Cool Photos

Our homeschool group has two big co-op groups at different locations because all of us can’t fit in one church at the same time. We are very blessed to have our co-ops.
Last week Dakota took group pictures of each co-op location. I love how the pictures turned out.


He would love to do this circle picture with a wedding group. The bride and groom with the groomsmen and bridesmaids on each side of them, having the parents and grandparents next to the wedding party, then family and filling in the rest of the circle with all of the wedding guest. Wouldn’t that be a cool picture?
This would also be a cool picture for family reunions, school classes or groups or even sports teams.
Dakota can’t wait to find a group so he can take another picture like this.

See Ya At The Pole

This morning our homeschool group had See Ya At The Pole for prayer time. We had a great turn out and it was such a blessing to be there.

It was especially wonderful to see June there. Her son graduated last year, but she became a member of our group again this year and we are thrilled to have her join us for MNO and such things like today. I didn't know she was coming , but I was so happy to see her. June is just one of those people who is LOVED by everyone! Here she being loved on by Claire and my friend Benjamin.

Yes, I was snapping pictures during prayer. BUT I did pray!

Today was also CRAZY flip flop day! I thought everyone was so creative in decorating their flip flops.

Don't you think they were all SO cute?

Then it was Chapel time, the first part of our co-op day.

It is so wonderful to see the church so full and that's not even everyone. Some were still arriving and some were putting stuff in their class rooms or out in the hall with babies who were crying. At the WM co-op we have 78 families, I believe, and 184 kids or something like that. We also have another co-op locating across the river because our group is so big everyone can't fit in one church. And not everyone in our homeschool group is in co-op, we have many families who chose not to join co-op for whatever reason that is best for their family.

Mrs. Jon Marie led us in a worship song while Mrs. Lydia played the piano. Then one student played a song on the piano and another student recited a bible verse. They both did a really nice job.
Next Pastor Rusty gave a short devotional that I really enjoyed. I didn't snap a picture of him.

I really can not express enough how much our homeschool group means to me. We are really like a big ole family. It's great to be part of such a wonderful group.

Co-op

I haven't posted this week because we are BUSY! We took the week off from school because Elijah, and Dakota too, are busy busy busy finishing up their fair entries that they will turn in this weekend. I'll post about that when they get their stuff back in early October.

I wanted to share about our homeschool co-op. I LOVE CO-OP!  It's the best thing that happened to our homeschool group.

I love the classes I'm teaching this year.
Are You Smarter Than a 1st Grader? For 1st & 2nd grade.
Are You Smarter Than a 3rd Grader? For 3rd & 4th grade.
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? For 5th & 6th grade.
Then after lunch I have two board game classes.

Today at co-op I snapped a few pictures of my class game board that I made.

I use the same board set up for each class, the apple is velcroed on so I can just change it out for each class.

 Here is a full view of the game board. We play it like a game show. It really is so much fun and he kids really enjoy it too. All the kids say it is their favorite class.

This is the right side. I laminated a piece of paper so we can write on it with a dry erase marker to keep score.

Here in the middle I have a $1 pocket chart from Target that I slip index cards into. On one side of the card is the subject and the other side has a question and answer. My helper (another homeschool mom) and I will pull a card from the category the kids pick and read the question and if the students answer correctly they get 10 points. At the end of class we add up the points, but everyone gets a prize.

On the left side there is a clock. Sometimes they might get a math question about time and they can use this clock to show the time. I also have a dry erase board in the room where the students can work out math problems or fill in blanks on a word with missing letters.

Each class has different cards, I have a box for each grade to keep them all separate.  You can see behind the box on the board there are cards with a ? on them. These are mystery cards. They don't really fall under a subject and can be about anything. One card today asked how many hours a day does a cat nap? The kids love the mystery cards.
This is my favorite mystery card....
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
The answer ...4.
It doesn't matter what you call the tail it's still not a leg! LOL

And here is Elijah standing by the board this morning before co-op started. I don't know if you can read Elijah's T-shirt, it says  "this is my dress shirt" and there is a tie painted on the shirt behind the words. THAT is SO Elijah!

Gearing up for Co-op!

This will be the fourth year for our homeschool group to have an organized co-op. It's the best thing that could have happened to our group. Co-op is so much fun for the kids and moms. I love going and seeing everyone each week and forming relationships that might not have happened if we weren't in co-op together.


Before the big co-op started there were many small co-ops going on each year, but they were not open to CHA. You could only be in those co-ops if you were invited. Now we have the big co-op and ALL of CHA is welcome to join. We were in several small co-ops in the past, but it is hard to be in different co-ops for your kids when you have big age gaps. My kids are 8 years apart. So I would take Dakota to one co-op and Elijah to another and they weren’t on the same days so that meant going out several days. Having a CHA wide co-op is so much better. It brings us all together and no one is excluded.


We have a bunch of great moms who offer all sorts of classes. My kids have taken a long list of classes that I don’t think we would have gotten around to at home. Dakota has taken Dave Ramsey Financial Peace, guitar, art, biology, chemistry, IEW, Jensen’s Format Writing, photography, US Gov, physical science and more that I can’t think of right now. Elijah has taken some great classes too, all about ponds, famous Americans, science centers, presidents, 50 states, art, guitar, piano, math games, and science experiments and again I can’t think of all the classes. Below are a bunch of pics from various classes.


This year Dakota will be taking journalism, real life, and oil painting. He will be teaching a computer class for the second year.. Elijah will take 50 states, considering God’s creation, FIAR volume 4, endangered animals, arts and crafts and art.


