Starting a homeschool co-op can be as simple as a few moms meeting together and teaching various skills to your own children.  Or, it can be as organized as meeting in a church on a certain day every week for an entire semester and having parent volunteers teach elective classes.  If you are thinking of starting a co-op, here are some things to consider.  Do you have enough parents willing to teach or serve as assistant teachers?  Do you have enough parents willing to serve as nursery workers for the younger siblings of the teachers?  Take it slow and you may be surprised at how your co-op begins to grow.  Our local co-op began with just a few classes and now offers classes for children aged 2 all the way through high school age.

The first step in deciding to start a homeschool co-op is to find a place to meet.  Many churches are happy to allow homeschoolers to use their Sunday School classrooms one day per week.  The next step would be to determine which day of the week your co-op will meet and the times you will arrive and dismiss.  A good place to start would be to have two classes back to back.  Our local co-op offers two, one-hours classes.  The first one begins at 9:45, and the second starts at 11:00.  There is a 15 minute break in between the two.  Some grade levels are combined and each group of students remain in the same classroom , whereas a new teacher comes into the room for the second class.  Larger co-ops offer a list of classes and allow parents to pick and choose which classes their children are interested in attending.

Often co-ops have a set fee for parents to pay which helps with the costs of snacks, insurance, t-shirts, and so forth.  Other co-ops simply have each student pay the individual teacher directly, much like you would pay a tutor.  This provides an extra income for the parent volunteer.  However you decide to set up your local co-op, please know that it is worth the effort and can be a blessing and joy for everyone involved.

Some of the classes that your co-op may choose to offer include electives such as Art, P.E., Typing, Manners, Character Education, Legos, Science Experiments, Geography, State Study,  First Aid, American Girls, Math Games, Astronomy, Excellence in Writing, Movie Making, etc.  There are so many possibilities.  The rewards far outreach simply the knowledge that your children will gain.  Giving your children the opportunity to be around like-minded children will facilitate the building of friendships that may continue for many years to come.

In addition, our homeschool co-op is equally beneficial for the parents whose children attend.  We have a parent break room set up for those who aren’t serving as teachers or assistants.  This adult fellowship time  is a great time for parents to encourage each other and even share prayer needs.  You will be surprised at how parents even continue to cultivate the relationships they have formed beyond the weekly co-op meeting.

If you are thinking of teaching classes for your local homeschool co-op, please check out these titles written specifically for the homeschool co-op setting:  Learning Across the USA, Science for Homeschool Co-op or for Fun at Home, Manners, and Movie Making Basics.

Kathy Hutto, is a certified educator with over 18 years of teaching experience both in public and private schools.  She currently homeschools her own children and teaches classes through her local homeschool co-op.   In addition, she has created several innovative children’s feeding products known as Toddler Bites, which are sold nationwide through Price Products, LLC. You can visit her blog at www.toddlerbitesblog.wordpress.com

Adorable Thanksgiving crafts from Parents Magazine. There’s 15 adorable crafts including a pumpkin pie thankfulness spinner, 3-D Turkey bag, pumpkin photo holder and my favorite–a sticky note door hanger.

Free Printables… Thanksgiving coloring sheets and craft ideas for preschool/elementary age.  Great to keep some coloring sheets on hand.

Thanksgiving History…The History Channel has free videos and articles.

Mayflower Compact…Want to learn more about the Mayflower Compact?

Talk Like a Pilgrim…Fun site to learn how the Pilgrims talked. For example, did you know they would have said “Good morrow” instead of “Hi, how are you?”

You are the Historian… Enjoy investigating the first Thanksgiving with vivid pictures and audio.

I always knew one of my children was a little different. At age two, he could quickly complete complicated puzzles that his six-year old brother struggled to put together. His mind just saw the way it had to be! He was incredibly smart and continually amazed us with his mechanical mind and ingenuity.

