Saturday
Jun092012
The middle ages. And history co-ops
Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 11:06PM
All right, people, it's that time year again.
The time where I write in a panic, not sure what we're going to do next year, and I over think everything, obsess and re-work everything in my head until it's all a complete muddle and I scream for help.
So, here I am, screaming for help.
Background: Sawyer will be 12 in the fall. I'm going to call him 7th grade, but he could be 6th or 7th according to his birthday.
He's a verbal, story-oriented, history-oriented kid and always has been. We both like school years structured around a history theme with literature, writing, hands-on stuff and field trips woven in around that theme. This year has been ancient history/mythology and we've just kind of been winging it; I've been in baby mode for two years and haven't gotten back to a full stride with school. He's doing "enough" but it's not fun, tied-together and as cool as it could be. And really, if we're homeschooling, why not make it as cool as we can?
So next year, we're going all in on the middle ages.
I'd like to do the middle ages in the fall and the renaissance/Elizabethan England/Shakespeare in the spring.
That sets him up for American History in eighth grade, and then in high school I'm betting he's not going to want to do as many hands-on projects and cool stuff and he's going to want to more on his own, so I'd like to do a lot of fun stuff these next two years.
Sander will be along for the ride. He's NOT a history kid. He wants to learn about animals, and that's all he wants to learn about. History is not interesting unless it's mammoths and dinosaurs, and while knights might hold his interest for a while, Henry VIII's six wives are not going to be something he's into. Though Anne Boleyn's headless ghost might be OK.
So for my Sander, I've been obsessed since a friend mentioned Winter Promise, and I ordered this:
http://www.winterpromise.com/animals_and_their_worlds.html
It's a year-long themed study of animals and their habitats, with a different animal each week to focus on, a study of woods, deserts, swamps and oceans, anatomy and structure and how to observe nature. So Sander's set. We'll do a little on that every day while Sawyer does math, typing and violin, and then Sander can sit in on the middle ages stuff with us and maybe some will rub off.
So, here's the stuff I want to know for middle ages.
There are two amazing, fabulous, wonderful resources to study the middle ages:
They're both also so Christian and Bible-centered it hurts. And the Tapestry of Grace has such a political agenda that's SO different than mine that I hate to even think about how hard it will be to secularize it. Honestly, they invite you to have a "Tea Party" with your friends to discuss their curriculum and how wonderful it is and how it fits in with God's plan for your children.
Um, no. I'm not going to have a tea party with all of you. I'm going to write to you, instead, and ask how I take these great resources and use them and make sense of them.
My plan, I guess, is to take the weekly planners, throw out the weeks I'm not interested in, re-work it to use the books and resources I have, and schedule it.
Should I do a co-op with this?
Here's my experience with co-ops: Someone, very gung-ho, starts one. Everyone else gloms on, full of great ideas. There's a great plan, full of great parents and great kids.
The first month is awesome.
The second month, three kids drop out because they didn't realize how far it was, and soccer started, and one of the kids doesn't like all the writing and another doesn't like the playground where you're having the co-op.
So the other moms now have double the work and instead of planning one or two great lesson each semester, they're having to throw together a lesson every two or three weeks, which they didn't plan on.
So one or two of them get overwhelmed and quit.
By January, it's three moms and four or five kids, struggling along, and the moms are throwing coloring pads and crayons at the kids while saying, "Did you read the book this week? Let's just read out loud." And by May everyone is completely over it and vows to never do another co-op.
This has happened every single year. So yeah, I'd love to do a history co-op making sundials, exploring alchemy, going to a Shakespeare play, watching videos on the black plague.
But half the kids don't do the reading/set-up required to understand the lesson plan, and the other half are annoyed that they put in the work and the other kids are just sitting there and can't discuss what's going on!
So how do I implement this great lesson plan I'm working on? It seems like such a waste to have all these resources and materials and use them on one kid, and honestly, half the stuff we won't do unless we have three or four kids at least to work on it.
So, I guess the ultimate question is: How do I run a co-op where people are involved, engaged, stay active and are make sure their kid is prepared for the group and interested in the activities?
If I open up a co-op like this to all of the homeschooling lists, I end up getting a lot of parents who don't want to teach history and see this as an easy way to get a history "check" for the semester. Or worse, parents who know their kids don't like history and who think this will be the way to get them to like it.
I'm looking for the opposite: Kids who love history, parents who are engaged and who want to teach and who know that this is the "spine" of the whole year, not a throwaway "arty" class.
Ideas?
What I really want to do is charge everyone $100 a semester to make sure they're committed. Or hire a teacher/facilitator to run to the thing, so they can be mean about making sure the material's covered.
Has anyone run a successful co-op with older kids that actually lasted the entire 36 weeks?
Reader Comments (2)
When I got to the part where you asked "How do I run a co-op where people are involved, engaged, stay active and are make sure their kid is prepared for the group and interested in the activities?", my first thought was that there should be an incentive, either a carrot, or a stick. And of course, the easiest thing to do is charge parents, so they have some skin in the game. But I see you've thought of that.
I was thinking you could charge X per week, but they have to pay the whole 36 weeks up front (36X). They get it all back at the end of the 36 weeks if the kid shows up prepared each week. But they lose a week if the kid shows up unprepared (or doesn't show at all).
Good luck with all this!
I've been putting some thought into this and I've thought about joining an existing coop that pays for space and where the parents teach what they love and there's a place to put our kids of all ages so they're in a peer group and engaged while their siblings get their thing on. I think I've found one. I'll call you to talk about it more or we'll all discuss at coop on Tuesday. I have to find out more as well. Rosemarie