I’ll be teaching 50 states, journalism, FIAR, and Soda Bottle Science. Now it’s time to get busy and plan those classes. My friend Alana and I are doing FIAR together so we have planned out which books and what we want to cover; now we just need to collect stuff to make those classes happen.


If your homeschool group doesn't have a co-op, you might want to consider starting one.

Dakota made our co-op website and then added to it so all of our homeschool group is online with the website.

You can check out our website to see how our co-op runs.
http://www.nelcha.org/



This is Elijah and a friend in science class working on animal classification.

Elijah in an art class.

Elijah on the left end. This was from Presidents class.

Elijah being a meteorologist in science class.

Science experiment.

Elijah and friends in board games class.

Dakota and his art teacher.

Dakota teaching his computer class.

Elijah in math games.

Jody taught in co-op before his schedule changed. This is a picture from his science experiment class.

Dakota in art class.

Don't you think this is a cute bunch of kids?

The sight word class had a wedding for Q & U. Elijah was not happy about being in that wedding.

Dakota in a math lab.

Elijah in an art class.

If there's a bug, Elijah is going to find it.

Dakota in a science class. Coke and mentos!


Jody teaching a class.

Elijah and friends hanging out around the big tree at co-op.

You can see we have lots of FUN at co-op. We are having registration this month and it closes on the 21st. Co-op starts September 10th so we will be back with our friends having fun in no time. We are looking forward to starting.

Very Busy!

We are very busy these days!

I don't know if I have mentioned that our family is very involved in co-op. I know I've mentioned that we love it, but actually our family, I mean Dakota, built the co-op website.
We keep it updated and take care of registration that started August 1 and will end August 15.
It is a big job, but Dakota and I both enjoy doing computer work so it's not so bad.

Each of our co-op locations have Advisory Council members where we divide up the co-op work that has to be done to make our co-ops run so smooth. Thank goodness we all have different talents. I enjoy the computer work and I would not enjoy some of the other jobs. We all make a good team working together for good of co-op.

Over the next few weeks, I may not have time to breathe at all.

The week after registration closes I have 3 Advisory Council meetings in one week.
Then we have a CHA (our homeschool group) Mini Conference, that isn't feeling so mini to me.
It looks like we will have a lot of offer.

I will be doing a lapbooking/notebooking workshop twice that day, a homeschooling with special needs session and a workshop about using games in your homeschool. Some where between now and the 23rd I need to plan those 3 sessions/workshops.

The next week we have two co-op orientation nights and back to school bowling.

Then the very next week co-op starts! The WM co-op starts on the 3rd and the M location starts on the 4th. We are so pumped! Oh somewhere between now and the 3rd I need to plan out the 9 classes I will be teaching in co-op and make copies of pages for students. Jody has his 3 classes planned and ready to go and he enjoys rubbing that in. Dakota has most of his computer class that he is teaching planned also.

I also have to keep up with daily house work, laundry, shopping for groceries, cooking and pay bills. Sometimes I do feel like I am drowning, but then I take a step back and see what needs to be done first and get after it.

What was I thinking we'd start some school before co-op started? When?
Do you think life will slow down after co-op starts? We will have two days of co-op and Elijah will have two days of college. One of those college days will fall on a co-op day.

Sometimes people ask me why we do so much or they just tell me that we shouldn't do so much.
I know they are thinking of Elijah and they mean well, but I'm not one to say we can't do something because of him. I don't want him to grow up thinking he can't do stuff or be active. We do and go as long as he is able. Now at times he does get sick and we have to slow down or even come to a halt for a bit, but we pick back up when things are better. I don't want to raise him to think he can't, I want him to know he can as long as he is able.

Elijah does have good days and bad days and during those days he has good moments and sick moments. Many days he needs to lay on the couch for a little while in the mornings and he'll have times like that throughout the day also. If we are on the go we have pillows in the van and towels, wipes and a trash can that is used often. We also keep extra clothes in the van. That's just life for Elijah, we've had to learn to make the best of it. Elijah will sling his backpack of formula and feeding pump over his shoulder and head out to have fun just like any other child his age.

If you think about it, pray for us over the next 3 weeks as we have meetings and plan workshops and classes. We would really appreciate that.

Discovering Electronics

Today after literacy clinic at the college I took Elijah to Goodwill so he could find some
electronics to "work" on.

He hit the jackpot and found this big ole phone/fax/printer thing and he was one very happy little boy that wanted to get straight home so he could start working on it. He also found a small radio and an alarm clock.



As soon as we got home he ran got his tool box and began to destroy, I mean, work on his purchases.

His tool box has some little compartments with snap lids that he keeps all the little pieces in that he takes off of his electronics. I'll have to post a picture of his electronic treasures soon.

Elijah thought it was cool to find a magnet in the telephone handset.

While sitting here typing this I thought how cool it would be to have a Discovering Electronics co-op class for little boys next year (this school year's classes are already planned). I'll have to keep that in mind!

Double Notebooks

You know your a homeschool mom when you get excited over a 3 ring binder!

I found this cool double binder at Wal-Mart yesterday. 2 binders in 1. It says they are sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. They were $5.96

I thought this would be cool for co-op, so I got each of the boys one.
One side is green and the other blue.
They also had pink and purple for girls.

At the check out the lady rang up 4 notebooks so I told her it was only 2. She gave me a look like I can count and I see 4 binders. I had to show her it was only 2. So if you buy one you might want to watch out for that.