When I began teaching him to read, though, he struggled. He changed b’s into d’s and 9′s into 6′s. More telling, though, was the fact that he couldn’t remember little words. If he was reading “Tim and Tom and Mary and Jan” he would have to sound out the word “and” every single time. He could not remember it from one second to the next. I had him informally tested, and he “passed.” We were told he was not dyslexic. That put my mind at ease for a short while but not for long. Signs which could not be explained any other way continued to crop up.

He skipped words or even lines while reading, as if they weren’t there. He read words backwards. He added letters that weren’t there or deleted ones that were. He ignored punctuation marks. Reading and spelling became a horrible chore. We had him tested again by a trained psychiatrist and found out that he was, indeed, dyslexic.

At first I was stunned. I had feared this was true. I had known it somehow, deep down. Yet the truth still felt like a punch in the gut. How would this affect him? What would this mean for his long-term future? Could we handle this?

Although it did not feel like it at the time, receiving that diagnosis was a blessing. We could finally begin to understand what we were dealing with and address it in ways that are making a difference. My patience increased exponentially overnight, as I realized that he really was doing his very best, and as I began to see school through my son’s eyes.

I am grateful that I found some excellent programs for him, even before I knew for sure that he was dyslexic. The psychiatrist was shocked that our son was less than a full grade level behind in his reading and spelling, and he attributed that to the strength of the programs we were using.

Dyslexia is not diagnosed only by a child being behind; it has to do with the discrepancy between the level he is working at when reading and writing versus the level he is able to work at when those components are removed and he is listening and speaking. There were 8 grade levels of discrepancy between those two points for our son, so although he wasn’t very far behind his grade level, he was miles away from living up to his potential academically.

It has been a year since he was diagnosed. We’ve kept the good and improved on the rest, and this school year has been our best year by far. Our son is thriving and is actually up to grade level now in his reading. His spelling is coming right along, and he is achieving spelling success every week rather than constant failure. We are using things like My Audio School to address his core content needs and Writing with Ease to help him learn how to communicate on paper.

I thought there might be a post in here somewhere, but I can tell already that there is a series here. I’ll look forward to sharing more soon about what we’ve been doing with him to achieve encouraging results academically as well as a much happier school day for both mom and son.

In the meantime, if any of this rings a bell for you, check out this post on Symptoms of Dyslexia
on the All About Spelling website. Perhaps that nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach is a wake-up call. I didn’t want to face the truth, but it has truly set us free. Now we are working with our son’s strengths and helping him learn how to accommodate for his weaknesses.

Other articles I’ve written concerning dyslexia that could be of interest:

• Resources for the Dyslexic Child
• Helping Dyslexics Help Themselves
• Don’t fill up on Dessert
• Emerging Readers
• File Folder Spelling
• Spelling with Clay
• Another Way to Narrate
• My Audio School

In this new podcast, I share about our challenges and victories as we work with our dyslexic son. Whether you are homeschooling or your child is in public / private school, you’ll find plenty of spiritual encouragement as well as tips and strategies for helping a child with learning disabilities. The material is divided into 8 episodes, each lasting about 10 to 20 minutes.

Topics include:
Could my child be dyslexic?
Making the decision whether or not to pursue formal testing
Coming to terms with the diagnosis
Finding more hours in the day
Managing my own emotions while teaching a child with special needs
Overcoming reading hurdles
Spelling, Writing, and Grammar
Yearly evaluations and other concerns

To listen to individual episodes, double click the arrow button where it says “select a past episode”. Choose the episode you would like to hear and click on it. You can click play right on the player widget to stream from your computer, or click “visit my call” and follow the prompts by each episode title if you prefer to download the episodes to your iPod, iPhone, or Mp3 player.

Click here to begin.

Here are some of my favorite books to read with my preschooler. If time would permit, I could list many more.

We love Hoot, by Jane Hissey. In fact, any book in Hissey’s Old Bear Stories series ranks as a favorite, and we have collected several. The charming artwork complements the funny tales about these stuffed animal friends. There are also some precious old British DVDs of the stuffed animals in these books. The books are getting easier to find!

