October 27, 2011 - Science Co-Op

This is our last day of co-op. Many of the other students will be going one more week to do all the dissections. I let Lego-Man decide if he wanted to do those or not, but he decided against it. Considering we did 90% of the other experiments, I'm calling it good.

The high school students completed experiments for Modules #7 & #8.

The CGC kids completed pages on birds.

Sadly, I'm entering this so late I have no other details of the day.


Day #46/175 Days

October 20, 2011 - Science Co-Op

The kids have been doing very well with the science co-op. Today the high school students covered experiments in Module #6: .

Experiment 6.1 (Module #6)

Cell Structure I

Experiment 6.2 (Module #6)

Cell Structure II


The CGC class that I teach worked on learning about fish. I really like the way CGC works and it's been going well. We finished early.

The boys & I worked on chores around the house in the afternoon. 

October 13, 2011 - Science Co-Op

Today was another Science Co-Op.

The high school students work on the experiments for Module #5:

Experiment 5.1 (Module #5)

Osmosis and Diffusion

Experiment 5.2 (Module #5)

The Fragility of an Enzyme

Both of the experiments take quite a bit of time, so while the kids waited they watched the videos Indescribable and How Great is Our God both done by Louie Giglio. Both videos can be viewed online at YouTube.

Indescribable - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, & Part 5
How Great is Our God - full version

The Considering God's Creation kiddos work on insects and spiders. We finished prior to break so we joined the older kids upstairs and watched the How Great is Our God video.


Day #37/175 Days

October 6, 2011 - Science Co-Op

Today was our Science day. We spend the morning at a co-op.

Lego-Man was upstairs with the high schoolers. This week they covered the experiments in Module #4:

Experiment 4.1 (Module #4)

Class Basidiomycetes

Experiment 4.2 (Module #4)

Yeast and the Fermentation Process

Experiment 4.3 (Module #4)

Molds and Mildews

Experiment 4.4 (Module #4)

Imperfect Fungi


Conductor & Happy were downstairs with me in the Considering God's Creation class. Today we covered Lessons 8 & 9 - Clouds and the Speed of Light, Wind, and Sound.


It was a nice day at co-op so after break all the younger kids headed outside to fly the kites we had made two weeks earlier.

After co-op the boys & I headed north to meet our new flock of sheep. I needed to gather information on them and wanted to do that without the stress of unloading and getting them settled in their new home. They are arriving on Saturday.

The ewes were all out in the pasture and didn't come near us. We had a dog with us and they didn't know us. I was able to snap a few photos all the same with my telephoto lens.

Only the sheared ones are mine. The ones with more fleece are a different breed. We are getting Navajo-Churro sheep which is an endangered breed. We'll be adding this in to our course work and each boy wants to train a lamb for the fair this year.




Day #32/175 Days

October 3, 2011 Co-Op Day

My sister came up today so we could do our mini-co-op together. I started out the day with a look at the President's. We studies James Madison & James Monroe today. However, I started the day with a couple of fun YouTube videos.

We then began looking at James Madison. We watched a short biography video of him on YouTube (my favorite video place for school these days). The boys worked on coloring pages of James Madison (I'm using ones from this site for each President) while I read from the Scholastic: Encyclopedia of the Presidents & Their Times. Then they created their notebook pages for him. We did similar work for James Monroe. We watched this video and did all the same types of work for him as well.

In our state study we covered Georgia. My sister took lead on this one. She has been making up bookmarks for the kids for each state. They had an informational sheet and coloring page to work on while she read out loud from Georgia: Facts & Symbols by Emily McAuliffe. The boys completed notebooking pages and a Georgia mapping skills sheet. They also labeled a blank map with key points. Finally they worked through a reading comprehension set together.

Day #29/175 Days

September 22, 2011 - Science Co-Op

Today the high school group worked on flower and fruit anatomy and dissected both. They also looked at chick development slides.

