clean up is still going on.

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I was a part of a co-op last year, but found it to be a bit disorganized. I am considering starting one up next year but I am still a homeschooling newbie so I would really love feedback about how yours works. I was thinking of having something for primary aged children focussing on one area/or curriculum. The co-op I was a part of did not have a focus, I figure if I'm going to put in the effort I want something that counts!

 

Please tell me about yours; how many children/families are in the group, how do you balance the teaching how much time does it take up, do you study a particuar subject or area, what works, what doesn't and anything else I should know. :)

 

TIA!!!

 

I have been involved in 2 different co-ops. One was for music, art, and drama primarily. There were classes for nursery through 12th. They did have a paid art instructor. We put on a play a year. Music was choir or recorder. There was a paid instructor if your child wished to have piano or guitar. There was some extra classes to round out the schedule like book club, finance, and the like. There was always PE.

The 2nd co-op and our current co-op does not have a primary focus of the arts or anything. We do have a paid art instructor and a piano instructor if you wish your child to take them individually. The classes are really based on what the parents volunteer to teach. There is drama, science, geography, and cooking classes. We do have classes like mythbusters and boy and girl crafts. PE is offered as well. It too goes from nursery-12th.

Both were ran similar b/c the 2nd split off from the first. So with both co-ops, you have to volunteer to teach 1 class and help in one class with one period off. Both were 1/2 day co-ops in the afternoon with 3 periods of instruction. We have snack time/recess during co-op to socialize.

The 1st co-op was probably 100 people or more. After the split, both co-ops have about 25-40 families depending on the semester. If you know a few families, I would suggest starting out with a small family co-op and grow from there. The bigger co-ops tend to require a lot of bookkeeping and tend to expand way past the original idea with so many diverse families trying to find what fits for their kids.

If I could find a small co-op that was really 10 families with the same goal instead of so many different classes, then that is what I would prefer. The kids enjoy co-op, but it stresses me. Plus the more people the more chance for drama and problems.

There will be another co-op offered here next year and I will be checking it out. It isn't that I am unhappy with our co-op. It is that it isn't a perfect fit for us.

We are wanting co-op to be mainly for socialization. We do a pretty academic curriculum at home and just need the extra things that aren't my cup of tea. If I were to ever help start a co-op, the first thing would be making it closed invite the first year and finding families with the same goals and interests as ours. That is the hard part of co-ops. Everyone wants them to be what they need and when they are large, open invite co-ops it never becomes what anyone really truly wants. It is more like settling.

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We participate in a small co-op with 3 families. The kids range from 9 yo to 5.5 yo, and then toddlers tagging along. All of the kids participate in some activities together, and then we have the 4 older children do some activities while the 2 younger kids split off for some different activities.

 

We meet in one family's home. Everything is planned out in advance before the semester begins. Each parent teaches from 2-4 classes. Co-op runs 3-4 hours depending on the semester, and we meet 1x per week.

 

I definitely prefer participating in a small co-op.

 

We do some things that I personally struggle to get around to at times with 3 young children: art appreciation and then painting on their own during the week, music, copywork and memory work, science lab, etc. We also do things that are not always easy to replicate at home with just one or two children, like a literature circle. Essentially, the co-op provides a lot of the "extras," and then each family carries out their own core curriculum the rest of the week.

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