Questions for next meeting

As we prepare for May 15th (next mtg.) please find time to answer these questions:



1. What are YOU looking for to help educate/enrich your children?

(I asked this at the last mtg. and made the mistake of letting it turn into what we could offer. My bad! Let’s get back to the beginning of our needs first!)



2. What can you commit to? (We will need a trial period that we’ll decide on together.)



3. What can you contribute to the group to help it run smoothly and keep with our goals of homeschooling?



4. What concerns do you have that you can bring to the table and allow us to help in any way?



5. What curriculum would you like to present to the group to use? (Bring as detailed as possible)



6. Would other questions do you have?



7. Seeing that we have a lot of women working together, what do you think about nominating 3-4 women to work together as our Co-Op Board? (This will need to be by nomination only, so get to know the other women!)



***I really feel that the next step is to sit down with one another to answer these questions together make our decisions by a majority vote. Setting up a co-op always has kinks, but I KNOW that we can make this work IF we wait until our next discussion! Mark your calendars for Fri. May 15th at 10 a.m. This will give us plenty of time to gather our thoughts and still focus on schooling our children and our other reponsibilities!

Fine Arts Curriculum Description

It’s More than Art!

Handle on the Arts is a complete fine arts program covering art history, art technique, music theory, music appreciation, architecture, drama, and creative movement.



It’s Complete!

All needed materials, with the exception of art supplies, are included in the curriculum kit. This mean no last minute searching for a certain piece of music or particular work of art. If an activity suggests a needed material, you will find it in your kit.



It’s Written for Homeschooling!

Handle on the Arts is uniquely designed with the needs of the homeschooling family in mind. This means that it can be used with more than one student, the activities are geared for small groups, everything is reproducible, and activities interest a wide age range.



It’s Made to Last!

Materials are designed for durability and convenience. All art examples are laminated to last through many uses by many small children. All worksheets are reproducible, so that a single kit can be used many times.



It’s Easy!

Curriculum guides are written to be understood by parents with no artistic or musical background of any kind.



It’s Concise!

Most of the activities included in the curriculum guide can be accomplished in 15 minutes or less. It is easy to incorporate a full fine arts curriculum into your busy schedule.



It’s Well Rounded!

This curriculum touches on a wide variety of arts appreciation activities that are vital to a well rounded education. Students will explore a variety of media, styles, time periods, and cultures. Even adults will be able to learn new cultural information from this curriculum.



It’s Safe!

Handle on the Arts is written from a Christian perspective and designed to be safe for the Christian home. You will never find questionable or nude material in a Handle on the Arts Curriculum.

Algebra Study Group taught by Desiree

I will hosting an Algebra Study Group for the co-op. There will be two groups, pre-Algebra and Algebra 1. We will be using Saxon Math curriculum. This group is not intended to take the place of your childs math teacher. Rather, it is an opportunity for students to come together and get their questions answered and go over concepts they do not understand on a weekly basis.

If you are interested in your child participating in the Algebra Study Group, please contact Desiree directly to get the placement test. This tool will help you determine exactly where your child should be placed in the Saxon curriculum.

You can email Desiree at "desireetruett@yahoo.com"

More about Real Love Parenting:

To learn more about Real Love Parenting visit http://www.reallove.com/parenting.asp

Foundation of the co-op

The Co-op will be based on these nine principles:

The First Principle
More than anything else, my child needs to feel loved.

The Second Principle
When my child behaves badly,
he or she doesn’t feel loved.

The Third Principle
When I’m angry, I’m wrong

The Fourth Principle
I can’t give what I don’t have:
I must find Real Love for myself

The Fifth Principle
My child needs to be loved and taught

The Sixth Principle
After my child has been loved and taught,
he or she needs to be loved and taught again

The Seventh Principle
The Law of Choice

The Eighth Principle
Happiness comes from being loving

The Ninth Principle
Happiness comes from being responsible

Science Themes taught by Andrea

Aug- Seasons

Sept-Plants

Oct- The Earth's Biomes

Nov- Weather

Dec-Technology/Inventions

Jan- Space

Feb-The Earth (Rocks, Fossils, Volcanoes, etc.)