The Considering God's Creation class worked through Lesson 7 which covered weather. We discussed the "weather equation" and what things affect weather (sun, air, water, rotation & revolution, and land). We broke in to two groups - older and younger. One group worked on creating the notebook page and the other group made homemade kites.

The younger group made kites first while the older kids worked on their notebook pages. The older kids managed to make their kites faster so I sent them to help the younger ones with their notebook pages. This seemed to work well.

I used instructions on this page to make the kites.

Unfortunately, it was raining by the time we were done, so I saved all the kites and we'll fly them the next time we get together if the weather cooperates.


Day #22/175 Days

September 19, 2011 - Mini-Co-Op

This week we headed to my sister's house for our mini-co-op. We're slowly getting in to a routine with our new studies.

• We watched a couple of fun videos about John Adams to give us all a background. I found a neat children's series on YouTube so we'll try to hit as many as we can. We watched "History Videos for Kids: Getting to Know John Adams" and "The American Presidents: John Adams." 
• Handed out coloring sheets of John Adams - I'm using the ones found at Apples 4 the Teacher. The ones I pick have the presidents name and which number they were (1st in office, etc.)
• Read one chapter from George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster - "John Adams: Farmer boy" about Adams' youth.
• Handed out informational sheets, notebooking sheet and clipart.
• Read from the Encyclopedia of Presidents & Their Times by David Rubel
• Listened to speech that John Adams made while in office

• Moved on to Thomas Jefferson and again, watched a couple of YouTube videos. One was called "History Videos for Kids: Getting to Know Thomas Jefferson" and the other was "President Thomas Jefferson Biography." 
• Handed out coloring pages
• Read one chapter from George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster - "Thomas Jefferson and His Mountain."
• Handed out informational sheets, notebooking sheet and clipart.
• Read from the Encyclopedia of Presidents & Their Times by David Rubel
• Listened to speech that Thomas Jefferson made while in office

We then took a break and the kids began working on their cookies for their state study. We made cookies from Pennsylvania - Sour Drop Cookies. Each boy had a hand in making them and they were delicious! We even used gluten-free flour this time so Happy was able to eat some as well. 

They had a maple flavored frosting that when on them and Lego-Man made that all by  himself. The other three boys - with my sister's help - made the cookies. I took photos. Actually, once the first batch came out and a sample taken, the boys began their state study and I finished cooking and frosting cookies.

The boys learned about Pennsylvania and New Jersey today. We are learning our states in order of their admittance to the union. 

The boys are creating notebooking pages that list the state motto, have a picture of the flag, flower, bird, and animal. They also are doing mapping skills for each state as well. (And yes, I can't find my checklist so I can't get more detailed than this.)

Day #19/175 Days (note the actual day! It will be like this all week - cool!)

September 15, 2011 - Science Co-Op

The high school class continues to work their way through the Apologia Biology labs. Today they worked on Experiments 14.1, 14.2, and 14.3.

Experiment 14.1 is "Leaf Collection and Identification." To makes things work a bit more smoothly, each student was to bring in a sixteen of one leaf in order to share with the class. We had each of them also take a photo of the tree and a close up of the bark. We are working to get inexpensive copies made to add to their lab notebooks. (This did eventually happen thanks to one of the moms who willingly printed them out for cost of paper and ink.) Experiments 14.2 & 14.3 looked more closely at the leaves. Lego-Man is still enjoying the class and doing well from what I gather.

In the Considering God's Creation class we looked at talked about earth and it's atmosphere. This was a VERY quick overview of everything. We also created the CGC notebook page on the earth and rainbows. This showed the layers of the earth.

After break we headed outside - admist some rain - to do a couple of fun experiments. The kids were broken up in to groups of 3-4. Each group was given a small glass piece vase and I went around with a box of baking soda and a bottle of vinegar. Yes, they all got to "explode" a volcano which they thought was great! To top off the morning we had four of the older boys do the "Diet Coke and Mentos" explosion. Needless to say, they loved it - as evidenced by the photo above.

