Community Blog

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My daughter went to school for two years, K and 1, before we began to homeschool. She misses a couple of things — picture day and a school supply list for school supply shopping!

Now the co-op is taking care of one thing for her — she gets a school supply list!

If you’re on our yahoo list, you’ll get a the list on the there. Some of the items are for your child personally, and some are to share with everyone, like crayons and markers.

On the list you’ll also find some things you probably already have, such as shoes for gym and a waterbottle.

Science Chicago, a year long program, kicks off next month. Check it out at http://sciencechicago.com.

Summer’s not over yet! Check out this fun, easy to make outdoor messy-fun thing at the blog of Betz White: http://blog.betzwhite.com.

Here’s a baby katydid in our backyard. So cute, we had to take a picture.

In the form of song…

Blogger Natalie Criss has re-written the words to I Will Survive, the Gloria Gaynor song, and made it:

I Will Survive (the first year of homeschooling)

It’s funny and accurate!

Check it out here: nataliesnexus.blogspot.com.

Your co-op board is nothing if not optimistic. We dream, and we dream big!

Many times that has worked out — we’ve come a tremendous way in just 7 shorts months — now we’re a real NFP corporation, collecting toys and materials for the kids to use, and registration beginning next month!

Other times, we’ve had to revise, re-vist, be flexible.

Now is one of those times.

The fabulous news is: we are quite confident that we will meet our minimum enrollment! The number we need in order to pay the bills and open the doors; cover our insurance, rent and basic materials.

The good news is that we’ve decided to be flexible in order to make that happen. See, we’re going to meet the minimum enrollment, but we won’t have so many parent volunteers that we’ll be able to fulfill our ambitious schedule we’ve posted on the website.

And we really don’t want to stretch folks too thin. We want the day to be managable and enjoyable for everyone.

In order to do that, we’ve made the day just a bit shorter. A smidge, as my grandmother would have said.

We’ve removed the “Subject Studies” classes. Oh, don’t worry, it’ll be back.

So with this fall’s trimester, the day will end at 2 pm. Another benefit is that that just might make life easier for some folks with little ones who want to nap at home.

What do you think? The comments section is always open.

Thanks!

The first drop off day for donations is this Saturday, July 19th, at Lisa’s in north Berwyn, 10 am to 1 pm.

Wondering what’s on the wish list? Click here or just scroll down to read it. Thanks!

One of the things our co-op will need in the fall is storage — a place to keep our paints, brushes and things we’ll need from week to week. It’s going to be so great to not have to drag things back and forth each week!

So when I saw this cabinet on Freecycle, I requested it right away, and lucky us, I was chosen!

The cabinet is ready for delivery to the church!

I’m excited to be at the point of “gathering up” real things for our co-op.

Are you a garage saler? Rummage sale shopper? Want to shop for the co-op and find things to buy and donate to the co-op?

Check out the “wish list” post on this blog to find the list.

Thanks!

While I’ve been thinking about how I’ll fit co-op into our curriculum-using lifestyle, I’ve also been thinking about how co-op might fit into a relaxed or unschooling lifestyle.

I’m a little biased about how flexible our classes are going to feel to kids. I think we have a really good balance between offering enough structure that kids get something out of their time at co-op, but building in enough choices with things like “studio” and “workshop” time that kids can follow their interests. So I tend to think our co-op would work well for many relaxed and unschoolers. I hope so.

I think one appealing angle of the whole co-op concept is that parents can be in the same classes as their kids as much or as little as they and their kids would like. Any classes parents participate in, they’ll be fully aware of what their kids are working on. And this, to me, can be the beauty of this co-op idea:

What the kids are learning about in co-op can be a spring-board for pursuing more learning outside of co-op. So whether it’s being right in the class, hearing about the activities from your own kids or other parents, or seeing projects coming home, you and your kids can take off- learning more about topics explored at co-op and see where they will lead.