Mar- My Body

Apr-Properties (liquid, gas, solid)

May-Energy

June- Senses & Movement

July- Animals

Social Studies Plan taught by Andrea

Social Studies

General Plan

Week 1- Intro, landscape & landmarks

Week 2- People

Week 3- Food

*Week 4- Oral Presentations

A monthly research based homework assignment will be given. The students will have a lot of creative freedom, including choosing the countries to research and the form of their presentation. On the 4^th week* of the month the students will give an oral presentation based on their homework assignment.

One big research project will be done involving continents not covered by the group.

QUARTER 1 (Aug-Oct) THE AMERICAS

Aug- USA (Homework: Research a National Park)

Sept- Brazil (Homework: Choose a country from the Americas/Banana Split Report)

Oct- Mexico (Homework: Mayan/Aztec historical landmarks)

QUARTER 2 (Nov-Jan) EUROPE

Nov- Italy (Homework: Map a country from Europe)

Dec-Germany (Homework: Find a Christmas tradition in Europe)

Jan- Russia (Homework: Stew of Cultures Project)

QUARTER 3 (Feb-Apr) ASIA

Feb- China (Homework: Research a country in Asia)

Mar- Israel (Homework: Traditional Clothing/Costumes of Asia- Draw, Paint, Sculpt)

Apr- India (Homework: Plan a trip to Asia. What would you see and why?)

QUARTER 4 (May-July) AFRICA

May-Tanzania (Homework: Display different types of homes)

June- Egypt (Homework: Symbols- What symbols would represent you?)

July- Botswana (Homework: Research a country in Africa)

Our very first meeting...

Homeschool Co-Op Mtg.

April 10th

Thanks to all who could come out and help plan the beginning of this Maricopa Homeschool Co-Op. The shaping and molding begins now as we work together to start a co-op to bless the lives of anyone who wants to participate. We will try hard to meet everyone’s needs. You may not be able to participate in every class and that's OKAY, but we will try to make this simple for all. I loved all the input from everyone!

We began our mtg. with introductions and then went over the 9 principles of Good Parenting that we hope to have as our foundation of this homeschool co-op. To review these or learn more about them, please visit the book Real Love in Parenting by Dr. Greg Baer MD. We can also discuss anything via email, if you’d like.

The following is what we decided:

One day a week, a few hours in the morning, is what the majority would like. After brainstorming and coming up with a lot of ideas we narrowed it down to what we feel could fit into a 3-3 ½ hour morning block of time. We started with using only Fri. and needed to move it so the core group could come. Thurs. will be the best fit for now. After talking about all the fun classes we’d like there were two that weren’t able to fit into the schedule. That’s when another morning was discussed. We agreed on Tues. morning to try out for PE and Art.

All the moms have voiced how they want to contribute to the group, which makes all of our jobs a lot easier! Yeah! There is not a perfect schedule written up. This is still a work in progress.

Here’s the list of the moms contributing what they can:

Math-Desiree

Social Studies-Andrea (Once a wk class instruction), Michelle (Quarterly presentations w/ Guest Speakers & Debra (Helping w/ younger children)

PE –Jenny & Debra

Spanish-Lynn

Music Ed.-Anna

GOPHER (VERY important)-Brandi (Willing to copy, retrieve, substitute, and be there for anything else we can think of.)

Lynn is working on checking w/ the Villages for a location. My house is a back up to help get things started. Others have offered their home also ie. Debra, Desiree, Andrea (?).

It’s time to start looking for the curriculum we want to use. However, those who want to keep with the Country/Continent theme for the month needs to check with Andrea & Michelle for that. This would only compliment their teaching as a unit study would and may help the kids internalize it better. It is, however, not required.

The next get together again is Fri., May 15^th at 10 a.m. in my home to discuss what we’ve found and try to finalize some details.

In the meantime I will be sending a roster for everyone with names, phone #s, and emails. We will also have a group email starting so please push “Reply All” each time you want to respond to let everyone help out with questions.

Please post any questions and progress you make as we go along!

We understand that our rough draft is very rough and will need to be fine-tuned. Thanks to all who came and helped in the planning!