Overall the co-op continues to go well. Although, I am looking forward to late November when we don't have to be up and gone quite so early in the morning.

Day #17/175 Days

September 12, 2011 - Mini-Co-Op

Last year my sister & I got together a couple of times a month to do a mini-co-op with just the two of us. We focused on art and music. We did an appreciation course for both as well as learned about composers and artists and even did practical art study using videos.

This year we decided to cover the US States and Presidents. Today was our first day. We did an abbreviated study today as I had also inadvertently scheduled a "Not-Back-To-School" picnic for any area homeschoolers and needed to be there at noon.

We were able to cover one state and one president - rather quickly, however. I am teaching the presidents and my sister is teaching the states.

 For our study of George Washington we began with a video on YouTube (one of my favorite educational sites). We watched Part 1 which was about nine minutes. I didn't think the kids would sit through all 30 minutes, although, if we had time, we probably would have attempted it. Here is the link to Part 1.

I then handed out coloring sheets. Granted, this isn't one of their favorite things to do - especially my teenager - but we find it's good to have their hands occupied while they are being read to. While they colored I read two chapters from George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster (what a treasure this book is!!!). I also read a book called George Did It by Suzanne Tripp Jurmain. It was a fun look at all Washington accomplished in his life.

We ended the presidential time by creating notebook pages. I handed out a one-page informational sheet on George Washington. (I received a free download of all the pages, but I did find them on-line as well from the same site I downloaded from. You can see them HERE.) I then have a half sheet of paper printed with primary lines (I can't find where I got these from originally). It includes a short amount of data such as name, born/died, date served in office, etc. There are eight things included - just enough info for the boys to not balk too much at including. I also found a set of presidential portraits (clipart) and print out enough so that each boy can paste one on each page.

After a very short break, we then began learning about Delaware.

• Read about Delaware from the book Don't Know Much About the 50 States by Kenneth C. Davis
• Shared a large map of Delaware and allowed the boys to just check it out
• Read about Delaware in Scholastic Atlas of the 50 States by David Rubel
• Handed out an informational sheet about the state and completed two notebooking pages
• Handed out a packet of information on mapping skills using Delaware - questions answered
• Filled in a blank-line map of Delaware - just the important spots
• Tasted "Delaware Applesauce Cookies" (YUMMY!)

My sister has a great book with cookie recipes for each state. Our goal is to actually have the boys help make them, but this week - due to our time constraint - my sister made them ahead of time and we just sampled them. They were very good!

Day #14/175 Days

September 8, 2011 - Science Co-Op

The co-op continues to go well. The high school students worked on Module #3 in Apologia's Exploring Creation Through Biology. Lego-Man seems to be doing well with the class - keeping up - completing his assignments - and learning. That's all I can hope for right now.

The younger kids and I had a blast. I just wish I had brought my camera. I was a bit frazzled when I first arrived as I had forgotten to bring the teacher guide for CGC. I had my lesson plan typed up so I decided to just use that as a base. It worked.

We reviewed what we had learned the previous week. The kids did a great job sharing so I know they are listening! We had a rip-roaring Bible drill. They seem to enjoy this but one young man obviously knows his Bible and wins more than the rest. He suggested that those that win sit out a round so that offered up a chance for others to snag the verse. I'm actually surprised how much they like this part!

One verse we discussed a bit more than others was Job 38:7 which says....(I'm sharing Job 38:1-7 for context):

The the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

"Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 

Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - 

while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

The CGC book shares how scientists have "discovered" that stars emit sounds. I just found a neat BBC video that actually shares this with actual sound footage from a star.




The we created a fun notebook page from CGC. It was a model of the solar system made in to a notebook page. It did mean a lot of cutting and pasting, but most finished it by the time we took a snack break.