Another one of our favorite books is The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven. This seems like it would be a book for a girl, but all four of my boys have loved it. I still find that it chokes me up a bit when I read it, even after all these years.

We love anything by Robert McCloskey. My current preschooler is in love with Blueberries for Sal, but my other boys have, in turn, cherished Lentil and Make Way for Ducklings, while my oldest still enjoys McCloskey’s older fare, Homer Price and Centerburg Tales.

Another author we look for is Marjorie Flack. My boys have all loved Angus Lost, Angus and the Ducks, Ask Mr. Bear and The Story About Ping.

One of our bedtime favorites, which we’ve owned for ten years now, is Reeve Lindbergh’s The Midnight Farm. This peaceful counting rhyme is the perfect story before dropping off to sleep at night.

One thing I like about The Midnight Farm is the illustrations by Susan Jeffers. She is one of my favorites. I love her drawings in this copy of Robert Frost’s poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

I also like the illustrators Jan Brett, Paul Zelinski and Peter Spier.
We just discovered the Read Aloud Bible Series by Ella Lindvall this year, but it has become an instant favorite.

The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was In It by poet Carl Sandburg is a silly favorite. We love reading about the procession of the Chocolate Chins, the Spoonlickers and the Easy-ticklers.

What are some of your favorites? I would love to hear your comments on this topic.

Are you ready for a tour of homes? A tour of homeschool rooms to be exact!

Let’s get going…

Joelle at Homeschooling for His Glory shares how she using her dining room as a school room in addition to sharing how she organizes supplies.

Robin at Timbo’s Beautiful takes us on a tour of her redesigned school room and shares how to make some cute wall art and decor ideas without spending a fortune.

Molly at Counter Cultural School gives practical ideas with plenty of photos on how to convert basement space into a schoolroom. She also shares tips on creating a reading room.

Thank you to these wonderful bloggers for opening up their homes and passing along marvelous ideas for creating a learning environment at home.

If you have school room ideas and photos you would like to share, put your link in the comment box and we’ll be by to visit!

I love to read, and I want to instill a desire to read in my children from an early age. There are few things I enjoy more than snuggling up on the couch together reading a wonderful book!

But it wasn’t always this way. I used to dread reading to my children. Of course, I still loved the snuggling part, but the books were so boring, so inane, so unworthy of the moment. When I had my first child I had one basic criteria when purchasing children’s books: price. All our books were bought at garage sales–the cheaper the better.

In this haphazard fashion, we amassed a library of what Charlotte Mason, 18th century educator, called “twaddle.” You know what I’m talking about. It’s those books that make you groan inwardly when your child pulls them off the shelf. I used to try and turn two pages at once when the kids weren’t looking, just to get to the end faster.

It was very hard for me to take the plunge and rid our shelves of twaddle, but it was so worth it. I boxed up all those television spin-off books, the boring books, and the books with recycled storylines, and ugly artwork. As I took each book off the shelf, I gave it a little test: if my heart sunk within me just thinking about reading it, it was gone!

While I was at it, I got rid of books that were irreparably torn or that had been colored in. Often those garage sale books were cheap for a reason. Reading ill-cared-for books gave my children the wrong impression about books. It is important to me that they learn to cherish books and to care for them. Finding just one torn or colored-in book on a shelf can cause a preschooler to think of coloring in many more.

With nearly empty shelves, I began a quest to fill our home with only the best. Books like Honey for a Child’s Heart and Five in a Row gave me a good start choosing better books for our home. In the beginning, we relied heavily on our library to fill the void on our shelves. I still continued to buy my books cheaply…at used book stores and curriculum fairs, online or on clearance, and even at the occasional garage sale.

The difference was that now I was armed with a list of what to look for. I had a list of great authors in mind, knowing that anything by Majorie Flack or Robert McCloskey would be worth getting at the right price. I also had a list of particular books that I wanted to find…books we had borrowed from the library and loved or books which multiple resources touted as must-haves.

