At co-op this year, I have the privilege of teaching two logic & critical thinking classes – one for high school and one for middle school. We’re having a great time together! I promised a little look inside that class, so here goes.
I’m doing similar things for both classes – expecting more depth, harder activities, a little homework and a few tests for the high school class. We’re:
completing logic matrix puzzles,
learning about logical fallacies,
playing critical thinking games, and
solving mysteries.
Both classes began with a Biblical understanding about why it’s so important for Christians to learn to think critically and how the Bible proves that fact to us. We discussed and memorized Bible verses based on this important article by Nathaniel Bluedorn.
Each week finds us doing something different and exciting. I’m using activities and ideas from various resource books, most of which are below. You’ll notice some of the books are meant for upper elementary students. I’ve found these are a good place to start with my middle school class which consists of 5th-8th graders, most having never enjoyed logic & critical thinking before.
At least once a month, I simply bring games that reinforce logic & critical thinking. The kids love learning new games and you can’t beat the super-fun method for learning!
Once I take more pictures, I’ll share another look-see into the class!
You might also be interested in reading my reviews of logic materials posted over at The Curriculum Choice.
School has been out since the end of April, meaning all the school-related posts that I’ll be publishing soon are way overdue. Oh well, better late than never. Our summer vacation has been nothing short of a whirlwind so far, but I wouldn’t trade the busyness with my sweet family for anything! I’ll try to post some summer fun posts once in awhile, too.
Some of you know that our co-op hosts a yearly competition expo. We love taking part and the photos below show my children’s entries this year.
Mahayla
Chocolate Cream Pie
Honey Oatmeal Yeast Bread
Acrylic Painting
Knitted Doily
Caleb
Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Acorn Forest Wood Project
Paper Craft
3-D Animal Cell
Eli
3-D Fish
Hot Rocks Painting
And my sweet parents who helped organize the art competition.
At co-op, we have a “serious” field day with class competitions and ribbons and awards. A group of friends in our hometown also gets together for a more “casual” field day. Each of the moms prepares a simple game or two – many involving water and relays – and we just have fun together. No awards or ribbons necessary.
This year, we brought potluck food for lunch and our wonderful hostess opened up her pool after the festivities. My children always look forward to this fun day, but the pool made it extra-special!
Little ones enjoyed their own pool while the big kids played games.
Field Day at our co-op is always such a fun day! In their class rotations, the kids go around to seven different activities.
Tug-of-war
Long Jump
Softball Throw
50 Yard Dash
Three-legged Race
Sack Race
Obstacle Course
The moms sign up to either work a station or escort classes from station to station. Those who escort also keep records of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place so ribbons can be given out at the end of the day. Everyone gets a participation ribbon so they don’t feel left out if they don’t place in any of the events. The escort also gets to decide who receives special awards at the end of the day for things like Most Enthusiastic, Most Encouraging, Most Christ-like Attitude and a few others.
We have a little awards ceremony and snack celebration to finish the day. It’s a long co-op day, but very much worth it!
This past weekend was time once again for our co-op’s talent expo. It’s such a fun time of sharing talents and competing for ribbons in the areas of art, music, drama, spelling, Bible memorization, cooking, woodworking, science fair and/or sewing.
This year’s projects for Caleb included two art projects, a *huge* birdhouse and a derby pie. The pictures of the art projects didn’t turn out, but you can see the other two below.
Two of Mahayla’s art project pictures also didn’t turn out, but her photography entry did. You can also see her knitting entry and hummingbird cake.
We’ll find out in a couple of weeks how/if they placed at a little awards ceremony. This is always one of our favorite co-op events!
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