After snack we headed outside to create a model of the solar system. What fun! I found a neat site called "Jump to Jupiter" that had a model I felt we could construct outside. I was just thankful the rain had stopped long enough to create this.

For our sun we used a softball. Most of our planets were represented by pepper flakes and poppy seeds while the giants were represented by marbles. The original plan was to do so many "jumps" before placing the next planet.  For example - it was 600 jumps from the sun to Pluto! However, we quickly ran out of room! Instead we had the children do a "toe-to-heel" step which fit much better. We still used about 500 yards of space. It definitely put things in perspective!


Day #12/175 Days

September 1, 2011 - Science Co-Op

Today was the first "classroom" day of our Science Co-Op. The high school students were in the gym. They tackled Experiment 1.2 from Module #1 (Intro to the Microscope) and 2.2 from Module #2 (Pond Life B). While I wasn't able to be upstairs to see what they completed, I know that Lego-Man seemed to have a good time and seems to be doing well with the material. We're moving on to Module #3 this coming week.

I had the younger siblings downstairs for our first Considering God's Creation class. It went very well. We had originally thought to only include those age 7 and up but changed it to have ages 5 and up. This meant a bit more hands-on help from the moms but we decided to continue with this. I had 2-3 moms helping which was nice, but I may ask for more. CGC does a lot of cutting and pasting of pages and little hands sometimes need help with that.

We covered the first 1-1/2 lessons in CGC which went over Creation and Stars. The children created the notebooking pages. We held a Bible Drill a well. I read Yellow & Pink by William Steig (excellent book) which led to a discussion about a Creator vs. evolution. The children also watched a short segment from a Moody Science video about creation.


Day #9/175 days

Science Co-Op Begins

This year we are trying another co-op. Once again though this is a "limited time only" one which fits in to our schedule a bit better. However, when I tell people what we are doing they do scoff a bit at me. We are meeting weekly in order to just complete all the experiments. Our goal is to be done by Thanksgiving. Yes, that fast.

My oldest son is now in high school. I have another homeschooling friend who has graduated one and is near to graduating her second. She asked if I wanted to try doing a co-op for Apolgia's Biology (1st Edition). I decided to give it a try.

Since there are just as many younger siblings as there are high school age, I am teaching all the younger siblings (ages 5-12) using Considering God's Creation. There are parents helping in each group plus we have a nursery for those too far too young for my class.

We met today to do the Pond Study experiment. My friend & I took the liberty of moving the experiments around a bit in order to take advantage of our seasons here in Maine. While we are doing the first four modules in order, we will then be skipping around a bit.

All the kids (and even a few of the parents) seemed to have a great time at the pond today gathering samples, checking out insects, and doing observations.

I was surprised at how into it Conductor got. He had excellent luck capturing lots of water striders. Here's an example...

I think know it's going to be a lot of work - for everyone - but it will be a good start to Lego-Man's high school portfolio.

Day #4/175 Days

Day #151/175 Days Fine Arts Co-Op

My sister again came up today to do our Fine Arts Co-Op (I'm heading there next month). Today our musical focus was on the tuba, drums, and composer Scott Joplin. Our art focus was on drawing heads correctly and Pablo Picasso.

Music

• Read about tubas in Story of the Orchestra and listen to the CD track
• We watched this video first on YouTube about how tubas are made and then this one of a tuba solo.

• The boys then each gave us one thing they learned about tubas and created a mini-book. 
• We then moved on to the drums reading about them in Story of the Orchestra.
• We watched this video on YouTube about how drum shells are made. 

• Then we watched this video of a 16-year-old boy play a really cool drum solo. Yes, I know drum kits aren't used in the orchestra but it's still fun to watch. 

• The boys then listed four things they learned about drums and created a mini-book.
• The boys colored a picture of Scott Joplin while my sister read to them about his life from Lives of the Musicians and the Young Composers book. 