My husband used to tease me with an old Pokemon slogan, “Gotta catch’em all! Gotta catch’em all!” because I  was so–dare I say it?–obsessed with finding every book on my list and for an amazing price to boot!

Now, 13 years later, my shelves are bursting with wonderful books. I still have to cull them occasionally, the result of unwanted gifts or titles which didn’t turn out as good as promised. If I feel that old sinking sensation, I know the book is probably destined for Goodwill.

Clearing the shelves of all the unworthy books has made so much more time for the best ones. Reading is always a pleasure now, no matter which books my children choose.

Next week I’ll share some of my favorite books for preschoolers along with a new podcast for parents of children with dyslexia.  In the meantime, what are your family’s favorite books?

MMCW is hosting a School Room Carnival! Share your blog posts and photos of how you organize your home learning environment. We will all be inspired by tips and ideas! Simply send the URL of your blog post to me at mentoringmoments@aol.com by Friday, July 30th. Yes, we’re extending the deadline to give everyone a few more days. You do not have to be a homeschooler to participate. The carnival will run on Thursday, August 5th.

MMCW is hosting a School Room Carnival! Share your blog posts and photos of how you organize your home learning environment. We will all be inspired by tips and ideas! Simply send the URL of your blog  post to me at mentoringmoments@aol.com by tonight. You do not have to be a homeschooler to participate. The carnival will run on July 28th.

When our oldest was born, I would fold clothes slowly as he slept.

Slowly because I was watching intently to make sure he was breathing.

As you can imagine, not much got done during those days. Between watching him sleep, working full time and folding those clothes, it seemed like there was no time for anything–especially an organized home.

Fast forward sixteen years, three more children, add on homeschooling, music, sports, and writing for Mentoring Moments and Oasis. I laugh when I recall those early first child days–I was clueless to what the phrase I have no time really meant.

Back then I thought of myself as an organized person, maybe because I could stand in the container aisle of Wal-Mart and think up innovative ways to store things. Always on the lookout for ways to save space, you could have called me the Queen of Rubbermaid.

These days, organization is not a pastime, it is a necessity. The saying is true–the more children you have the more organized you have to become.

In a matter of weeks our kiddos will be going back to school. That means school supplies can easily get misplaced and find themselves spread out all over the home. My command central is our supply closet…

Supply Closet

Finding a way to organize all of our school supplies and books proved easier than I thought when I found these plastic drawers at Wal-Mart. Drawers are purchased individually, so one can stack as many as needed. I was able to fit five large drawers for craft supplies, office supplies, art paper, notebook / loose leaf paper, and a pencil/pen/glue/crayon/marker drawer. Two smaller plastic drawers hold computer software /audio CDs and math manipulatives.

If you are a grandmother,  these drawers make a great spot for crayons, paper, Play-Dough, Barbie dolls, doll clothes, race cars, Legos, and more. The drawers do slide out, so they can be transported elsewhere in the home and put back when finished.

Stores are ramping up their school supply aisles right now and preparing for back-to-school sales. Save money by purchasing enough to last the entire year and store them in your supply closet. To get the best deals, purchase only the necessities for the first week or so of school, then stock up later in August when stores will offer deeper discounts. I normally purchase upwards of 12 packs of both college-ruled and wide-ruled paper, for example, which means I shop only once for paper a year.  Instead of running to Wal-Mart at 10 pm for  paper, I send the kiddos to the supply closet. Other items I stock up on are magic markers, glue sticks, boxes of pencils, erasers (we go through them like crazy), construction paper, index cards, poster board and art supplies.

Another nifty organization idea…

Closetmaid.com
My friend Michelle shared this link with me. You can enter your closet dimensions and receive plans for a professional remake you can do on your own.

Let’s keep this going…

MMCW is hosting a School Room Carnival! Share your blog posts and photos of how you organize your home learning environment. We will all be inspired by tips and ideas! Simply send the URL of your blog  post to me at mentoringmoments@aol.com by July 23rd. The carnival will run on July 28th.

Question: How do you organize school supplies?