• The boys each gave us one thing they learned about Scott Joplin.
• We then created a notebook page. We used one that I found for free online here. It's page #11 in this set. I had the boys add a photo of Scott Joplin (I found one online, copied it to MS Word, and made it small enough to fit), born/death dates, place of birth, names of 1-2 famous pieces, and they each had to give us one thing they learned. Then they picked three to add to their page.
• Finished up our music portion by listening to "Maple Leaf Rag" by Joplin. This was one my sister's Meet the Masters CD but it can be heard on YouTube as well. 

Art

• Watched Lesson 12 in "God & the History of Art" about "Other Periods & Artists" (This is our last one. I'm going to miss the art history although I'm tempted to have the boys go through it again.)
• Continued with "Portraits & Anatomy" in "Beginning Drawing IV" by Barry Stebbing. He taught how to draw a head with correct proportions.
• Read about Pablo Picasso in Art in Story
• Watched this video on YouTube of Pablo Picasso actually painting. Fair warning...Picasso loved the female figure. We only watched the first 50 seconds to see him do the very first drawing. The next two are somewhat abstract but I have a teenage boy and they weren't abstract enough.
• Listed four things on the board and created an Artist Biography page.
• We then went to a really fun website and each boy created a "Picasso Head." In fact, I had to go and do my own once they were all done.

Day #141/175 Days Fine Arts Co-Op

Today my sister came to our house and we did our Fine Arts Co-Op together. Our focus today for music were the guitar and bugle for instruments and Debussy for a composer. In art we began instruction on how to draw portraits and learned about Winslow Homer.

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Music

• We read an article about the history of guitars. 
• Then we watched this video on YouTube.

• The boys constructed a guitar shape book and wrote three facts about guitars inside.
• We read an article about the history of bugles.
• Then we watched this video on YouTube. 
• After the boys dictated three facts that were written on the chalkboard, they created a mini-book
• Read from Story of the Orchestra about Claude Debussy
• Listened to some of Debussy's music on the Story of the Orchestra CD
• Read from the Young Composers book as well
• The boys created a notebook page about Debussy

Art

• Watched Lesson 11 in "God & the History of Art" about "American Artists"
• Began the "Portraits & Anatomy" section of "Beginning Drawing IV" with Barry Stebbing
• The boys drew:
• Charlie/Charlene Contrast
• Hot Dog Man
• Tin Man
• Rectangle Man
• "Sad"
• Read about Winslow Homer in Art in Story
• Watched this video on YouTube that showed some of Homer's work 
• Listed four things learned about Homer and created an Artist Biography Page
• Created a watercolor painting 

Day #97/175 Days - Fine Arts Co-Op

I had my nephew for a couple nights this week due to my sister's and BIL's work schedule. Since he was going to be here anyway, we decided I would just teach the co-op material alone on Wednesday while he was here. It went well.

We learned about the French horn. We read from Story of the Orchestra and watched these two videos on YouTube:

• Video about the French Horn
• Video with a French Horn solo

We also created our mini-book using the resource from Homeschool Share.

We moved on to the bassoon after. Again, reading from The Story of the Orchestra and creating our mini-books. We watched these two videos as well...

• Bassoons playing the theme from Pink Panther 
• Bassoon duet (excellent)

We moved on to reading about Franz Liszt in our Young Composers book. The boys filled out the student review pages while I read and then we went over the answers together after. They also shared one thing they learned and then created a mini-book for their notebooks.

After lunch we moved on to art.

• We watched Lesson 8 in our "God & The History of Art" DVDs on "The Renaissance." (These are really great DVDs and I highly recommend them. Mr. Stebbing is excellent.)
• We moved on to "Perspective Drawing" - again taught by Mr. Stebbing. This is part of the "Fundamentals of Beginning Drawing." Today the boys created a landscape drawing. 
• We then started our study on Michelangelo. I read about him in Art in Story (excellent resource).

At this point I was a tad tired so I cut the boys some slack. All the really wanted to do at this point was go play so I let them. However, that meant spending time building with Legos while listening to Adventures in Odyssey and I still count that as "school time."

They also did four "laps" due to some behavior issues earlier in the day. This means they have to either walk or run from our house over to Grandpa's garage. It's about 100 yards one way. A "lap" is over and back.

Day #87/175 Days- Fine Arts Co-Op

My sister and nephew came up to spend the day with us today and we worked on our music and art together. This has been a nice to do as it's helping to make sure these two subjects are adequately covered. Today we studied the harp, the double bass, Beethoven, and John Constable. 

Music

• Read about the harp in Story of the Orchestra
• Listened to Track 18 to hear a harp being played
• Listed four things about a harp on the chalk board & the boys created a mini-book
• Read about the double bass in Story of the Orchestra 
• Listened to Track 17 to hear a double bass being played
• Listed four things about the double bass on the chalk board & the boys created a mini-book
• Read about Beethoven in Meet the Great Composers and Story of the Orchestra
• Listened to two tracks to hear some of his music
• Created a notebook page about Beethoven
• The boys did a coloring page while they were being read to.

Art

•  Watched Lesson 7 from "God & the History of Art" about the Gothic Period
• Watched "Fundamentals Part 2" from the "Beginning Drawing" lessons and drew a teapot. 
• Discussed
• Plumb line
• Negative space
• Watched two videos on YouTube about John Constable's paintings
• The Wheatfield
• The Haywain
• A slide show of paintings 
• Read about Constable in Discovering Great Artists
• Created a "cloudscape" painting

And the final products:

Lego-Man

Conductor

Happy

We used blue painters tape to tape all four sides to the table. Once they were dry we pulled that off and ended up with the crisp "frame." The clouds didn't quite work as we had hoped, but it was still fun to paint.

Day #77/175 Days - Fine Arts Co-Op

My sister & I are trying to get caught up on our Fine Arts co-op. We had planned out September to December back in August. We still have one more set of instruments and a composer left to cover from that original list. We had to cancel quite a bit this past fall, but I think we're on a roll again. I'll be making up a new list for our next few months soon. Any suggestions? We typically cover two instruments, a composer and an artist. I'll list all we've done so far at the end of the post.

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Music Study

•  Read about the viola in Story of the Orchestra
• Listened to a track of a viola playing from the CD that goes with the book
• Colored a picture of a viola (member section from abcteach)
• Listed 4 things about the viola that they learned and created mini-book
• Read about the clarinet in Story of the Orchestra
• Listened to a track of a clarinet playing from the CD 
• Colored a picture of a clarinet (again member section of abcteach)
• Pulled out my old clarinet for everyone to have a turn trying to play. I played for eight years (grades 5-12).

 

•  Listed four things learned and created mini-book
• Read from The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers about Schubert.
• Colored a coloring page of Schubert

     

• Created a "Composer of the Month" sheet.
• Watched YouTube videos of "Ava Maria" being performed

Art Study

• Watched Lesson 6 on our "God & the History of Art" DVDs. This covered the Dark Ages & Monasteries as well as illuminated manuscripts. 
• Discussed book making ----> Bibles -----> Monks copying -----> cost of books ---->missions -----> persecution of Christians
• Each boy was given a copy of their name done in a Celtic style font in order to color it. I found it here.

• Watch "Fundamentals of Drawing Part 2" and complete all drawings taught
• Still life (drawing a mug)
• Rules of composition
•  Read about Edgar Degas in Art in Story
• Watched this video on YouTube with lots of paintings by Degas.
• Read about Degas in Discovering Great Artists
• Create crayon resistance drawing (this didn't work as well as I had hoped)

  

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Instruments Studied so far:

• violin
• harpsichord
• flute
• piano
• cello
• organ
• viola
• clarinet
• oboe
• clavichord
• saxophone
• trumpet
• cellesta
• tubular bells

Composers studied so far:

• Bach
• Mozart
• Haydn
• Schubert
• Handel
• Chopin
• Txhaikovsky

Artists studied so far:

• Rembrandt
• Botticelli
• da Vinci
• van Gogh
• Monet
• Degas

Day #71/175 Days - Fine Arts Co-Op

We covered the following today in music....

• saxophone
• trumpet

• Chopin

The boys were slightly impressed at the pretty sad tones I made come from the trumpet. There were some minor colds and such amongst the boys so they didn't get to try. They created mini-books for both instruments and for Chopin. We listened to various tracks to hear the instruments and Chopin's work.

Can you tell we are working with boys and ones that do not want to write much?

After a short break we tackled art. We watched a video on Christian Artists. This is taught by Barry Stebbing. He does a great job sharing his knowledge with the children. Then we moved on to the "Fundamentals of Drawing." These DVDs are very similar to the three day art classes that Mr. Stebbing teaches.  Lego-Man and Conductor participated in one a few years ago. Only Lego-Man remembers any of it though. 

 Photos of the boys working on their art lesson. 

The artist we studied today was Vincent van Gogh. We watched two YouTube videos. This one that showed lots of van Gogh's works and this one of a very adorable five year old girl recreating the moon in van Gogh's painting. We also used this website to get a really good close-up look of van Gogh's painting technique. I then challenged them to recreate van Gogh's "Starry Night." 

We finished off the day with piano practice and independent reading. Also my nephew was here and showed Conductor the neat electrical things his Papa gave him to try. This inspired Conductor to take out his electrical kit he had received for Christmas. He had brought it to me shortly after Christmas and told me he didn't want it as it was too hard. He's spent quite a bit of time today working on it and doing just fine. 

It's hard to see in this photo, but there is a red light lit up beside his hand. He was pretty proud of himself for getting this to work and I was very proud of him for persevering. 

Day #56/175 Days - Fine Arts Co-Op

Due to some issues with travel and such, we only focused on music today.

• Read about the oboe in Story of the Orchestra
• Listened to the music selection and picked out oboe
• Created mini-book
• Read some information found on the Internet about the clavichord
• Watched a YouTube video of someone playing one
• Created mini-book
• Read about Handle in Meet the Great Composers
• Read from the "Young Composers" book and did student review pages
• Created mini-book
• Created paper nativity scenes.

Day #19/175 Days - Co-Op

Another Co-Op day has come and gone. Today the older and middle groups of students (the ones that Lego-Man and Conductor are in) did reports on "famous people from Maine."

We also had one of the men from church (his granddaughter is in the co-op) offer to come and do a tree study with the kids. He took each group of students in to the woods nearby and helped them identify different types of trees that grow in Maine.

The older children once again wanted to play kickball. They were able to play for about 15 minutes before we were done for another week. Next time they will be doing presentations on books and/or authors from Maine.

We found it was too difficult for the younger children to do the reports. It was really a "mom-activity." It was really crazy as many of the children that attend our co-op have moms that attend MOPS (which is why we meet when we do - so the older homeschool children have something to do while their moms are at MOPS). These moms wanted to help their younger kids with their reports and it was a rush of in and out to help.

We eliminated all that this week by having the younger group work on a lapbook. It seems to be working well. We're keeping all the elements at the church until they are completed and in the lapbook. They are doing on about Blueberries for Sal and are currently working on a study about bears. We'll see how much we complete between now and November 3rd when we will be switching gears a bit.

After lunch we headed once again to LC Bates Museum for our Maine studies class. I would share some photos, but after taking only four my camera battery died. It's the second time it's done that at the museum classes. Today the older children learned about printing and were able to make their own plates and print them using old fashioned methods. The younger children learned about chores. Their hands on bit was using an old washboard and basin to wash clothes. They all thought it fun!

We only have one more museum class left. I need to make sure my camera battery is fully charged!